Hi Guys been out of touch for a while and the K's been 'resting'
as Ive been using the old CX as a hack

Anyway today I charged uo the battery and she started up fine
a bit smokey at first but she does tend to do that after a lay up

I noticed some drips of water coming from the hole front and centre
and when I looked at the sight glass just now I saw white stuff on top of the oil
hence Arghh WTFs that doing there?
see pic


What the next best procedure?
not use the bike until I do that water pump seal thingy
Drain and replace the oil as well ?
I see theres a damned good write up on the job here I can use for
reference

I was looking forward to a good ride out the beemer this evening as well
the weathers lovely for a change
not sure I should use the bike though

advice appreciated

Reg

Reg,

You cannot ride the bike in this condition.
You have to replace your seal and change your oil and oil filter.
Here is the link on the procedure to replace the seal

Bert

I just rebuilt my water/oil pump, my bike also was dripping coolant after it set from running,I just assumed it would be ok until I got around to it. But as you can see from my "I'm concerned" post, that was not the case, the water pump seal experienced a catasthropic failure while out on a 125 mile trip, just barely made it home, was almost sure there would be some engine damage, but so far so good.

If your bike has the old style cast impellar it will be necessary to upgrade it to the newer type sheet metal impellar in order to utilize the new style seals. The sheet metal impellar will use a spacer to compensate for the thinner dimension of the sheetmetal impellar versus the cast impellar.

The rebuild is fairly easy, well it was for me, just follow the good recommendations of C-frog and others.

After installing the oil seal and water pump seal, used sockets to carefully drive them in, then I used a washer to pull the oil gear in through the seals. When you buy the parts to rebuild it, make sure your parts guy knows that you have a cast or sheetmetal impellar so he can get you the sheetmetal impellar if you need it. From what I've learned on this forum the old type seals for the cast impellar are not available anymore. The old style oil pump gear has a male threaded end on it, when you insert the oil pump shaft through the seals, the shaft will stop, don't force it through, if your shaft is like mine you can now take a properly sized washer and place it over the threaded shaft end, then place the nut on it and slowly tighten until the shaft pulls all the way in flush with the gear side of the housing. I had to add another washer to get it to flush up. Hope this helps, thanks, bob.

Thanks chaps just needed some confirmation
I was going to give it a fluid and filter change soon anyway
I wont use the bike and will order the seal kit tomorrow
and drop the oil and coolant.
Not sure if the bike (an 87 K100RS) has the cast or steel impellor
if the steel plate one is the recommended upgrade, will get that as well
I hope theres been no internal damage


BTW have a pal from our CX club just got a K100RT and have pointed him in this direction
theres quite few of our guys have K's
maybe its a water cooled, shaft drive thing

[quote]

reg_K100RS wrote:Thanks chaps just needed some confirmation
I was going to give it a fluid and filter change soon anyway
I wont use the bike and will order the seal kit tomorrow....

You may want to open the water pump cover and look. The seal kit comes without the impeller, from recent experience, and you will have to order it separately. Anyway it will give you a chance to empty the cooling system earlier. Just undo teh 8 or so bolts and lift the cover to remove and drain.

BTW have a pal from our CX club just got a K100RT and have pointed him in this direction
theres quite few of our guys have K's
maybe its a water cooled, shaft drive thing

Yep, I had one years ago. since than I avoid air heads and chain drives

chain drives, I would like to own at least one of every kind of drive. Rode the old HD over to pick up parts for the bmw, how ironic. The guy who built my shovel balanced it, I hadn't been on it in a few weeks...tweeking the K bike and all the euphoria that goes with a new acquisition, what a pleasure it was to ride, don't think I'll ever sell the old girl. It's been many years since I had a extra bike to ride, what a luxury. Have a nice weekend everybody, got tomorrow off, gonna get some K-bike time in!

Righty ho!
I blew the dust off me credit card and ordered the seal kit and impellor
The guy at Motobins said all pre 94 K's had the cast iron impellor as standard and
while its possible I have the steel one instaled by a previous owner
I bought a new one just in case
I also ordered oil and fuel filters and plugs to add to my new air filter and seals
so I'l give it a service pre the summer riding
I also got some optmol grease and wil do the splines
The bike will think it is its birthday !!

the bike showed no signs of over heating when I last rode it and the gauge was
rock steady in its usual position but I was very alarmed to see the white goo on top of the
oil in the gauge glass and worreid about damage due to oil contamination
I wont use the bike again until its fixed and hopefully I've avoided anything serious
Bob's similar experience sounded worse than mine and I hope he's dodged a bullet as well

the parts wont arrive until early next week but will let you know how I get on

Hi,
The most favoured grease for the splines nowadays seems to be Honda Moly rather than the Optimol as it seems that was somewhat sub Optimal for the application.
Regards,
K-BIKE

dont you mean sub optimol ?

geddit?
eh?
optimal/optomol?
eh?
No?
Right, I'll be off then...................................


sheesh! tough crowd

I dropped the oil, filter and coolant today and whipped off the pump
and boy did it need it.
I doubt its been removed in along old time and the water seals
were truly knackered
the worse job was cleaing the crap off the pump
I fitted a mudlfap to the front mudguard last year but I reckon a lot of the gunge
was aquired in the years prior to that.

That illustrated guide was a great help, many thanks to the author
and Bert for the link to it

The oil seal didnt look too bad and the part of the shaft it acts on was OK
but the water seal was a hideous mess
The weep hole was partially blocked with gunge too
Over the weekend I can clean and spray the pump body and covers and be ready to
fit the new stuff as soon as it arrives hopefully

Heres some pics of the thing
The inset bottom right, is after the initial clean up and clearing the weep hole



the original cast impellor and engine facing prior to me stuffin clean rags in
to keep it clean
you can see the weep hole drain chamber bottom centre which still had gunge in it

The problem is quite often to keep the hole in the pump body open. The hole/channel in the block is a lot larger.

It was all going so well.....
It was getting late-ish and I was thinking I might even have it back on
the road this evening when a clumsy mistake broke the bloody ceramic seal


IDIOT !!!

gonna go and get very very drunk

We have all been there and done that sort of thing, I know I have. In the push to get it buttoned up it is really easy to break something just by doing something without thought. Best to go to bed and start afresh. Hard to keep that perspective though when pushing to get the job done.
Regards,
K-BIKE

Don't feel too bad. Once in a while we are all idiots...
The first time that my best friend replaced it, he broke it too. He's a a very good licensed mechanic.

This is what we call experience!

Hope your head won't be pounding tomorrow.

Well maybe the enforced wait due to my haste and idiocy in Saturday was a blessing in disguise
The new seal arrived today and I spent the afternoon fitting it properly amongst other things.
I took my time and had many many tea breaks.
So, seal done, new oil and filter, new fuel filter new air filter new plugs
Fresh coolant
I opened all the electrical connectors while I had the tank off and sprayed them with electrolube
most were OK but a couple were greenish
I cleaned and refitted all the earth to frame connections as well
I whipped off the rad and checked and cleaned up the the fan and temp sender too.
Sprayed WD40 on any dry and crusty looking area which are normally out of sight
and routed the temp sender cable through the igntion cover alongside the oil pressure cable
( shoulda done it when i ftted it, I know)

I spun the motor with plugs out until the oil light went out to get the new oil circulated
before installing the plugs and starting her up.
She started first touch of the button, whoo hoo!
No coolant leaks and on the test ride, the temp gauge read normally
On return, I checked for the tell tale dribble from the weep hole but it was bone dry
Phew!
I thoroughly cleaned all the front end of grime and crap and as I found a part used tin of
silver spay paint, I tarted up the pump and pulser covers
that'll lmake it go faster eh?
I've no front right indicator now but thats an easy fix tomorrow and I havent fitted the fairing lowers
pouches and knee pads either but I want to do some more work around that area before it goes back together
maybe get some satin black and tart up the covers

Thanks fot the tips and encouragement chaps

great to hear! so the Panzer girl lives up to her reputation, (almost) indestructible.

BTW you will not regret doing all the electrical tidy up and checking. I did the same, but filled all the plugs I could find with some dielectric grease or Vaseline to keep the moisture out.

Good luck and well done.

RESULT!!!
Very well done.
Regards,
K-BIKE

It was one step forward and a slight stagger backwards
It was water tight and the oil is nice and clean but I found a few drips of oil after an 80 mile run
the other evening, nothing alarming but a bit annoying.
I've now invested in a set of socket hex drivers and just whipped the pump cover off and found with the more
appropriate tool I could tighten up the upper body to crankcase bolts a bit without undue force
I've run the engine since and fingers crossed its done the trick.

Don't worry, ceramic seals always 'bleed' a bit until they are run in and tight. Nothing to worry about.

About that tightening up I would strongly advise to use a torque wrench with the recommended torques. You'll be amazed how little force is required to set most bolts on torque with these alloy engines.

It was oil not coolant Rene
you're right about the torque wrench of course
I've got one but as its old cheap crap I dont trust it
and only use it for taking wheel nuts off the van.
I didnt go mad on the pump to crank bolts BTW, no grunting,
no veins standing out on my head or stuff like that
Just moderate torque

just a few drops from around the oil pump housing, apparently I didn't get it sealed good enough. When I put it back together it was leaking coolant from around the water pump cover plate, drained it and put some different sealant around the cover. But unfortunately I used the earlier sealant on the oil pump section and that where it's leaking now, nopt bad just a few drops on the garage floor after it sets a spell. I'm going to keep an eye on it and the oil level, may pull it off later on and reseal it. The main thing is there's nothing coming out of the weep hole.

Reg, do you think the oil seal got damaged on installation or possibly the shaft is worn? It wasn't leaking oil before was it? Just coolant, right? Hope you get it sorted out, thanks bob

Hi Bob
No its didnt leak oil before, just few drops of coolant
Surprisingly little considering the state of it all when i had it apart
although I did get the 'cream' on top of the oil which was more alarming.

If I had damaged the oil seal I would have had oil coming from the weep hole
( I did check the part of the shaft the oil seal bears on to see it wasnt ridged or
damaged which would wear on the oil seal and cause leaks, it was fine)
the condiion got nowhere as serious as it did on your bike, luckily you seem to have
dodged that bullet

This leak was due to my using normal hex keys and being a wee bit shy tightening up
the ones on the top, so oil seeped out between the faces under pressure
Today I nipped them up a wee bit more with socket hex drivers and it looks nice and dry now

For everybody's information...

The cream on top of the oil is quite common.
It's as common as the fog in the instrument cluster.
If you park your bike in a non heated area (backyard shed), you may (or will) get water on the top of the oil. This is just basic physic. The inside of your engine is very hot and the ambient humidity turns into steam. When the bike cools down, the condensation turns back into water and it form a deposit on the top of the oil. This is prevalent when the ambient temperature is very low.
I would not worry if the "deposit" is in the order of 1 to 2 mm.
When you get a real water/oil mix, the whole sight glass will turn creamy.
They don't have sight glass on cars. If they did, a lot of drivers would spend more time at the garage than on the road.

There is no escape, I have found you

Send me all the green shield stamps you have under the mattress, or I will tell everyone your terrible secrets

I know what you did last Summer

signed, " the tartan nemesis"

Johnny !
So, you found out where I go for peace and quiet eh?
Well wipe yer feet before coming in and mind yer manners
Dotn go askin to borrow money and all yer usual capers here
this is a respectable joint.

Thanks for the warning reg_K100rs.

We will keep an eye on Johnnyalpha.

Bert

Just as an update
I fixed that water leak only to have a slight oil leak.
Nothing dangerous just annoying.
I was tempted to keep tightening bolts until I did some damage
but last week in fit of good sense, I removed the pump from the motor,
cleaned all previous sealent off, carefully added fresh and took my time refitting it.
Now happily its oil and water tight and leaves no stains on the floor.