It's cool to work with adequate tools!

A friend, former mechanic for police vehicles, lent me a specific BMW tool for K75/100/1100/1200:





The plate bolts on the engine case at the points the crash bars are fitted.
Then it's linked by a spline shaft, mounted on a ball joint, to the jack.
The jack itself sits on a rolling chassis, ideal to split the engine from the box to check the clutch. It make things easier when you have to put everything in line when fitting the gearbox to the engine.

That will help me a lot for this month job: frame and clutch change on my K1100LT


The clutch is dead. And the frame...well, I had this bike for years, bought it in Switzerland but never really registered it here as I already had a K11 registered in my name, but dismantled.
Normally, I was not supposed to hammer new numbers on the frame.
But I've traveled all Europe with this bike for 7 years and nobody never asked me the papers nor checked the frame plate.
So, changing the clutch was a good opportunity to change the frame by the same time.
But what a job!

About 35 years ago I was given a Dewar jar trolley (think: liquid nitrogen storage) that was being disposed of by the local hospital. I built it up using timber offcuts and a piece of Melamine worktop to fit under the engines of my Guzzis - those engines are the same principle as the K where the gearbox and engine are separate entities. I was delighted to find that the only thing I had to do to make it fit for the K was to smack a 15mm thick piece of timber under the engine when stripping a K rather than a Guzzi. The years of abuse are now making themselves felt as one wheel keeps falling out when lifting it down for use. It's okay when it's on all four wheels

jbt looks like I am 225km along the A89 from you next month September 8-28, at St Leon sur Vezere. 

If you have a tent feel free to pay a visit to the Municipal camp site in the village!

I'd be very happy to meet you there.
Sadly, I'm not living in "Clermont-Ferrand" but in "Clermont", Haute Savoie. 40 km from Geneva.
500 km from St Leon sur Vezere...
Furthermore I'm not retired and have to work, and I've just started yesterday rehearsals for a theater play in March 24, so I can't even move for a week end til there.
But if you'd like to push your trip to the Alps, you're welcome!

'Replacing the frame' on a bike that you already own must be a common occurrence. It's not strictly kosher here in the UK. But neither is it straightforwardly illegal - it sort of falls between two different sets of legislation aimed firstly at ownership accountability for things like road tax and registration, and secondly at construction and use/vehicle conformity issues. Along the way it became pivotal in detecting and preventing theft and 'ringing'. But (unless they've changed things since I was last involved) there's no actual offence of 'stamping a number into a frame'.
A bit of policing philosophy helps; namely 'what is the evil that we are trying to prevent?" In the case of road tax, then, so long as it's paid up for the vehicle on the road then there's no harm. Likewise insurance. Likewise so long as the vehicle on the road has a correctly-registered keeper for the all-important speeding camera (sorry, safety camera) tickets, then it's hard to argue that there's any harm.
Issues such as concealing the theft of a frame by overstamping a legitimate number from a written-off bike for example, and then using that frame to build a bike up from stolen parts, are entirely separate. That is all the handiwork of criminals and should in no way be conflated with the humble efforts of a honest biker to keep a mini-fleet chugging away over the years.
Sadly the UK government introduced something called the 'Q Plate'. This was a cack-handed attempt to deal with the problem of ringing stolen vehicles; by inflicting a stigmatising 'Q' prefixed registration number (and similarly stigmatising chassis number) onto any vehicle with an unclear history. The policing of chassis/frame numbers then came to the fore, and Mr Humble-In-His-Shed (with his set of number stamps) found himself doing something very very taboo. 
Arguably the Q plate's biggest impact was upon overpriced-and-very-snobby classic vehicles, where 'restoration' actually means rebuilding with new or remanufactured parts. Your gleaming vintage E-Type suddenly didn't look quite so 'arrived' with a back-alley Q plate slapped on it, telling the world that it was actually built up from a range of parts gathered together from rusty old scrappers and slapped onto a newly-folded dodgy tin chassis. So, to keep the classic (i.e. money) boys happy, they were allowed a points scoring system where, if you could show that enough of the major parts came from a particular vehicle, then you could apply to stamp that vehicle's number onto your brand new chassis (good for the profits). The other rich-boys-looking-after-their-own route was if the self-appointed snobs from the official owners' club could be 'persuaded' to peer through their monocles and deem it 'a real one', then you would be issued with something called an 'age'related' number plate i.e. rampant fraud - making it look like a genuine (i.e expensive) old boy. This little Sop-To-The-Rich-Boys is alone probably the reason for more chassis and engine number forgery than anything else, and the source of much amusing-to-observe bickering between differing factions of 'restorers' and 'rebuilders'. S'all about the money (for the restoration industry) and the snobbery (for the owners)
Why do I rant on about this? Well, my first proper bike project was done the official way - brand new frame, bike built from scratch, taken for a ministry examination, and issued with a spangly Q-plate (I didn't mind, the bike was totally weird and was never going to present itself as a legit, cool, desirable bike) My reward for my honesty/lack of imagination? Stupid insurance premiums because of some sort of insurance industry stigma that I cannot find an explanation or justification for. As for the ministry 'examination' this was just a cursory check that the lights and brakes worked and the thing wasn't festooned with forward-facing pike nuts. The inspector was quite grateful that I took it pre-paintwork so that he could 'examine' the frame welds - with his special crack-detecting laser eyesight no doubt. I took the bike to a couple of shows and realised that, amongst all sorts of specials, modified bikes, bits and pieces creations and so on, it was the only one with a Q plate. I came away thinking A: the whole thing was a joke, and B: where on earth was the harm in 'recycling' registration and frame numbers? Half the bikes there would only ever taste tarmac between the transit van and the exhibition hall, and there was no reason at all to suggest that the other half weren't properly insured and paying road tax. Nobody was defrauding anybody.
So that's why my current K75 bike has a frame made from two K1100 frames (from retired & scrapped police bikes) cut into forty-odd separate pices and welded back together, whilst its 'real' frame sits quietly and intact in the corner of the shed, providing a home for the spiders. 
And the joke? I bought that K75 frame with a logbook so that I had an identity for the new bike with the right pre-indicator age (1986) When I got the frame home I saw that its frame number had been crudely altered anyway. PMSL 

Yeah - the Q-plate thing. The other result of that was the headstock cut from one frame and used to  build up a custom so that a registration number was already applied. I'm aware of one legal 'Reliant Robin' that is in fact a Rover V8 trike. At some point a modification to the law was introduced to try and deal with that but I'm not sure how effective it was as by then I was drifting away from writing for the motorcycle press; consequently I had no need to keep up with the dark esoteric corners of the law any more.

As usual, we're drifting away from the O/P, but I did have need to check the changes to the current MoT laws recently and stumbled across something that, I have to admit, did bring a big grin to my face. As most UK members are aware, the 'no VED no MoT' cut-off date used to be an unmoving 1960. The date has now been moved to a rolling 40 years (e.g. the cut-off date for LFB is 24th May next year) but the requirements relating to the necessity of a continuing MoT for cars has actually brought some vehicles back into the MoT trap. There is a 'substantial changes' clause that uses as an example a change of engine where that engine, although coming from the same manufacturer, was never put into that particular production run. Any vehicle that meets the 'substantial changes' criteria now requires an annual MoT for ever more, regardless of the age of the vehicle. Better still, the 'substantial changes' criteria does not apply to motorcycles.

So Chris, some of your snobby gits are going to be illegal/quite upset.

Useful info that. Glad to see the legislation is still a mess - aka an area where ingenuity can triumph .
A similar thing to the 'substantial changes' did exist to cater for the frame benders/builders (and the Rover V8 trike) but it was worded so loosely that it was left up to individual MOT testers to make a decision as to what, in their own view, amounted to a 'substantial change'. This was typical of many UK laws where the law-makers frame new laws in terms that are deliberately general. The aim is that subsequent court cases, and appeals, and the eventual emergence of 'case-law' will fill in the hard-work details of 'what does it actually mean', thus savings their lordships the job. Hardly any prosecutions of any note have been brought (lack of public pressure/interest from the authorities - trailered-everywhere 'specials' are hardly a public nuisance are they?) so no guiding case-law.
In any case MOT testers weren't there to police things - all they could do was refuse to test a particular vehicle.
I think the only area where we are ever going to see attention from the authorities is if the bright sparks out there realise that you can run your mini-fleet of similar-looking vehicles all one one registration plate/frame number. It's hardly immoral though - you can only drive one vehicle at once and the revenue from weekend-only  treasures must far exceed the wear and tear their gentle old wheels inflict upon the nation's roads. But then, when did morals ever mean anything to the exchequer?
The growth industry has got to be going on ebay and treating yourself to a shonky, 40 year old frame-with-logbook that matches your (slightly younger) bike. Hmmmm 

Anyway, I forgot what I was going to mention in the first place re. jacking the bike up. I've always lifted from above - 2 slings, front and rear. This gives complete access to everything, and there's no risk of the thing falling over and crushing you when you get carried away swinging on that spanner.

In France, any modification on your bike is by nature illegal. Even changing the color is supposed to be signaled to authorities.
There's an official service, yet, previously called "Mines", that was dedicated to the examination, homologation and registration of any alteration on a vehicle, from changing a petrol to a diesel engine to building from scratch a new vehicle.
Adding a sidecar was one of their skills.
But year after year, this service refused to take any responsabilty and has only one aswer: NO.
Whatever is your demand, the answer is no. Even if the legal texts say that this service is supposed to examine the mod you made, they simply refuse.
If you really are insistant, they may make you a favor by sending you to another (private) organisation, the UTAC, to buy some technical tests in Montlhery near Paris. To buy: tests varies from 500 to 1500 € , about exhaust noise, gas emissions, radio interferences, braking...
I once had bought a swiss VW T3 syncro bus. Technically, the only difference with the french version was an additionnal silencer on the swiss version, because of more severe regulation at this time in Switzerland.
A friend of mine had just finished the homologation procedure at this service with the very same vehicle so I asked if his case could be considered as a basis for mine.
No way. "You're not supposed to know this case and I'm not supposed to tell you it exists."
Never mind...I had to go to Montlhery (1000 km...) and to pay 1200€ to pass a test that verified if an exhaust system with an additionnal silencer was not making more noise that an exhaust with a single silencer.
With the result of this test, the engineer (yes, they are engineers, with an ability to examine and decide by themselves the quality of a technical modification!) of this service was very relaxed to learn that someone else had endorsed a responsability so he had no to take it. He did not even read the technical report.

This is sound, deep, core stupidity. So french.

I'm sometimes dreaming about a system that could allow, like it is in Germany modifications with the maker or the builder certificate.
But here, everything is forbidden, but nobody controls it, so everybody is doing anything without any technical advice.
Last example seen e few days ago:

Brillant idea to convert the rear suspension to a middle progressive shock with a rocker.
Rocker fitted on the gearbox, on the battery case fittings.
With M6 bolts.
"Don't worry, I ride paying attention to carefully avoid road bumps!" answered me the owner, who probably deserves a Darwin award instead of a design award.


Well, to get back to my K, this is pure laziness from me if the bike was not conform. I did not want to spend one hour to the border on the swiss side filling in files to say that I was exporting this bike (it's leaving, who cares?) , did not want to spend another hour at this border side for customs papers and overall did not want to spend another 1200€, plus another journey to Montlhery and some months of nonsense procedures to learn that a castrated swiss version of a K1100 is less polluting than a full power euro version.

That has to be one of the most stupid setups I have ever seen. The paper design is good, but it sure as hell it proves that the owner (or person that did it) has absolutely no idea about engineering and material strengths. I think the swingarm will crack before the gearbox does.

Chris: there was one thing I forgot to add to my tirade. LED bulbs in motorcycles are now legal as from January this year and backdated to March 2021 (don't ask because I have NO idea). There was also a note amongst the previous requirements that prior to January this year, MoT testers were not to necessarily fail a motorcycle because it is fitted with an LED bulb that does not fail the headlight beam requirements. Yeah, right... British law and the difference between the letter and the implementation.

I have a real rant of a post coming up regarding the MoT test over here but I'm saving it for a couple of weeks until I've tried to get the K passed again. For the fourth time.

Dai, now that you mention it, the weld at the swing arm that connects the kluge to the swing arm is going to be under massive amounts of stress due to the forces multiplication from the shock and spring back through the linkage. 

The scary thing is what happens when that weld breaks.  There was a thread here or at Motobrick about 8 or 9 years ago about a K1100LT that had the rear shock stud break at speed when two up,  The bike went off the road and was beat up pretty bad and I believe the pillion was hospitalized.  Not good.

jbt wrote:I'd be very happy to meet you there.
Sadly, I'm not living in "Clermont-Ferrand" but in "Clermont", Haute Savoie. 40 km from Geneva.
500 km from St Leon sur Vezere...
Furthermore I'm not retired and have to work, and I've just started yesterday rehearsals for a theater play in March 24, so I can't even move for a week end til there.
But if you'd like to push your trip to the Alps, you're welcome!

I expect to be in Elizabetzaal in Antwerp on 24 March, with my daughter....for an 11am concert. She also has another one lined up for 21 March. 

She has offered my bike storage in her garage too..... and I have a ferry that lands me 165km from her......

An outing 500km from St Leon is not out of the question.......

@jbt First time I have ever read what "les Mines" means.
More than 45 years ago, I was on vacation in France with my parents - we only ever went to France by car and caravan, year after year - and my father asked a garage if they could install a 2,0 engine from a Peugeot 504 in our 404.

"Mais non. Il faut demander les Mines" - we have to ask "les Mines"
Back home in Denmark, he bought a 2,0 from a 504 at a junkyard and we installed it in the course of a long weekend. 96 instead of 70 HP made a huge difference, and it became quite a sleeper, surprising many at traffic signal duels.
The 404 was replaced with a 505 with basically the same 2.0 engine, and his last car was a 505 V6 manual with 170 HP