Wasn’t expecting that Dai. What a bummer.

No bites, so tomorrow I start dismantling it. The wheels, fairing, handlebars, exhaust system etc. are being transferred to Low Flying Brick. LFB's RS bodywork will be cleaned up and sold as a complete batch, fully-loaded tank included. The RT fairing will get an LT electric screen (I have all the LT inner fairing parts as well as two screens) and all of LFB's funky lighting system. I also have another complete RT fairing, sidepanels and seat hump which was sanded back, cleaned and degreased ready for painting. I probably won't get much (if anything) for it. I also have a third, metallic black upper fairing which is almost perfect and will be for sale. The frame will probably end up with the gentleman in Harrowgate who appeared to have a de-cafe'd frame with a suspect butt weld in it.

The engine will just get kicked under the bench and used as a footrest for the next few years. I've spent approx £2K on this and if I'm lucky, I'll recover about £600.

I'll run a listing on here when it's down as far as it's gonna go. The bottom line is that I have a very small pension coming in for the next three years until I hit State age and I just can't afford to spend any more on this.

Disappointed? Somewhere on the decapitated side of gutted.

Sad.  I'm sure almost all of us has a similar experience somewhere in our past.  Mine was an Ossa Pioneer that never could finish a race.  It ended it's life by catching fire aided by a fiberglass fuel tank that melted adding it's contents to the conflagration.

I'm not sure I should resurrect this thread but there's an engine on its way... I never did get around to stripping Kostenlot for parts because I was so p*ssed off with it that I couldn't be bothered. The fairing parts and fuel tank all migrated to LFB - I can't ride with low bars (RS/naked) any more because it's just too painful (diagnosed with stage 1 arthritis in both wrists and thumbs - as a friend said, 'crash now, pay later'). This means that all the bronze fairing parts are going to have to migrate back to Kostenlot because once it's running, it's up for sale. I have enough Alaska/Titan Blue fairing parts to put on LFB with one exception; the main upper fairing. I do have a good black one which will do until the weather improves and I can spray the purple monstrosity that is still hanging on the garage wall.

As far as I can discover, BMW never did a K100RT/LT in Alaska Blue (TWB?). They seemed to switch to Titan Blue which has slightly less sparkly bits in it but otherwise is almost the same shade as Alaska Blue.

The engineer in me is actually looking forward to stripping Kostenlot's engine to find out where the damn crack is in the water jacket. So why did it run originally? Because I filled the radiator and then almost immediately fired it up. It didn't have time to leak coolant into no.1 cylinder. It seemed to take about two weeks to dump the coolant into the sump, so that would also explain why it fired up beautifully a day later when I balanced the throttle bodies.

Engine literally just arrived - thank you very, very much Paul (BAE). A new clutch plate, bolts and the radiator spigot o-ring are on their way from Motorworks (I already have the other seals I need). I'll get started on it later when the eldest boy next door gets home from school and I can grab him to help me lift it onto the bench.

The delivery company were Liam Connolly. The driver was brilliant - he ran the pallet right into my garage and next to the workbench.

Dai wrote:Engine literally just arrived - thank you very, very much Paul (BAE). A new clutch plate, bolts and the radiator spigot o-ring are on their way from Motorworks (I already have the other seals I need). I'll get started on it later when the eldest boy next door gets home from school and I can grab him to help me lift it onto the bench.

The delivery company were Liam Connolly. The driver was brilliant - he ran the pallet right into my garage and next to the workbench.

Dai,the best thing for ARTHRITIS IS TURMERIC CAPSULS used regular they relay do  work well  Kind Advise from Old Fart Person

Dai wrote:Engine literally just arrived - thank you very, very much Paul (BAE). A new clutch plate, bolts and the radiator spigot o-ring are on their way from Motorworks (I already have the other seals I need). I'll get started on it later when the eldest boy next door gets home from school and I can grab him to help me lift it onto the bench.

The delivery company were Liam Connolly. The driver was brilliant - he ran the pallet right into my garage and next to the workbench.

You’re very welcome Dai. 

Good stuff, glad it arrive safely. Hope all is ok with it and Kostenlot enjoys the heart transplant and lives to ride again.

moriarti wrote:

Dai,the best thing for ARTHRITIS IS TURMERIC CAPSULS used regular they relay do  work well  Kind Advise from Old Fart Person

I had tried them but no joy. Apparently they don't work for everyone and someone has to be in the 'screw you' group. At the moment I'm still with stage 1 ('mild') arthritis where my wrists can have off-days and spend all day (or all week as it has been recently) with a nagging pain best described as like a slight sprain. Stretching thumbs for the BMW OEM switches is just mildly painful most of the time but if I get it wrong, I really, really know about it; hence the reason I fitted LFB with Italian switches.

Born Again Eccentric wrote:You’re very welcome Dai. 

Good stuff, glad it arrive safely. Hope all is ok with it and Kostenlot enjoys the heart transplant and lives to ride again.

The wain next door wants to be a motor mechanic and has already signed up for a couple of courses at the local college. I'm going to show him how to deal with bucket-and-shim tappets in the morning.

Well, I showed Zack how to measure gaps and left him to it. He came back with a reasonable set of figures that showed just two shims needed replacing. I left him to calculate how big the replacement shims need to be. As it happens, one can be dropped into the other bucket leaving just one new shim needed. I dug through my bag of shims but of course I didn't have the one I needed (2.75mm). I also got the clutch carrier off - the o-ring had deteriorated so badly that it broke into three pieces when I tried to lever it out. The Hall effect seal and the rear crankcase seal popped out fairly easily, but I did leave a nasty scratch at the front of the HES seal housing. 

Bugger. 

The jury's still out on whether to change the timing chest cover or leave it. There's about one-third of the sealing area not affected by the scratch. Clumsy b*st*rd.

There was a good film of clean-ish oil on the camshafts and the cylinder head, so I have good hopes for the rest of the engine. I'm seriously considering popping the crank cover off just to be sure, to be sure.

So, after both procrastinating and being asked to write some software for an aircraft museum (just up the road from you, Olaf), we once again take a goooood long look at this four-years-in-the-brewing disaster area.

I gave Paul's ex-engine a really good looking at (and talking to while I was at it). Just two inlet shims needed replacing which was good news. Unfortunately for Paul a few bits of ally swarf had escaped and deposited itself in the inlet ports. I carefully closed each valve in turn and blew it out, then wiped a small piece of greased cloth around the ports to pick up any remaining dust. I did take a look down the barrels with a camera but saw nothing to worry me. Once it's reassembled I'll spin it over a few times with the plugs out. Just in case, you see . As the engine had been stood for so long, the inside had gathered a fine layer of dust in places (the D-gaskets were missing on the cam cover) but it was mostly in excellent condition. However I did have to evict a woodlouse that had taken up residence in the sump...

I worried a bit about the dust because I really didn't want to strip the whole engine just to clean a few parts and the word 'dust' can encompass bits big enough to clog the oilways. During an email exchange with Paul a small dim light began to glow; I emptied most of the contents of a large can of WD40 around the insides of the engine and left it overnight to drain into the crank cover. That definately did the job and brought down a lot of combustion products with it too.

As for the scratch in the HES seal area; as usual, it's never as bad when you get to look at it properly. It was less than half the seal height so I decided to forget about it. I did succeed in destroying the first new seal. When you look at the seating area it appears that the area surrounding it  is all the same height and is square. It isn't. When looking from the front, the part above the seal has a slope on it of a couple of degrees which is just enough to skew the seal on the way in. As Charlie would say: buggah.

One s/h clutch plate later from Motorworks and here we are:





While I was at it I put a water temp sensor in the oil/water pump, hence the two wires at the front.

May it power your K for many Ks to come!

Ahm selling the buggah when it's done! I'm out of room and I have two more bikes to build.

Looking good Dai

Good luck with the rest