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engine block heater?

Easy

It's called a garage.

On thinking about it there are all manner of heated blankets, dog beds, dipsticks etc. that may address your issue. Here on the left coast we really don't have any right to needle anyone about real cold. :stick
 
Buy one of those Heated Dipsticks used for heating the engine oil in cars.
 
Sterno

For a really cold morning, put a lit can of Sterno under the oil pan for 5 min or so, that may help out somewhat on getting that cold stiff oil moving. Sterno is fire, so don't burn your bike down.

Chris
 
I used to use one of those magnetic heaters on a R80RT. There was nothing magnetic to stick it too on the bottom of the engine, so I used a piece of light metal with just the right bend to hold it above the centerstand and against the oil drain plug. It heated the oil up pretty good.
 
In all honesty

The cold weather has turned the crank case oil to the viscosity of peanut butter. Change out to a light weight oil. This will do a lot to help the bike start. Make sure the battery is fully charged. Perhaps if the bike is too cold to start, it is trying to tell you something ("I want a R1200GS to keep me company")
 
its in the garage. i was going to stick a small space heater next to it. she wont start if its cold out, or even chilly, even with a full charge on the battery.
 
good call on the oil, i will have to do that. but i think there is something wrong with the ignition/starter system, because the bike had problems starting in 60, 50, and 40 degree weather when it was cold. when it was hot it had no problems. now that its in the teens and 20s *F outside, no chance in starting it unless i heat up the block somehow.
 
Try pulling in the clutch lever when you crank the starter. Reduces the drag by not turning some of the gears through the tranny oil. Every little bit helps...

Kurt in S.A.
 
propane torch

62401 said:
For a really cold morning, put a lit can of Sterno under the oil pan for 5 min or so, that may help out somewhat on getting that cold stiff oil moving. Sterno is fire, so don't burn your bike down.

Chris


on a really really cold day use a blow torch....that'll really get things moving.

disclaimer: dont try all the things you read on here unless you dont mind experimenting on a bike you dont care about.
In all seriousness, if nothing else, try a shop lite with a 100watt bulb or a heat lamp perhaps...cheap and something you already have in the garage. but it seems that you have other issues to deal with as well. (I just dont think open flames seems like a good idea).
 
...and your sure it's not the battery? It would seem that a less-than-stellar battery would not have quite the starting power once it got cold-soaked. Can you easily remove your battery and store it inside until you need it? Maybe just as an experiment... That would eliminate the battery as the culprit...

Kurt in S.A.
 
the battery is 2 months old, it holds a high charge. my generator is f'd, so the battery gets no charge when im riding, i have to charge it every night, but thats a whole nother story, unrelated to the starting problem. ill be taking the battery inside once i can actually move the bike, but that involves starting it first.
i think ill skip the blowtorch, but the heatlamp is a good idea.
 
nhlkats said:
good call on the oil, i will have to do that. but i think there is something wrong with the ignition/starter system, because the bike had problems starting in 60, 50, and 40 degree weather when it was cold. when it was hot it had no problems. now that its in the teens and 20s *F outside, no chance in starting it unless i heat up the block somehow.

If your bike isn't starting at 60, something is most definitely wrong. What kind of miles are on this machine and when was the last time you set the valves/timing/points gap etc?

On the block heater. Years ago I did a write-up for the ON about an airhead block heater. It replaced the oilpan drainplug, worked like an immersion heater. I lived in Chicago back then and it really did help (as long as the bike was parked near an outlet). The downside? On my /7 the drain plug was on the bottom of the pan so the cable pointed staight down, reducing ground clearance. This would eventually result in the demise of this particular device when I rode off a curb and cleaned the cable right off the plug, the fact I was using a deep pan no doubt helped. Later style oilpans apparently relocated the drain to the vertical face at the back of the pan so it wouldn't have been an issue for those bikes.

Other than the one I tried (courtesy of Ray Monroe) I never saw another.


Steve
 
i dont know the exact mileage on the bike, i assume its more than 200K miles. the engine was rebuilt a year or three ago. i just had it tuned up, timed, the whole 9 yards with my local bmw mechanic at the end of summer. it is an old, tired, beat up boxer :heart [electronic ignition conversion, previous owner did the work]

convenient for me, the previous owner of this house was a VW guy, he left this 100 watt lamp on bendable stand. ive got that pointed at the block right now, battery is being charged, hopefully i can get her started today!
 
Helge's Block Heater

Helge Pedersen, in his book, "Ten Years on Two Wheels," has a great photo showing him at a campsite, surrounded by snow. His R80G/S sits on the centerstand, and Helge placed a lit cooking stove on the ground beneath the oil pan, The caption says something like, "Light the stove, go for a 20-minute morning jog, and when I get back, she starts like a June morning!"
 
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