mneblett
#32806
I recently flew out to Colorado to look at, and ultimately purchase, a 1988 R100RT with only 14,248 miles.
I rode it back to Virginia without a hitch, and I am only just now getting the time to start going through it to address a bunch of little things. When winter sets in for real here, I'll put it on the Handy lift and strip it down to go after the more significant "stuff" (tranny neutral switch leak, pushrod tube seals, etc.).
In the meantime, a few starter Qs.
First Q: Unused bracket.
Anyone know what this bracket is for? It is bolted to the back side of the left rear frame extension, but does not terminate over anything that looks like it's missing a bolt.
My first thought is to just remove it, but I wanted to check here first to see what it is for.
Second question: Steering.
When the handlebars are turned to the left or right, after about 5-10 degrees of motion, the resistance to turning increases significantly -- just like I'm used to feeling from a BMW hydraulic steering damper. Trouble is, I don't see a damper or damper attachment point anywhere under the lower triple clamp. So did these bikes come with a damper, and if so, where is it mounted?? Or is what I'm feeling the effects of 22 year old hardened bearing grease at the steering head bearings?
Last Q (a two-parter): What is the correct routing of the speedo cable at the steering head?
In my case, the cable was zip-tied to the wiring harness and then went between the upper and lower steering trees, turning to the rear to go towards the tranny.
After cutting it free from the zip tie, the cable is routed like this (the speedo cable is the fat tube directly below the wiring harnesses):
My concern is that there seems to be an excessive amount of bending in the cable at full left steering lock:
Should the cable be routed to be coming up through the gap above the steering head reinforcement flat plate (i.e, the same hole through which the wiring harnesses are running)? In other words, what is the original OE routing for the speedo cable?
That leads to the second 1/2 of the question (and my last one, at least for a little while ): Could the routing of the speedo cable be related to continuous speedo needle bouncing at speed?
During the entire 1700 miles back from Colorado, the speedo needle bounced +/- 5-10 mph around whatever highway speed I was doing (I finally started watching the rock-solid electronic tach needle as my substitute speedo).
I'm trying to figure out whether to start with the cable as the first item to look at, or whether regardless of the cable routing, the issue is most likely with the speedo. I would not think that at 14.2k miles the speedo is worn out, but if the issue is not caused by the cable, the next thing I would suspect is insufficient speedo lubrication. Just trying to prioritize my investigation.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Mark Neblett
Fairfax, VA
A gaggle of boxers
I rode it back to Virginia without a hitch, and I am only just now getting the time to start going through it to address a bunch of little things. When winter sets in for real here, I'll put it on the Handy lift and strip it down to go after the more significant "stuff" (tranny neutral switch leak, pushrod tube seals, etc.).
In the meantime, a few starter Qs.
First Q: Unused bracket.
Anyone know what this bracket is for? It is bolted to the back side of the left rear frame extension, but does not terminate over anything that looks like it's missing a bolt.
My first thought is to just remove it, but I wanted to check here first to see what it is for.
Second question: Steering.
When the handlebars are turned to the left or right, after about 5-10 degrees of motion, the resistance to turning increases significantly -- just like I'm used to feeling from a BMW hydraulic steering damper. Trouble is, I don't see a damper or damper attachment point anywhere under the lower triple clamp. So did these bikes come with a damper, and if so, where is it mounted?? Or is what I'm feeling the effects of 22 year old hardened bearing grease at the steering head bearings?
Last Q (a two-parter): What is the correct routing of the speedo cable at the steering head?
In my case, the cable was zip-tied to the wiring harness and then went between the upper and lower steering trees, turning to the rear to go towards the tranny.
After cutting it free from the zip tie, the cable is routed like this (the speedo cable is the fat tube directly below the wiring harnesses):
My concern is that there seems to be an excessive amount of bending in the cable at full left steering lock:
Should the cable be routed to be coming up through the gap above the steering head reinforcement flat plate (i.e, the same hole through which the wiring harnesses are running)? In other words, what is the original OE routing for the speedo cable?
That leads to the second 1/2 of the question (and my last one, at least for a little while ): Could the routing of the speedo cable be related to continuous speedo needle bouncing at speed?
During the entire 1700 miles back from Colorado, the speedo needle bounced +/- 5-10 mph around whatever highway speed I was doing (I finally started watching the rock-solid electronic tach needle as my substitute speedo).
I'm trying to figure out whether to start with the cable as the first item to look at, or whether regardless of the cable routing, the issue is most likely with the speedo. I would not think that at 14.2k miles the speedo is worn out, but if the issue is not caused by the cable, the next thing I would suspect is insufficient speedo lubrication. Just trying to prioritize my investigation.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Mark Neblett
Fairfax, VA
A gaggle of boxers
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