Carefully. VERY CAREFULLY. It would be all too easy to
gouge the piston face and ruin the piston. Doing that would result in my bike being off the road for weeks, if not months, and probably some hard thinking about whether or not it was even worth fixing at that point. Ten minutes of carb-cleaner- assisted meticulous scraping cleaned up the surface of the piston to my satisfaction. The gaskets finally came, and I put the right cylinder back together, though George did the reinstallation of the timing
shined it on the air box and then on the back of the transmis- sion, and said, “No, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Worry about this instead—you need a new slave cylinder. Maybe a new clutch, too, if clutch fluid got into there.” I decided I wouldn’t
These clamps on the suction pipes are maddeningly difficult to get back on; a pair of needle-nose pliers that open wide do the trick.
worry about that until I put the engine back together and verified that all my hard work on the cylinders proved fruitful. With a new clutch output cylinder (aka slave cylinder) on order,
"Be careful," "take your time" and "a new piston costs $400" were my mantras as I scraped as much of the carbon off the piston as I could.
chain. I will have to remember to put the bike back on the lift after 600 miles and retorque the cylinder head nuts; this is standard practice whether the bike is new or has had extensive service. With the cylinder head back in place, there was absolutely
no difficulty turning the engine past TDC. I could hand-crank the engine through the entire cycle, forwards and backwards, as if nothing had ever been wrong in the first place. It didn’t even take much effort. I’m just a little obsessive about my motorcycles, and even
though George said it probably wasn’t necessary, I insisted on pulling the other cylinder head to check the left piston. I did adhere to his admonition to do just one cylinder at a time, which helps ensure the timing chains don’t get out of whack. The left piston face was in rough shape as well, but lacked the crusty ring of carbon buildup that plagued the right piston. After I finished torquing the cylinder head nuts on the left
side, I had to put the throttle body and all its various electrical, mechanical and hose connections back in place. The clamps on the air hoses are reusable, but they are absolutely infuriating to secure unless you’re using a very long set of needle-nosed pliers. Before I secured the last clamp to the hose coming out of the
air box, I decided I ought to clean all the grease and grime off it first. “Is this normal?” I asked George. “This much grease on the outside of the air box?” He came over with a flashlight,
54 BMW OWNERS NEWS May 2016
I started hoping I didn’t need a new clutch as well. As if to add insult to injury, George noticed I hadn’t put the left side cam chain ten- sioner back into place. It would have been faster to take the entire throttle body assembly back apart to get at the tensioner the easy way, but apparently I don’t care about easy when I can spend a half an hour trying to figure out a way to hold it down against the ten- sion of the chain and turn it at the same time. Even with the bad news about the clutch slave cylinder and the
possibility that I might be learning how to replace a clutch, being able to turn the engine through its entire cycle with no catching or hesitation brought a bit of satisfaction. Two steps forward, one step back, but still making progress.
On the left cylinder, it's a lot easier to replace the cam chain tensioner before reinstalling the throttle body.
TECH
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