G650GS - il-ħmar

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A_morti
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G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by A_morti »

In a quest for a bike which will manage the shitshow which is Malta's road network, I have bought a 2011 BMW G650GS to replace a 2018 Honda CB300R.

She has 49k km (30k miles) showing and cost 3,500€ (£3k give or take) which both seem about right by condition.

The 2004 F650GS I owned in Spain some years ago was affectionately known as the Donkey due to it's ability to just keep plodding along even over bad surfaces. Il-ħmar is Maltese for the same.

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It's hit the expensive pages of the Farkles catalogue pretty hard at some point, and comes with all that: Givi topbox rack (Monokey, my existing box is a Monolock of course) and big screen; Hepco&Becker headlight grille; SW motech crash bars, pannier rack, bash plate, and footpegs; TRW alloy handlebar; Shad e-48 side bags; Garmin with charging cradle; factory BMW hot grips (yes, in Malta) and brush guards.

The ride home suggested it was a dog... Turns out there weren't but 10psi's in each tyre, the rear preload was fully unwound, the forks are dropped @20mm in the yokes (I knew about that one), and it has bad neck bearings.

I checked the neck bearings in the seller's garage before buying it and told myself they were ok, but no, they're goosed. They're a frequent failure point on these bikes, likely because they are surrounded by the oil tank which gets pretty hot. I'll get new bearings and give high temperature grease a go, unless anyone knows a reason not to?

First job after getting home was to fit a couple of m8 bolts where the panniers, rack, and frame meet by the number plate as they were missing. They seem to have been for a while as one of the parts has rubbed away the corner of the metal number plate. That's now all secure, but one of the 6 countersunk screws holding the monokey plate on is rounded out. Will have to drill that out to try and fit my monolock plate.

Next up figure out why the left bar end wasn't secure. Both were held in by hex bolts whacked into the aluminium washer where a cap screw should be a close fit, both using metal expanding plugs in the handlebars to hold the assembly. The left one had failed, a bent screw suggests the cause of failure. I've put it back the same but with cap screws, I could use some with full threads or a little shorter as they're bottoming out of threads before the plug is fully expanded.

At some point it's lost a loom clip off the brake pedal switch, which has let the wires come loose and get into the chain. The wires have been repaired, but it ain't pretty and absolutely nothing was done to prevent a repeat performance. Even if it's just adding a zip tie, I need to do something there.

Not sure what else after that. Possibly something to make it fart a little bit louder (might endear the engine to me a bit more), maybe some different fork springs. Probably remove the side rails and sell those and the bags, as I won't use them. We'll see as I put some km's on it!
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by weeksy »

Yeah that's got merit

Ugly little bastard thing, but shows promise
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by Yorick »

weeksy wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:05 pm

Ugly little bastard thing, but shows promise
You talking about Iccy ? :obscene-birdiedoublered:
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by A_morti »

weeksy wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:05 pm Ugly little bastard thing
That's about the kindest way to describe the looks of these pigs :lol:

I've remembered the next thing to do: reprogram my brain to a low reving big single, without the aid of a rev counter. It has a red light on the dash which is to a rev counter as a fuel light is to a fuel gauge (that's also absent). It's not very helpful!
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by KungFooBob »

Does the beak turn with the forks?
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by A_morti »

KungFooBob wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:11 pm Does the beak turn with the forks?
It does. It's bolted on under the yoke, like a Motorcross mudguard.

I saw a picture of one recently where someone had bolted an actual Motocross mudguard right above the tyre in addition to the beak. It looked special.

Image

Oh, he's removed the white trim off the beak. But still.
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by Skub »

I hope it works well for you man. Health to use. :thumbup:
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by A_morti »

Found a place locally which stocks the headset bearings. Not cheap at 25€+vat each, but then that's about what they cost in UK anyway.
Hopefully get that job done Saturday.
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by A_morti »

What fun farkles are...
I wanted to adjust the gear pedal down, but 1) you have to remove the footpeg "subframe" to do so and 2) it'll probably hit said subframe on the downstroke if I do.
Turns out the SW Motech Ion footpegs are height adjustable, and they've been fitted as low as possible.
Well, now I've figured that out, I can look to put them in higher, which is the same basic thing as lowering the gear pedal.
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by A_morti »

Been giving the bike a bit of love this morning.

Didn't realise the seller supplied me both hand levers new (wtf would you leave a bent brake lever on so the buyer knows it's been down??) so they're now on and greased; clutch cable freed up (clutch feels much better now but it's stretched right to the end of its adjustment), excess brake pedal and throttle cable slack taken out, footpegs adjusted higher so I can reach the gear pedal, few other bits and bobs.

I'm not a fan of these footpegs though. The rubber on them starts about an inch further out than on OEM pegs, but the foot controls didn't move to match and anyway my feet aren't that big.

Got the neck bearings and will fit them with a mate tomorrow. Got a line on a monolock box 10 minutes up the road.
A_morti wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:21 pm I wanted to adjust the gear pedal down, but 1) you have to remove the footpeg "subframe" to do so...
Asked on the 650GS FB group. Turns out the footpeg subframe is bent and that's why the pedal won't come off.
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by A_morti »

https://www.ebay.com/itm/403861428550

With a bit of luck and a following wind, these brackets intended for a 1200GS will fit the 650GS. Flip lowering brackets upside down, and you have raising brackets. Right?
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by A_morti »

I didn't know I was buying a project, nonetheless the fun continues.
After this morning's tinkering, I went to message the seller to thank him for leaving me the extra pair of levers. Found he'd blocked me on FB. Ok...
Then took the bike for only its second ride, having nursed it the 10 minutes home in the rain a couple days before and decided the head bearings were so bad I didn't want to ride it more than needed until that's fixed. I was picking up the top box, which doesn't fit my other bike, so it had to be donkey.
The bike was stuttering and holding back more like a mule. It tried to stall out more than once, and when it played up, the rev counter went to max and the shift light came on.
Uh oh...
Contacted seller by text and he denied blocking me or knowing of any fault. Funny enough I could find him again on FB after that.
Took the "tank" panel off, and don't ask me why but there's a lithium battery in there. It's too small for the gap and not been padded out adequately to fill the gap. As a consequence the wires were what's retaining the battery, and they weren't happy about that. A loose main battery wire does not make a EFi bike happy.
Fixed that, rode it around town to get it hot since the other theory was crank position sensor, and it rode just fine.
Then I stopped up to admire the view over Valetta and take a breather, let my blood pressure decrease a bit. Mistake. Bike would not fire back up.
Turns out it's related to the sidestand switch. BMW use an overcomplicated system where the stand is up/not up AND down/not down on separate wires. Seems the wire doing down/not down is getting "not down" at all times. Maybe. Diagnosis to follow.
On the plus side once it started, it rides pretty nice.
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by mangocrazy »

A_morti wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 8:02 pm I didn't know I was buying a project, nonetheless the fun continues.
Hah! You knew...

You put it in the 'Projects' section... :D

Impressed with the levels of dedication to the cause. I'm sure you'll have it running sweetly very soon. Sounds like you've got it at a point where the previous owner's dickishness hasn't been terminal.
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by Bigjawa »

Mate bought one of these new. Developed a bad hot starting problem that the dealers couldn't fix. Had to get BMW UK involved, in the end the dealer gave him a mega trade in against a Deauville.
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by A_morti »

Well so far the bike is a fucking dog.

It won't start with the stand down, it still stutters / cuts out while running, the brake light doesn't work (not the bulb) the rear subframe is cracked where the top box mounts.

The starting and running stuff "might" be a bad diode, at least that's what makes sense from the diagram to my mate Jules who can read those. It's really hard to dig down to find that thing, but I'll keep at it.

The brake light... Don't really know yet. It's getting 7v on the brake circuit all the time, but both switches are fine.

On the plus side, the steering bearings are done.

Project bike it is then.
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by Yorick »

Set fire to it ;)
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by Supermofo »

Poop. No chance of getting your money back off the seller? Must admit this is why I always buy from a dealer even though it costs more.
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by A_morti »

Supermofo wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 2:56 pm Poop. No chance of getting your money back off the seller? Must admit this is why I always buy from a dealer even though it costs more.
Unfortunately for me, the moment I rode away, the guy turned into this.
Image

I'm currently busy learning an expensive lesson called "fuck ever buying a used bike again".
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by Noggin »

A_morti wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:13 pm
Supermofo wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 2:56 pm Poop. No chance of getting your money back off the seller? Must admit this is why I always buy from a dealer even though it costs more.
Unfortunately for me, the moment I rode away, the guy turned into this.
Image

I'm currently busy learning an expensive lesson called "fuck ever buying a used bike again".
I learnt that with a minibus. Even though the law was on my side here, I still lost the money, plus all the costs it involved :(

People keep telling me to just buy second hand, but I would prefer to go to a main stealer and pay the extra now :(
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Re: G650GS - il-ħmar

Post by A_morti »

@Noggin I'd have definitely taken a good bike, but truth be told I am enjoying the tool time.

Been out there in the garage the last couple of evenings and with help of my mate Jules who understands electrics I may be gradually homing in on the issue... Maybe.

The diodes in the starter circuit all test out ok. There's two manky looking relays, but turns out they're on the hazard light circuit (not the primary objective here).

The sidestand should have a rubber bumpstop, but it's broken off. The sidestand bushing/bolt has a lot of slop in it. The sidestand switch should have a big washer under the circlip which retains it, but that's broken over time (a lot of plastic on this thing is very brittle so I'm not surprised). Between those 3 things, seems plausible the stand switch can intermittently get past "up" and hit "not up", which is no bueno.

The brake circuit having 7v on it no matter what you do, is still a mystery for now. Feels likely to be something going on inside that green diode box, although IDK what, yet.

More testing to follow tomorrow.