BatBike Update

[The_Veg]

(see a thread back in July for the beginning of this story)

Well, I've got the engine stripped down to basically just the case and the crank. I have found that the crank binds a little just before TDC (which mankes sense since just before TDC is probably where the piston and valve had their little tete-a-tete). Old-school BMW veterans have told me that this is *NOT* good. So I've got a destroyed top-end on the #2 side (head, piston and jug are all hors d'combat, rod uncertain) and a bum crank (not sure if the case is damaged or not). I'm starting to think that a whole different engine might be less expense and trouble than repairing the old one. Kind of a shame though, since I was looking forward to rebuilding the engine in a slightly 'breathed-on' way.

[widebmw]

I just don' know, what did you do to it ? :scratch
It only had 66,000 on it. :nono

I remember your posts on boxerworks and I wondered, What is he doing to it ?

I can use spare parts, cheap of course :D

[Isamemon]

ouch:sick

[RebeccaV]

Keep us posted. Are you planning to keep the BatBike??

[sumran]

Are you planning to keep the BatBike??

The BatBike must be saved! The instrument cluster is too cool to let it slip away.

[PAULBACH]

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Keep Me Informed

[The_Veg]

OK, here's a little more story:

The damage occurred on the way home from the West Bend rally. I was about an hour from home, thinking how good that shower is gonna feel as I accelerated through about 40 mph just after leaving a red light in a small town in Oklahoma. Just as that thought about the shower was really starting to make me smile, I suddenly heard a really sickening rattle from the engine for a couple of seconds then silence as I pulled the clutch and steered off the road.
The only diagnostic I got into on the roadside was to pull the spark plugs. The #2 plug was pretty beat-up, with the side-electrode smashed down over the center-electrode.
Fast forward: at home, #2 top-end dismantled. There's a big, roughly Australia-shaped hole in the piston-crown, and the severed head of the exhaust-valve is very tightly lodged into that hole. From the side it almost looks like a little diorama of a crashed flying saucer, and that piston is now part of the bike-stuff-collection on my mantel-piece.
I tore down the rest of the engine to make sure that no shrapnel got into bad places, and found that it hadn't but then found this crank-problem.

As for the bike, yes I do plan to keep it and repair it, but my plan long before the breakdown was to relegate The BatBike to local-area riding (due to ergonomic and other practical reasons) once I'd bought another bike which would then take over the touring and other heavier-duty stuff. This incident just sped that plan up a bit.

Short-term, the plan is to get the bike back to running condition.

Long-term, I want to do more customising (maybe a total strip-and-refurb at some point) and move The Bat closer to the cafe-racer idea.

[boxermaf]

Cost-wise, I think it will be much more dollar-efficient to look for a donor engine to transplant, though the opportunity to learn and
gratification from rebuilding the thing yourself is not to be overlooked
either. If it were me, I'd probably shop around for a donor engine so that I could get back to riding the bike on the road (why you bought a BMW for in the first place, right ?) and then as time and spare cash permits, rebuild the original engine, perhaps to higher performance specs. That way, you can continue to enjoy your airhead, and eventually have another fun project to come to fruition !

My $.02

:bikes