A couple of years ago when we were living in the RV, I put my BMW in storage. Well, actually I asked my brother if he wanted to use it for the year. Well, he didn’t use it. It just sat in his garage. Even when I got it back I didn’t ride it much. I still had the Honda CB500X, which was a better bike around town for commuting as it is smaller and lighter.
When we were getting ready to move to Pensacola from Virginia we decided to sell the Honda. Once in Pensacola the BMW was placed back in primary commute role, especially after selling the Titan. But it started to have a few issues. It didn’t want to start very well, despite a fresh battery and solid cranking from the starter. It also developed a small oil leak from the left cylinder head.
I had never really run into a scenario where the recommended service interval time had occurred so much earlier than the mileage, but that was the case here. I decided that it would be good to just do a complete service. I changed the oil, oil filter, cylinder head gaskets, spark plugs, fuel filter, air filter, transmission fluid, and final drive fluid.
Of course, I didn’t take pictures because I was kind of on a tight schedule. I did find that the source of the oil leak was a dry and cracked inner head gasket on the left. All the gaskets were dry and not in good condition. While they are typically reusable a couple of times, these were definitely too old and in need of replacement. The spark plugs didn’t look completely fouled, but they didn’t look great.
I’m happy to report that it is no longer leaking oil after the service. Starting has returned to its old norm, which is to say not great, but not as bad as it was over the last month. I did order a new starter anyway and will install that as general preventive maintenance and I will rebuild the stock one as a spare ... when I can get around to it.
At 14 years old and 80,000 miles, I still need the bike to be reliable as it splits time with my recently purchased 2004 E46 BMW 330Ci for daily driving duty. One thing that came to mind during this is that I should wash it more often. Even though it hasn’t been getting very dirty, somewhat regular washing might help spot indications of things like leaks earlier.
I need to find some OHV parks or other public dirt road areas around here. Ideally ones not too far away so I can just day trip it. Though it does not currently wear the TKCs; it is on Tourance.