F650 Valve Clearance Check

At 41,000 miles, the ‘97 F650 needs some deep maintenance. Let’s take a look at the valve clearances. They were last adjusted at 15,000 miles, described in an earlier post.

The valve cover has a hose with crimped connections. Need to leave the hose attached, so how are you going to support the cover once you take it off? I hung it from the handlebars with a length of easily bendable wire.

The wire held the cover out of the way while I checked the valve clearance.

With the valve cover off, the cam lobes are exposed and you can check the clearance with feeler gauges, but you need to turn the engine crankshaft to get the cam lobes pointing away from the shims. Don’t bother trying to find the top dead center mark in the observation port, it’s too hard and not necessary.

The two intake valve lobes are at the rear and the exhaust pair is at the front. You can check each pair separately. You don’t have to have all 4 lobes pointing up at the same time.

I rotated the crank until the cam lobes were pointing up, away from the shims.

Exhaust valve cam lobes

With the cam lobes pointing up, the cam shape at the shim is cylindrical. Rotating it a few degrees isn’t going to change the clearance.

I show the compression release lever in the view above, because it engages when the engine has no rpms. I was checking that valve and getting a large clearance until I realized the lever was engaged. So I rotated the cam until I could disengage the lever while rotating the lobe back into position.

The compression release lever holds the right exhaust valve open a little while starting. Otherwise the engine would be too hard to crank over. That’s why you need to take out a spark plug before trying to rotate the crankshaft. You just can’t turn it against the compression.

The valve clearance spec for both intake and exhaust is .004″-.006″

Both intake valves would take the .004″ feeler gauge, meaning I had at least .004″ clearance. The left one would take .005″ but just barely. The right one wouldn’t take .005″. So the left is .005″-.006″ and the right is .004″-.005″

The left exhaust valve would take .006″ but not .007″, so .006″-.007″. The right would take .005″ but not .006″, so .005″-.006.

The left exhaust is less than .001″ out of spec, so not enough to warrant adjustment.

It’s pretty amazing that the valve clearances are still okay after more than 25,000 miles of use since they were last adjusted.

Incidentally, the newer model of this bike, the G650GS, has a valve clearance spec of .011″-.013″. It’s the same engine with a different cam and I imagine revs a little higher. I know it will run comfortably at 80 mph, whereas mine feels better at 75. But the G650GS has loud upper engine noise when idling.

Well, I don’t think I need to get excited if I have a valve clearance sitting at .0065″ or thereabouts.

BMW F650 Refresh – Setup

This summer the ’97 F650 odometer blew right through the 40,000 milestone and it’s time to give it some attention. It’s running rich, starting hard, tires worn out, chain and sprockets worn, rear wheel cush drive has play in it, bearings need inspection/replacement. Exhaust header studs/nuts belong in a junkyard. And it would enjoy a deep cleaning and some rust proofing.

Remarkably, it is a reliable ride as is. The 650cc Rotax engine is strong, doesn’t use any oil, and has never been touched except oil and coolant changes, spark plugs, one valve adjustment and a couple carb cleanings.

It’s sitting in the basement, warm, dry and lighted. Tools handy. But there’s not much space available, so I put the bike under my workbench. I can slide the bench off to get at the bike.

Looks awkward but seems to work well.

Fabricated a stand that hooks onto the engine crash bars to stabilize it against a tip-over and to lift the front wheel for servicing the wheel and fork.

The 2 x 4 is sitting on flat washers and wing nuts, so I can raise and lower and level the front end of the bike. It’s rock steady. My usual overkill, but I don’t want 400 lbs. falling on me.

Adding a Voltmeter/Charging Port

A voltmeter allows you to see the state of battery charge before you start cranking and, after the bike starts, it shows how well the stator and voltage regulator are working.

Inexpensive and dead easy to install.

Connects directly to the battery terminals but has an on/off switch to eliminate any drain on the battery when the bike is not being used. So you have to snake the wire under body panels, etc. to get from the handlebars to the battery. But you don’t have to modify the bike at all to mount it.

The battery has extra terminals that make it easy to add an accessory.

My handle bars are 7/8″ diameter and it fit perfectly. There is a double sided foam tape that lines the clamping ring and allows you to just finger tighten the clamp and it will stay put.

The 1997 BMW F650 is black and this black addition to the handlebars doesn’t look out of place. It adds to the general “German controls” look of the cockpit.

There is a dust/rain boot that covers the switch and charging ports. You can operate the switch with the boot in place.

Operation

My bike shows 12.9 volts when fully charged. When I shut it off it can be 13.0 or higher, but it drifts down to 12.9 just sitting.

When cranking, the voltage can drop to 10 volts or less due to internal resistance of the battery and the large cranking current being drawn. If I stop cranking, the voltage returns to about 12.4. My battery is about a year old and the temp is 70 degrees F.

When running, I am seeing 14.6 volts. So I know the stator is working generating power and the voltage regulator is keeping the voltage down to 14.6, a suitable charging voltage.

Once, my voltage regulator failed and my voltage was up around 17, but I didn’t know it. The bike wouldn’t run well at all but I had to put a handheld voltmeter on the battery to see that the regulator was bad. And I had to learn that I needed to check the voltage. Now I can tell instantly if the regulator fails.

The charging port is useful when I have my phone mounted on the handlebars for navigation. If I don’t have the phone plugged into a charging port while navigating it will discharge quite rapidly.

BikeGPX

Sometimes, a thing is so simple you “look past” it trying to see what it is, how it works. That’s what happened to me when I tried to use BikeGPX.

I had downloaded a .gpx file for the Northeast BDR trail that runs from Hancock, New York to the Canadian Border in northwestern Maine. I wanted to follow a local section of it. But what to use on a .gpx file? I don’t have a Garmin.

These days you only have to know one thing: Google it.

Soon, the iPhone app BikeGPX was staring me in the face.

It didn’t take me long to get to this screen:

You can see I managed to load the BDR track, but now what? Well, if you select Start Riding, the screen changes to this, zoomed in a bit:

It shows the BDR at the top and my current location at the blue dot in the lower right. This is where I looked past it. What do you do now? There are no controls except to go back out to the menu.

The answer is you do nothing with the phone. You start up your bike and ride to the BDR. You move the blue dot by moving your bike. That’s it. When you get close to the BDR track you zoom in further and get your blue dot onto the track.

By the way, you don’t need a cell phone signal out in the back of beyond. The track and the surrounding map are on your phone and your location is coming off satellites.

Winter Starting a Motorcycle

Can you run your motorcycle all winter? I do, as long as the roads are clear and the temperature is above freezing. If the roads are just wet, I can still ride but I don’t like that much salt spitting up onto the bike, so I avoid wet winter roads.

But you have to be able to start the bike reliably. Otherwise, you might get stuck at your destination if the bike cools off before you make your return trip. And that’s if you were able to get it going in the first place.

Oil

I run 20w/50 synthetic oil year round and I get away with it in winter because I’m not trying to start it in extreme cold. Still, it would start easier with 10w/40, which is what BMW recommends for the F650 in winter temperatures. It’s just too much hassle for me to change it in the fall and in the spring, especially when it doesn’t need it mileage-wise.

But that summer weight oil makes it hard to turn over the engine, so everything else has to be working well.

Battery

This is my third winter on the MotoBat sealed AGM lead/acid battery. I am happy with it. It was dead easy to buy it on Amazon for $79 with free shipping.

Sealed AGM lead/acid battery for the BMW F650

If the temperature is going into single digits, I like to keep the Battery Tender on it so it is fully charged in the cold and ready when I want to start the bike later when it warms up.

Cold Weather Starting Procedure

I suppose every bike has an optimal way to start it in cold weather. My 1997 BMW F650 certainly does.

• Put the bike in neutral and hold the clutch in. That will give you the minimum number of parts trying to move through the thick oil.
• Make sure accessory power draws are off. Heated clothing, etc.
• My bike has an enricher on it and it likes about 1/2 or 3/4 to start. Shut it off a few seconds after the bike starts running.
• Don’t crank away trying to start it. Use 2-3 second cranking bursts. Wait several seconds between to let the fuel vaporize in the intake passageways. Don’t expect it to start on the first burst.
• On the second burst, it will usually start or at least fire.
• By the third burst the bike should be running.

Caveats

My bike is carbureted and a fuel injected bike should be even easier. But the optimal procedure is likely to be a bit different.

The carbs haven’t been cleaned in years and it seems to be not in the best tune. It cold starts a bit harder than normal. If it hasn’t been started in a while, or its been very cold or very damp, I’m apt to shoot a little starter fluid into the intake snorkel. The F650 loves that stuff.

The F650 idling in the “shed”. 28 degrees F.

Thoughts

The F650 is a great winter bike. It has the alloy metal to stand up to corrosion and hard use. It’s actually quite satisfying to go out in the cold and get it going.

650cc is enough displacement to allow the bike to be in less than optimum tune and still be perfectly serviceable. A smaller displacement would be less forgiving, especially in winter.

The bike is 25 years old, carbureted and has 37,000 miles on it, but I think it handles winter just fine, even with summer weight oil in it.

The Venerable BMW F650

My 1997 BMW F650 is nearing 25 years old and, like me, is getting into antique territory. I’ve never been generally interested in old things but now I’m beginning to make exceptions.

We bought it almost 7 years ago and I’ve put about 33K miles on it since then. I had it out today on my weekly luncheon run and it was a pleasure.

Part of the enjoyment is having the bike set up the way I want it. It’s stock, but it has a tall windshield, lowered seat height, engine crash bars, smaller front sprocket, Metzler Tourance tires, some decals, some stickers and an Iron Butt plate holder.

I enjoy the results of maintaining the bike myself. I’ve replaced tires and tubes and rim strips, seat cover, air filter, many oil filters, fork oil, fork seals, front and rear brake pads, rear brake rotor, chain and sprockets, steering head and wheel bearing grease, brake fluid, coolant, spark plugs, plug wires and caps, carburetor rubber parts, fuel line, battery, voltage regulator, handlebars, brake lever, turn indicator, missing fasteners and rear brake light. Two new valve lifter shims. I’ve straightened bent controls, cleaned it, polished it. Oil change every 3,000 miles.

It sounds like a long list, but it’s only a little at a time and the result is a bike that is always ready to roll. It starts, runs and gets me where I’m going with the same engine sound, the same tactile experience that I know so well. It’s reliable and comfortable.

Sure, it usually has a layer of dust and and a film of chain lube here and there. But it looks natural. It’s practical and utilitarian. Almost no chrome on it. I suppose it’s truck-like. But it will pull like crazy when the throttle opens and that old kid smile is hanging on.

Cold Weather Riding: 2021

It’s not about the bike sliding out from under me on the ice. It’s about my own foot traction. The bike will make it out the driveway if I can just keep it from falling over. Which suggests wearing micro-spikes on my boots. Might have to try that.

In the meantime, it’s just above freezing, the roads are dry and nothing much in the forecast or on the radar. Time to take the bike out for my weekly 30-mile-round-trip luncheon run. And check out some new gear.

I have a pair of Gerbing Hero heated gloves to address my history of painfully cold thumbs, but with a single channel controller I am stuck with using the same setting for both the vest and the gloves. The gloves would like 3/4 or full power, but the vest overheats me at 1/2.

I’m going to buy a dual channel controller, but today I don’t have one. Instead, I’ll make it work with what I have.

So what you are looking at is my summer riding jacket which lets some air through where it hits the heated vest, cooling it down. Under that I have a hooded Primaloft insulated jacket to keep the vest heat off me, a long sleeve top and long sleeve thermal underwear. I was able to leave the controller at 3/4 power without getting an overheated torso and my hands didn’t get too cold. My biceps did get chilled with the air coming through everything.

I’m wearing a pair of armored Sedici riding pants with a wind-blocking layer but without the thermal layer which is too warm if I am indoors for any length of time. Instead, insulated underwear bottoms make it just right. The armor keeps my knees warm.

I do love defeating winter, slicing through freezing air on two wheels, totally warm.

And guess what? I used to be the lone winter rider out there, but this year I’m seeing another bike, a BMW R1200GS. Living large. Year ’round.

The Zen Wrench

Ancient, pre-Plato Greek philosophers had something called Arete, or excellence. Eastern thought has the Dao, the Way. Robert Persig, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has Quality. These are all philosophical ideas trending toward the same thing, the source of everything in the universe. They are undefined and fundamentally unknowable.

And yet we can all see the result, the creations springing from somewhere unknown, but which now appear before us. We even think we know what Quality is, even though it is now mostly a marketing term.

Here are a few ideas from the book worth considering:

Rational Thought

According to the Story of Us on Tim Urban’s WaitButWhy website, thinking like a scientist is the highest level of thought, because you objectively consider data in search of truth, using rational methods. But Persig says you don’t come up with your scientific hypothesis using rational thought.

Instead, you get it by interacting with the philosophical entity, Quality.

Rational thought is okay, but it’s not the ultimate mental process.

Individuality

Anyone can introduce Quality into their lives by first caring about what they are doing. Doesn’t much matter what the doing is. Fixing a motorcycle is as good as anything, especially if that is what you have before you.

Persig says caring and Quality are just internal and external versions of the same thing.

Interacting with Quality is something that happens inside your own head.

The Instantaneous Present

The interaction with Quality occurs after some data has been sensed but before it has been processed.

Value

Interacting with Quality involves assigning value to the information at hand. You have to care in order to do it. After you have been working on an issue for some time, maybe a long time, your head contains a lot of data elements, each with a value that you have assigned to it, but which is dynamically alterable. In this context, that last trigger bit of information comes in and in that instant before you process it, Quality is able to reveal itself in a small way and it all falls into place. You advance to a level that you hadn’t previously achieved.

Stuckness

If you are stuck on something, that is the ideal context for Quality. Quality is how you get past your limit.

Gumption

What does it take to tear a motorcycle apart and fix it? To venture into the unknown, engage your problem and get past it? According to Persig, gumption is the gasoline that powers you forward.

Get some.

My very own copy. Over 5 million copies sold in 27 languages.

Honda ADV 150

I’m always on the lookout for a machine I’ll be able to handle once old age finally sets in. This one looks interesting.

It’s the 2021 Honda ADV 150. See the details at Honda Powersports and the review by MNNTHBX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA4uwrCb0eE

Except for being a bit top heavy, my ’97 BMW F650 is a great machine for me and gives me a reference from which to consider the ADV 150.

It’s a scooter!

The engine sits down low, so the meager 290 lbs. curb weight will feel even lighter. MNNTHBX confirm this idea.

You don’t have to shift it. Small displacement bikes need to shift more often, but with a scooter you don’t shift at all. Automatic CVT transmission.

Don’t have to hold in the clutch with your increasingly arthritic left hand. And the centrifugal clutch makes it easy to manage in rough going, like the yard in front of my mountain hideout.

On the asphalt, I’m interested in a minimum machine that will still keep up with traffic and climb the White Mountain foothills where I live. According to MNNTHBX, the 150 pulls very well in the 40-50 mph range and that’s exactly what I need to get home without getting run over. It will beat most anything off the line and up to about 30 mph. After that, there is good performance up to about 55. Beyond 55, you are going to be smoked by just about everything and will be lucky to even hit 65 at all.

The 52 inch wheel base means easier handling at slow speeds. Translation: you are unlikely to drop it in a parking lot or pulling off onto the shoulder.

And the seat is an inch higher than my lowered F650 but it’s narrower so overall it’s a wash and just about perfect for the upright riding position.

I like the two position windshield that can keep the wind off me in the winter and let it cool me in the summer. Reviews I have read say that it works as it should. At least for someone my size.

The ADV 150 has the same engine and drive train as the PCX 150, but the styling is much more to my liking and the increased suspension travel is really needed on rough New England roads.

In summary, it’s fun to consider, but the F650 always comes out ahead. Costs you nothing to ride the bike you already own.

It will be interesting for me, though, to see whether I have to opt for something easier. I may just ride the BMW to the end. After all, it has my stickers on it.

Middleweight versus Lightweight

My ’97 F650 weighs about 450 lbs. unloaded. It’s top heavy. I can easily drop it while horsing it around on uneven ground. Have done. And I can’t get it back up without help.

I know some people routinely drop their bikes several times a season, but I imagine dirt bike antics are involved. That’s not me. I don’t like replacing brake and clutch levers, turn signal lights, shifters and brake pedals. Handlebar end weights just stay dinged.

My brain rightfully produces a healthy caution to prevent mishaps, and that prompting is forever accompanied by the obvious alternative. A lighter bike. Unlikely that a TW200, for example, would ever go down, but if it did I would just pick it back up.

Of course, I’m a plus and minus kind of guy.

A lighter bike means a smaller engine and a smaller engine means more shifting. I want to do less shifting not more. A big Harley can lug around all over town in one gear. Also, the F650 handles rough New England roads pretty well whereas a lightweight will get thrown around more. Underway, keeping up with traffic, the middleweight is safer and more comfortable.

I suppose if I could add roll bars to keep the F650 from going all the way horizontal, I could lift it like the videos I’ve seen of small humans righting big Road King ships of state.

The last time I dropped the F650, I had returned the day before from a 6500 mile odyssey, doing 700 miles the last day. The energy of riding had worn off and I was in a mental slump. For some reason I was sitting in the driveway running the engine. I shut it off and let it lean over onto the kick stand. Except the kick stand was up. Can’t run the engine with it down. By the time it dawned on me, it was too late. Over it went. Inexcusable. Brain dead.

Paying attention is mostly what it takes to keep a bike upright. In this last case a light machine would still have gone over. But I could have picked it up before anyone noticed.