Older Battery Question

[MontanaBud]

Hi All,

 

Regarding my 2004 R1150RT @ 131K miles:

 

I'm chasing an engine vibration issue (again), and want to know if my battery might be the issue.  The lead acid battery was installed new in 2011 @ 62K miles (so it's 8 years and 68,000 miles in service).  The bike winters in a heated garage on a Battery Tender.  I recently removed the battery and noticed a slight bit of corrosion on the neg terminal.  I took the battery to a m/c shop where they put a hand held tester on it and printed a receipt showing battery "good."  Bike starts fine, stands at 12.6v+, and on idle shows 13.5+v. 

 

Just wondering if there could possibly be something amiss here causing the high speed vibration.  Thanks in advance for any advice you can share.

 

Bud

[dirtrider]

7 minutes ago, MontanaBud said:

Hi All,

 

Regarding my 2004 R1150RT @ 131K miles:

 

I'm chasing an engine vibration issue (again), and want to know if my battery might be the issue.  The lead acid battery was installed new in 2011 @ 62K miles (so it's 8 years and 68,000 miles in service).  The bike winters in a heated garage on a Battery Tender.  I recently removed the battery and noticed a slight bit of corrosion on the neg terminal.  I took the battery to a m/c shop where they put a hand held tester on it and printed a receipt showing battery "good."  Bike starts fine, stands at 12.6v+, and on idle shows 13.5+v. 

 

Just wondering if there could possibly be something amiss here causing the high speed vibration.  Thanks in advance for any advice you can share.

 

Bud

 

Evening Bud

 

The battery itself could not cause any type of engine vibration.

 

Did you do a new TPS re-learn after battery re-installation? If not you need to do that.

 

If you explain the  vibration in much more detail, tell us when it started, tell us the RPM range it appears in, tell us where on the bike that you feel it most in then we might be able to help you find it. 

[MontanaBud]

Yes, I did the re-learn. though I can't honestly remember if I had the "choke" off, so I can go do that again.  But this was after the problem started anyway.  EDIT:  Just did the relearn and tested - no difference found.

 

The engine vibration just seemed to start happening one day.  In June I did an ~1800 mile road trip and it ran fine.  Sometime afterwards, it started doing a high frequency vibration at highway speeds, similar to what I've had in times past.   The bike always was buzzy until you slipped into 6th gear, so it's in 6th that I know it's not normal.  

 

When it started this time, I installed new spark plugs, changed the fuel and air filters, adjusted the valves, and balanced the throttle bodies.  I also swapped out two older sets of stick coils,  but no change.  The vibration is engine related.  Do 80mph, pull in the clutch, vibration goes away.   Seems I can also feel the engine vibration while revving the engine in neutral on the center stand. 

 

Last time I experienced this, I had a bad wiring connection to the right stick coil.  Today I reworked the coil wiring again, thinking maybe it was the same problem (the symptoms were almost exactly the same),  but no change this time.  This time, the high frequency vibration seems even (not more left or right), and occurs throughout the bike: handle bars, seat, foot pegs and foot plates.  Not horrible, but too bad to ride more than 10 miles, and I can feeling tingling in my hands, and fine buzzing at the edge of my teeth. 

 

I've lightly wiped, but never changed the fuel pickup sock.  When I changed the fuel filter this time, the sock didn't look other than normal.  Maybe a fuel flow test is in order?  Should I check spray patters on the injectors? 

 

When this bike is running right, I wouldn't trade it for a new one.  When it's not, like now, it makes me want to pull out what left of my hair. 

 

 

 

[Michaelr11]

If you have 131k miles and have not pulled the fuel injectors, that’s what I would be doing. You could do the upgrade to the 1200 injectors, but personally I would just send them out for a professional cleaning and flow test. The clean injectors should come back with matching flow rates.

[pgm]

@Michaelr11 Can any injector refurb do the job, or is there a recommended place.  Also, any place you can point to for benefits and effort to do a 1200 upgrade?

[dirtrider]

11 hours ago, MontanaBud said:

Yes, I did the re-learn. though I can't honestly remember if I had the "choke" off, so I can go do that again.  But this was after the problem started anyway.  EDIT:  Just did the relearn and tested - no difference found.

 

The engine vibration just seemed to start happening one day.  In June I did an ~1800 mile road trip and it ran fine.  Sometime afterwards, it started doing a high frequency vibration at highway speeds, similar to what I've had in times past.   The bike always was buzzy until you slipped into 6th gear, so it's in 6th that I know it's not normal.  

 

When it started this time, I installed new spark plugs, changed the fuel and air filters, adjusted the valves, and balanced the throttle bodies.  I also swapped out two older sets of stick coils,  but no change.  The vibration is engine related.  Do 80mph, pull in the clutch, vibration goes away.   Seems I can also feel the engine vibration while revving the engine in neutral on the center stand. 

 

Last time I experienced this, I had a bad wiring connection to the right stick coil.  Today I reworked the coil wiring again, thinking maybe it was the same problem (the symptoms were almost exactly the same),  but no change this time.  This time, the high frequency vibration seems even (not more left or right), and occurs throughout the bike: handle bars, seat, foot pegs and foot plates.  Not horrible, but too bad to ride more than 10 miles, and I can feeling tingling in my hands, and fine buzzing at the edge of my teeth. 

 

I've lightly wiped, but never changed the fuel pickup sock.  When I changed the fuel filter this time, the sock didn't look other than normal.  Maybe a fuel flow test is in order?  Should I check spray patters on the injectors? 

 

When this bike is running right, I wouldn't trade it for a new one.  When it's not, like now, it makes me want to pull out what left of my hair. 

 

 

 

 

Morning Bud

 

You gave us a lot of info but no RPM range for the vibration. What RPM does the vibration start at & what RPM does it quit?

 

Can you get the vibration in the top 3 gears at about the same engine RPM's?

 

As a rule almost all  higher RPM boxer engine vibrations are engine mechanical related, things like spark & fuel are usually lower RPM disturbances, or at lower RPM under road  load.

 

Look for loose engine bolts, exhaust ground outs to something solid, loose transmission bolts, etc.

 

The BMW 2 cylinder boxer engines have a definite disturbance in the 3500-4500 RPM range (that is just a fact of the large piston,  360° firing, 2 cylinder boxer design) so no getting around that.  How the normal engine disturbance effects the rider can depend on the disturbance path to the rider.

 

One thing you might try is to lower the engine oil level a little (to about mid sight glass or slightly lower). Personally I  haven't ever been able to reproduce it but over the years there have a been a number of instances that riders report reduced higher RPM engine disturbance by lowering the oil level slightly.

[roger 04 rt]

12 hours ago, Michaelr11 said:

If you have 131k miles and have not pulled the fuel injectors, that’s what I would be doing. You could do the upgrade to the 1200 injectors, but personally I would just send them out for a professional cleaning and flow test. The clean injectors should come back with matching flow rates.

Just a minor tweak here ...

 

R1200 injectors don’t make a significant change, in and of themselves. (According to the services that sell kits with the R1200 injectors.)

 

What can, in a small percentage of bikes, improve the smoothness of an Oilhead engine are MATCHED injectors. As no one sells matched R1150 injectors, the best option is a kit of adapters and MATCHED R1200 injectors. (I bought them and did get a little additional smoothness.) 

 

Cleaning and flow test is a good place to begin as that’s usually a fraction of the cost of replacing injectors and often engine smoothness is improved. Then if you want a little better smoothness, more low torque and less surging you can consider something like an AF-XIED. 

[Lowndes]

15 hours ago, pgm said:

@Michaelr11 Can any injector refurb do the job, or is there a recommended place.  Also, any place you can point to for benefits and effort to do a 1200 upgrade?

 

PGM,

 

Injector Rehab   https://injector-rehab.com/shop/injector-cleaning/  in New Jersey does the cleaning and flow testing.  They will even video your injectors being tested if you want.

 

Make sure any flow test you have done is dynamic (flow matched at all RPM's). 

 

A sample flow test report from I-R is here:   https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.injector-rehab.com%2Fshop%2Fimages%2Fflowonlyexample.pdf

[MontanaBud]

6 hours ago, dirtrider said:

 

Morning Bud

 

You gave us a lot of info but no RPM range for the vibration. What RPM does the vibration start at & what RPM does it quit?

 

Can you get the vibration in the top 3 gears at about the same engine RPM's?

 

As a rule almost all  higher RPM boxer engine vibrations are engine mechanical related, things like spark & fuel are usually lower RPM disturbances, or at lower RPM under road  load.

 

Look for loose engine bolts, exhaust ground outs to something solid, loose transmission bolts, etc.

 

The BMW 2 cylinder boxer engines have a definite disturbance in the 3500-4500 RPM range (that is just a fact of the large piston,  360° firing, 2 cylinder boxer design) so no getting around that.  How the normal engine disturbance effects the rider can depend on the disturbance path to the rider.

 

One thing you might try is to lower the engine oil level a little (to about mid sight glass or slightly lower). Personally I  haven't ever been able to reproduce it but over the years there have a been a number of instances that riders report reduced higher RPM engine disturbance by lowering the oil level slightly.

Well, it's hard to say with certainty, given the "normal engine disturbance," but below 4k rpm, the vibration is not very noticeable, but more obvious the higher the rpms.  Needless to say, this is not the normal buzziness.

[MontanaBud]

17 hours ago, Michaelr11 said:

If you have 131k miles and have not pulled the fuel injectors, that’s what I would be doing. You could do the upgrade to the 1200 injectors, but personally I would just send them out for a professional cleaning and flow test. The clean injectors should come back with matching flow rates.

I changed the injectors back in 2011 around 62K miles.  I just pulled and checked the spray patterns and they seem fine, though that's obviously an inaccurate method to do an assessment.  

[dirtrider]

3 hours ago, MontanaBud said:

Well, it's hard to say with certainty, given the "normal engine disturbance," but below 4k rpm, the vibration is not very noticeable, but more obvious the higher the rpms.  Needless to say, this is not the normal buzziness.

 

 

Evening Bud

 

At above 4k that sure doesn't sound fuel or spark related.  At 4k & above the lower spark plugs are pretty well out of the picture so you would probably have a difficult time riding & idling at low speeds if the  upper coils/plugs were causing an issue.

 

Can you tell if the disturbance goes away (or back to normal) at over 5500 RPM's? (this could tell us something).

 

With you saying that  it is worse than the normal 3500-4500 disturbance (but STILL in that RPM range) could be telling us that your problem is the normal boxer buzz but possibly the normal disturbance is driving/exciting  something else (chassis or drivetrain related) that is magnifying or  increasing the intensity.

 

Check the entire exhaust for abnormal chassis contact, or vibrating, or contacting in the center stand area. Make sure that the rear muffler hanger is not broken or bent.

 

Look/check for loose or missing chassis & engine bolts, etc.

 

I have more but am on the road this weekend so  I'm short on time today (I will try to check back if/when I can get a signal & find some down time).   

 

 

 

 

[MontanaBud]

Well, I think I've eliminated the fuel injectors as the culprit.   I installed an old pair, and there is absolutely no difference.

 

Thanks so much, D.R.  I've check all the chassis bolts I know about, i.e., along the foot plates.  All solid.  The muffler mounts are solid.  I even checked the 02 sensor wiring, and it had been mis-located, but even after correction, still no change. 

 

Regarding the higher RPMs, there's no relief, just worse vibration the higher the RMPs.  This seems almost identical to the problem last year, when I discovered the wiring to the RH stick coil were poorly connected.  I discovered that problem when I was able to sense a slightly greater vibration on the right handle bar vs. left side.  THIS vibration seems evenly distributed.  To be safe, I recently cut out the connections and re-soldered and heat shrink wrapped the wires to the RH stick coil, but no difference found.   But that prior experience makes me suspect it's spark related. 

 

I changed the tranny and final drive fluids recently, though I can't remember whether I did that before or after this trouble started. I'll go re-check the fluid levels (though, really, what kind of moron would I be to screw that up?  Wait, don't answer that). 

 

 

[Michaelr11]

On 8/30/2019 at 8:06 PM, pgm said:

@Michaelr11 Can any injector refurb do the job, or is there a recommended place.  Also, any place you can point to for benefits and effort to do a 1200 upgrade?

 

https://www.injectorrx.com/