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The 'W' rating of fork oil is not actually very helpful, except in general terms. It describes the viscosity of a given oil at 0 degrees c and has little bearing on the performance at any other temperature. BMW recommended specific oils for forks varying between 2.5W and 10W with many that didn't q...

Reassembling the fuel tap can be quite challenging to put it mildly and it can seem near impossible without devising some sort of jig to compress the assembly. It's one of those frustrating jobs where if you struggle, then it's best to walk away from it for a while and think of a solution. I can eas...

The 81- forks are as Rob says very different. They are essentially the same in principle as the the forks first introduced in 78 on the R45/R65. Though by 81 they had adopted the shortened sprung valve body to reduced noise, a mod which was also applied to the R45/R65 forks somewhere around that time.

In the UK the petrol blend changes 4 times per year broadly with each season. The cold weather blends have more volatile components to aid starting but lower caloric value per litre. The difference in calorific value is small and similar to the 1.6% difference between E5 and E10. The biggest impact ...

I've not seen anything like a 10% difference in fuel consumption between E5 and E10. Based on the caloric value of the two fuels it should only be approx.1.6% although there are some other subtle things going on besides the caloric value change which may alter that figure slightly. Based on Calorifi...

Flat tops don't have a guide sleeve like the dome top Bings, instead the slide has to be a reasonably good fit in it's bore but not too tight otherwise it wouldn't fall under it's own weight and there are no springs on a flat top to help it. I've never had that problem with my flat tops or heard any...

Worn bearings or something. Assuming the speedo works proving the cable drive is ok, then the usual cause of the odometer not working is a gear wheel slipping on it's shaft. It's a common enough fault and has been discussed on various airhead forums. Mine only slipped when it got hot due to differe...

The stator won't produce any output until you get some current flowing through the rotor. It sounds like that isn't happening initially because of a break in the wiring somewhere. It might help to break things down into sections. For example, using the diagram above take a temporary feed from the ba...

Am I correct in saying that I should be able to measure AC voltage with a multi-meter from the 3-wire output on the bottom right of the stator casing, with - engine running - the said 3 wires unplugged from the stator casing - all other wires untouched - probes on only 2 separate spades Cause I'm c...

Different forks but the same principle of using oil level to tune the forks should apply. R45/R65 forks as well as having a fixed volume of 190cc also have a recommended level of 20mm - 50mm above the damper piston top. That difference allows for some tuning of the air spring effect. The 20mm level ...