When to Repair, When to Replace
 

Greetings all;

I am new here so please correct me if I'm posting to the wrong place or asking questions which have been answered many times before, but I have been lurking for a few days now, and checking other places on the web, but have not found the answers yet.

I recently bought a '99 R1100S which had been dropped, with most of the damage happening to the fairings and instruments. The bike still runs and sounds great so I am hoping to make a track-day only bike out of it.

The problem right now is that the aluminum front fairing mount is bent out of shape. Not a whole lot, really, but if I ever hope to put fairings and instruments back on, the mount will need straightening or replacing.

Is it feasible to straighten it or would I be better off finding another?

Does anyone other than BMW make replacement fairings? I checked SharkSkinz and BMW isn't even listed so I don't think they do.

Any help would be appreciated.

AFAIK, only BMW makes the front subframe. You can try bending it back, but you may just have better luck finding a straight one at beemer bone yard. Welcome to the fold.

never forget the most important mantra "every product failure is an opportunity for an upgrade"! :) welcome

Thanks for the reply and the welcome.

The fairing mount looks like it would be fairly easy to bend, being aluminum, so I guess I don't have much to lose by trying, but it would be nice to find a donor bike in a boneyard, to be sure.

I'm always amazed at how little it takes to bend and break things on a bike - my wife dropped her 800SS Ducati very gently in a parking lot and broke the fairing last summer.

Mike

Good point, but what to upgrade to? Can I buy aftermarket fairings for the bike?

I do want to try to keep this bike working, not replace the whole thing. While it would be easy to just buy another and keep this one as the parts bike, I don't think it's going to happen.

My street bike is a F800GS BMW, so the R11 does not need to remain street legal.

MBD , welcome aboard. Given the drop be certain to check the engine mount tabs on the rear subframe.

I think shreddr was referring to upgrading the frame to carbon fiber, whether or not a carbon fiber fairing frame necessarily exists. And if you don't need to keep it street-legal, no need to re-install that heavy, glass-laden headlight, either. I think there might be blanking panels available to fill the void, but you might also be able to track down or build a solid no-light fairing, too. Carbon Fiber, FTW! :D

Engine mount tabs? Do you mean rear subframe tabs? The engine mounts look really substantial, but one of the subframe tabs is broken and will need welding.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3459/...e20798d9_o.jpg

I've looked all over the rear subframe and found nothing else but the tab broken, fortunately.

Search the forum; that's a not so uncommon problem unfortunately.

thats exactly what I was referring to.

The front sub-frame can be bent back... Bill S has done it, but it seems to be a bit involved. The rear can be welded and while you are at that, add a little gusset on both sides... it will increase stability.

I would imagine the biggest problem to straightening the front frame would be to make sure the tubes don't collapse or kink. Here's what it looks like now.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3416/...4ec1cc4e_o.jpg

What I find amazing is that it's clear that someone rode the bike after it was damaged like this. There are scratches in the top of the fork lowers where they scraped against the bent fairing subframe.

Those parts would not have lined up unless there was someone sitting on the bike and braking. When the bike is sitting on its own, those parts are nowhere near each other so they couldn't have scraped from the bike being pushed around.

Yikes!

Holy Cow... THAT ONE is visibly bent... I have one laying around that is bent, but only noticeable when you mount the tupperware, 1/2 inch of or so... the one you have on there... I'd consider that one toast... look at the tube where it it is welded to the center beam... there is no way you can bend it back up without collapsing, as it is already heavily deformed...

Mine looked exactly like that after dropping the bike on a muddy, remote NM road in 2004. Using a crowbar and blocks of wood, I bent it back in the motel parking lot enough to bolt up most of the bodywork (left side plastic wouldn't fit) and rode it home 1800 miles. (You can read about the adventure here if you like.)

I managed to bend mine back eventually - it's very malleable - but it took a solid day of bending and trial fitting. It helps to have a good workbench with lots of clamping points so you can apply pressure to specific spots - if you just attempt to wail away and bend it straight in one fell swoop, you'll just screw it worse. And my job is not perfect - I still have some slightly misalignment that that I have to push things slightly to line up at the bottom left bolt on the instrument cluster.

Anyway, if your time is free, I'd give it a shot. And one thing to keep in mind is that a new one isn't necessarily going to be perfect. I bought a new subframe once for a Honda sportbike and the new one was nearly as badly mis-aligned as the old. The jigs they use to produce parts get old, parts sub-contractors get lazy because there is no production line using the parts to reject them, and they get bent up sitting on shelfs and being shipped.

- Mark

mark is right. in the dirt bike exhaust aftermarket they have constant problems with their silencers not lining up with the mounting spot on the rear subframe. Guys like Pro Circuit and FMF get brand new bikes to figure out the specs, and start churning out silencers. Problem is, most guys don't buy the silencer when the bike is brand new, and they naturally fall off the bike a few times. This usually bends the subframe just enough so the silencer won't line up. It's gotten so common that some of the companies are mentioning in the installation instructions to NOT return the silencer, but rather to bend the subframe back into the correct position. it's been an ongoing problem for years.

This is great! I love the Yea/Nay comments!

Must admit I did look at it with a crowbar in my hand, then thought I'd ponder it for a while first. I'm sure it's not going to be easy but I plan to try to straighten it out. I have nothing to lose. Time is what I have most of, being retired.

Re: the noticeably bent center tube - maybe it would buckle but I could just cut it out and weld a new one in if it did?

This is what the bike looks like right now.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3468/...9da45a44_o.jpg

I am from Nepean, where abouts are you from?

Like someone already said in previous response, beemer boneyard is a great place to start to replace bent parts. I would also possibly try Ebay.

Best,
-X

It's a mere flesh wound!
Make a rat BMW bike -

North Gower.

I've checked both eBay and BB already but there wasn't much there right now. I'll keep watching.

You can easily bend that one back to square with a 2X4 and couple of small blocks of same. You have to keep trial fitting the fairing pieces to get everything to look right. I think it is easier to bend back than to fit a new one.