oldrascal
Registered user
I just couldn't refuse Shready's beautiful and nurtured '01 RT when it came up for sale and so this Gentleman's Express came to sit alongside the '08 R1200GSA in my garage.
But I am an inveterate fettler, tinkerer and farkler and my practised eye soon found some work for my idle hands. Stage 1 was purely cosmetic and involved spraying the pannier and topbox lids in body colour. And I think it gives the bike real class and style - a bit too much black German plastic otherwise for my eyes.
Next up I wanted to find a mount for my BMW Navigator4 so that I could swap the head unit between bikes. I bought a standard Zumo660 cradle and had a mount made up which allowed the unit to sit above the instrument panel making it visible without having to look down.
I should point out that the standard BMW mount for an RT uses the headstock bolts which means that your chinbar gets in the line-of-sight and the damned unit turns with the handlebars. Bummer.
So far so good.
Beautiful bodywork and panniers? Check
. GPS system mounted satisfactorily? Check . Nice shiny exhaust? 
.
Like every other RT that I have seen, the exhaust rusts like buggery and as the exhaust and catalyst are one massive unit, this makes the bike look shoddy. So it had to go, but what to replace it with? The alternatives are quite limited for the RT but amongst them are the usual suspects such as ZTechnic and Arrow. But the problem is that these exhausts just don't suit the style of the RT, one of the most worked-out motorcycle designs that BMW has ever completed. Modern exhaust are too fine, stick out too far and, in my view, are just plain wrong. They are also bloody expensive at around £500 and when I investigated the price of an original BMW relacement and found out that it cost £540 with discount, my mind was made up.
The problem was that although I had changed slip-on cans several times, the BMW exhaust is integral with the catalytic converter and also has a Lambda sensor plugged into it. So it was very much uncharted territory for me. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained
.
First off, dismantling the old system and the buggeration factor of 9 years of rust and 60,000 miles of road crap. Needless to say, nothing I could do with a spanner, wrench, blowtorch, oil or cussing and swearing made the slightest difference. The nut on the clamp joining the headers to the exhaust would not move. So out came the angle grinder and with a silent 'Hail Mary', I set to. 'Slowly, Slowly Catchee Monkey' was my motto as the angle grinder did its bit and then there was a loud 'ping' and the clamp flew off. Success.......
.........er..........not quite yet.
Because even though I had released the exhaust can from its hanger and it was free, the two bits of pipe remained solid and no amount of nudging and nadgering would separate them. So back to the angle grinder and a quick slice lengthways on the old exhaust and everything finally came apart. Everything, that is, apart from the fact the exhaust was hanging by its Lambda lead. The lead is attached to a metal screw-in plug which needed unscrewing - of course.
And yet again, years of rust and immobility meant that it was solid and the attached lead meant I couldn't get a ring spanner on it to shift the bloody thing. So throwing caution to the winds, I cut the sensor wires (2 gray, 1 white and 1 black) having carefully marked the matching ends for later rejoining.
And here is the dead exhaust and the location of the sensor:
The rest was just too easy and went back together lickety split. the only slightly tricky bit was rejoining the sensor wires but that just requires a soldering iron, some flux, some heat-shrink insulators and patience.
And here is the end result:
So even if you are a butter-fingered oaf who has no faith in himself, give it a go - er, provided you have an RT of course.
But I am an inveterate fettler, tinkerer and farkler and my practised eye soon found some work for my idle hands. Stage 1 was purely cosmetic and involved spraying the pannier and topbox lids in body colour. And I think it gives the bike real class and style - a bit too much black German plastic otherwise for my eyes.
Next up I wanted to find a mount for my BMW Navigator4 so that I could swap the head unit between bikes. I bought a standard Zumo660 cradle and had a mount made up which allowed the unit to sit above the instrument panel making it visible without having to look down.
I should point out that the standard BMW mount for an RT uses the headstock bolts which means that your chinbar gets in the line-of-sight and the damned unit turns with the handlebars. Bummer.
So far so good. Beautiful bodywork and panniers? Check
. GPS system mounted satisfactorily? Check . Nice shiny exhaust? . Like every other RT that I have seen, the exhaust rusts like buggery and as the exhaust and catalyst are one massive unit, this makes the bike look shoddy. So it had to go, but what to replace it with? The alternatives are quite limited for the RT but amongst them are the usual suspects such as ZTechnic and Arrow. But the problem is that these exhausts just don't suit the style of the RT, one of the most worked-out motorcycle designs that BMW has ever completed. Modern exhaust are too fine, stick out too far and, in my view, are just plain wrong. They are also bloody expensive at around £500 and when I investigated the price of an original BMW relacement and found out that it cost £540 with discount, my mind was made up.
The problem was that although I had changed slip-on cans several times, the BMW exhaust is integral with the catalytic converter and also has a Lambda sensor plugged into it. So it was very much uncharted territory for me. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained
. First off, dismantling the old system and the buggeration factor of 9 years of rust and 60,000 miles of road crap. Needless to say, nothing I could do with a spanner, wrench, blowtorch, oil or cussing and swearing made the slightest difference. The nut on the clamp joining the headers to the exhaust would not move. So out came the angle grinder and with a silent 'Hail Mary', I set to. 'Slowly, Slowly Catchee Monkey' was my motto as the angle grinder did its bit and then there was a loud 'ping' and the clamp flew off. Success.......
.........er..........not quite yet. Because even though I had released the exhaust can from its hanger and it was free, the two bits of pipe remained solid and no amount of nudging and nadgering would separate them. So back to the angle grinder and a quick slice lengthways on the old exhaust and everything finally came apart. Everything, that is, apart from the fact the exhaust was hanging by its Lambda lead. The lead is attached to a metal screw-in plug which needed unscrewing - of course.
And yet again, years of rust and immobility meant that it was solid and the attached lead meant I couldn't get a ring spanner on it to shift the bloody thing. So throwing caution to the winds, I cut the sensor wires (2 gray, 1 white and 1 black) having carefully marked the matching ends for later rejoining.
And here is the dead exhaust and the location of the sensor:
The rest was just too easy and went back together lickety split. the only slightly tricky bit was rejoining the sensor wires but that just requires a soldering iron, some flux, some heat-shrink insulators and patience.
And here is the end result:
So even if you are a butter-fingered oaf who has no faith in himself, give it a go - er, provided you have an RT of course.
. So greetings brother. 
