New to Brick-world in Round Hill, Alberta, Canada

[jiggseob]

Just picked up a new-to-me 1992 K75 RT. 97k kilometers (60k miles) on odometer.  Missing some stuff, right side cover, left side  fairing compartment cover.

PO looks like they dropped low speed on right side, so radiator surround and fairing lower are scuffed and need some love or replacement.  I'm not big on having a "pristine" looking bike, but I do like things that are reliable. 

The bottom tail of the right side of the fairing lower is not bolted on to anything.  The left side is bracketed to the engine.  I'd like to have a photo of that right side bracket, and where it bolts onto the engine.  If someone has an RT, could you please snap and post a picture of how the right-side fairing lower is bracketed and supported.

Theres a crack in the upper fairing right under the windshield.  Something I would "repair".  Whats the best repair method?  Wire mesh and JB weld metal epoxy?  Fiberglas cloth and some resin?  Martha Stewarts glue gun?  Advice appreciated.

I am a somewhat klutzy motorcyclist, in that I ride in adventurous places like dirt/gravel roads, and tilted places.  Not being on flat, level, hard pavement all the time, I occasionally "drop" my bike on its side.  This RT model looks like broken stuff every time I drop it.  My Kawasaki KLR 650 is like that, an expensive aluminum radiator on the right side.  For my KLR, I fabricated guard bars to protect engine and plastics when (not if) I drop it.  I'd like to buy or fabricate guard bars for my K75 RT.  Does anyone have guard bars on an RT that can snap a couple photos of how they are shaped and how they bolt-on.

Can't wait for the glaciers to recede and riding weather to happen in Alberta Canada....

[The Mighty Gryphon]

Welcome! 

To answer your questions, I do my repairs with fiberglass and polyester resin.

The parts fiche at MaxBMW will show you all the parts for your bike, as well as their approximate location. 

https://shop.maxbmw.com/fiche/DiagramsMain.aspx?vid=51743&rnd=07242017

Crash bars are pretty much a waste of time and money on the brick.  The factory bars are designed to break away, doing extra damage to the lower fairing.  The problem is that they are bolted to the bottom of the oil pan which is an aluminum casting and doesn't have much strength.  If they were attached firmly to it, you would dump all the oil every time the bike is dropped. 

The RT is essentially a long distance pavement cruiser.  If you want to run with the adventure guys, I would suggest removing the lower fairing panels and the mirror pods.  You can mount mirrors on the handlebars easily as there are mounting holes in the switch housings.

You might be able to fabricate crash bars, but it will be difficult to attach them as there are no engine mounts below the cylinder head. There is a thread here somewhere of a bike that was built to go around the world.  The builder had created some crash bars that looked like they would work, but as I recall they were somewhat bulky.

[jiggseob]

Thanks Mr Mighty Grypon, My quick-look at how the K75 is built concurs with the comment about functional protective crash bars being generally un-doable, due to the lack of good-solid attachment points.  In the event of a drop, one would prefer a crunched lower fairing, rather than a crunched oil-dumping hole in the cast oil pan or camshaft cover.

I am generally not accepting of the "un-doable", such as taking on a somewhat blemished 30+ year old motorcycle and making a decent ride out of it.  As I go through this bike to get it road-ready, I will be on the lookout for point(s) to attach functional crash bars. 

[Laitch]

K75RTP wide police bike crash bars are rare, even in Europe where K75 police Bricks were common. I've only seen two offered in the US on eBay in 12 years and one of those was incomplete. Here's how they look on one member's ride; maybe they'll be inspiring.

[jiggseob]

Thank you Laitch.  Inspiring for sure, indicates at least some do-ability.

The look of the wide police bars is somewhat debatable, but at the risk of appearing to be some sort of bush-basher, I like the protection that those bars look like they might afford.  Is that member still active on this (or another) forum, I'd be interested to see more detailed photos of the attachment points.

Heres a couple pics of the new to me brick.  Yes, I have the mirrors and bags and one of the side covers.  Missing a side-cover and a fairing compartment cover.


92 RT Left.jpg (67.66 kB . 768x576 - viewed 69 times)

92 RT right.jpg (64.37 kB . 768x576 - viewed 70 times)

[Laitch]

The look of the wide police bars is somewhat debatable, but at the risk of appearing to be some sort of bush-basher, I like the protection that those bars look like they might afford.  Is that member still active on this (or another) forum, I'd be interested to see more detailed photos of the attachment points.

The member who owned that Brick has moved on; the bars were sold. Those are the only photos around here.
 
About the looks:
The bars seem to be designed to make it easier for a patrol officer to dismount for a foot pursuit. They guard the handlebar and controls from ground impact during a tip-over, and provide an angle that makes the moto easier to lift upright when needed. The bars obstruct the cam and crank covers in a way that making removal of the covers for routine maintenance slightly annoying. Of course, some models' fairings do that naturally anyway.

Time and money might be better spent building upper body strength, learning fiberglass application for repair, and developing balance during low speed maneuvers. Many of these Bricks seem to dropped at a standstill, walking maneuvers, or low speed. The feeling when one tips over centerline is an exciting one, for sure.

[Martin]

I played around with various crash/drop bars and am currently playing with Oggy Knobs. As most damage seems to be done with stationary drops  I am just trying to protect engine cases, indicators and reduce fairing damage. It's a work in progress. I used longer bolts with a unthreaded shank, the bolt in secured into the engine with a nut and the heads of the bolt were cut off and a thread cut on the end to install nuts which hold the Oggy in place with an internal spacer reinforcing the knob.
Regards Martin.

20240105_133330.jpg (79.18 kB . 768x576 - viewed 59 times)
20240105_133347.jpg (47.64 kB . 768x576 - viewed 60 times)

[Past-my-Prime]

Lower fairing protection bars for RTs do come up on ebay occasionally as someone parts out the functional parts of their bike in favour of making an abortion of a scrambler of sorts and sometimes that even works out for them.

Anyway, the functionality of those bars for me has been good. All my drops are at a standstill or near standstill, and repairs to fibreglass is a pain in the ass so I'd not go without that effort.

There is a little jiggly L-shaped bracket that holds the fairing to the motor on the lower right side; mine was cracked from one of my adventures and I fabricated one out of some stainless steel that I had lying around. (Using the broken piece as a template).

[jiggseob]

Hy Past my prime, Thanks for the info.  I see you are Lake Superior...  I drove to Thunder Bay and Marathon a couple years ago...  beautiful part of the world.

Yes, please take/post-up a picture of that wiggly part of the bracket that holds the bottom of the right lower to the engine.  The bracket is totally gone from mine, and I'd like to know which engine bolt(s) to attach to. 

On my 1992 K75RT the frame-to-engine bolts at the top-front of the engine have a little pass-thru molded into the fairing lowers, as if to provide for a guard-bar to come out, and down.  So thats where to attach the top of the bar.  In order to have any strength, the bar has to attach to three points...  where are the other attachment points for front guard bars?

This 1992 K75RT model does not seem to have any sort of belly-fairing under the engine.  I'm not sure if it ever had one, if it did some previous owner removed it.

[The Mighty Gryphon]

The RT doesn't have an engine fairing.  The lower attachment points for the crash bars are on the oil pan.  There are breakaway fittings that attach the lower bar attachment points to the pan.

The purpose of the breakaway fittings is to allow the bars to break off when the bike goes down.  That is to prevent breaking the oilpan and causing an oil leak.  That makes the bars useless. When I had them on my bike all they did was bust up the fairing lowers whenever the bike fell down.  They didn't prevent any damage to the upper fairing or the mirrors.

All they are good for is attaching driving lights if you want them there.

[jiggseob]

Excellent opinions about crash bars across the full range so far, from waste of time to must have.

My experience with crash bars on my Kawasaki KLR650 is that I won't ride without them.  Yes I'm a klutz.  Yes, I go stupid places and do stupid stuff.  My plastics and radiator are still intact and undamaged.

Now that I'm well north of 60, any physical capability I have is headed south, and any working out or strength improvement is only going to slow my degradation.  And after decades of riding I'm probably not going to do any less stupid stuff.   The rear tire on the K75 is about half done, when replacement comes I will be installing some sort of 90-10 ADV tire.  I like to travel back country roads.  Not muskeg bogs, just gravel roads that are less-travelled.

Now that I have a K75 in addition to the Iron Pig Kawasaki, something tells me I will develop a preference for Brick over Pig.  So I will pursue crash bars - in my case more appropriately referred to as tip-bars - to try and reduce / prevent busted fiberglass on my new-to-me Brick.

[Past-my-Prime]

Excellent opinions about crash bars across the full range so far, from waste of time to must have.

My experience with crash bars on my Kawasaki KLR650 is that I won't ride without them.  Yes I'm a klutz.  Yes, I go stupid places and do stupid stuff.  My plastics and radiator are still intact and undamaged.

Now that I'm well north of 60, any physical capability I have is headed south, and any working out or strength improvement is only going to slow my degradation.  And after decades of riding I'm probably not going to do any less stupid stuff.   The rear tire on the K75 is about half done, when replacement comes I will be installing some sort of 90-10 ADV tire.  I like to travel back country roads.  Not muskeg bogs, just gravel roads that are less-travelled.

Now that I have a K75 in addition to the Iron Pig Kawasaki, something tells me I will develop a preference for Brick over Pig.  So I will pursue crash bars - in my case more appropriately referred to as tip-bars - to try and reduce / prevent busted fiberglass on my new-to-me Brick.

Will post photos when I’m next at home.

Sorry for unavoidable delays.  The RT crash bars wont help in a crash. But I’ve dropped my bike a few times and they did prevent damage except the need to reattach where they came apart and the above noted broken metal bracket.

[frankenduck]

The engine bars (not "crash" bars) are worthwhile to some extent: they do protect from engine covers/fairing in parking lot tipovers and are also good for mounting forward pegs.

[sooprvylyn]

I've spent a fair bit of time thinking  on crash bars/pucks/sliders for K-bikes.  The issue really is that there are no elegant solutions that dont also put your engine block and oil pan in some danger. The front engine/frame bolts on k75 has a threaded head meant to accept the oem crash bars, but, they too are threaded into the aluminum engine block.  Its a rather thick part of aluminum with a pretty thick bolt(like m8-m10 or something like that), but I'd still be pretty hesitant to drop a bike at any kind of speed on anything attached to that bolt that wont break away fairly easily.  I think the sliders Martin posted are risky.  The oem bars are super rare, and when they come up, they are $$$$.  Not worth it for something that is destroyed and not repairable in any tipover.

BSK speedworks makes some engine guards that look like they'd do a reasonable job protecting the engine casings.  You can find them here: https://www.bskspeedworks.co.uk/k-engine-case-covers.html

I have them for my k1100 in hopes that if I ever do drop it they'll at least spare the engine cases which tend to get rashed on the front edges...happened to my old K75.

If you really want to do something you will likely have to do a bit of fabricating.  Most likely youd need to weld a solid attachment point to the frame right above the front engine mounting bolts for the front.  The only other thing that MIGHT be a reasonable attachment point is the center stand bracket since it has 4 massive bolts holding it to the aluminum gearbox meant to hold the weight of the bike and riders.  Getting something attached there would mean a pretty big cage tho, and some good engineering to avoid interference withthe kickstand. 

Really these bikes are less than ideal for use where they are likely to see frequent drops. Another reason for this is the fuel tank is not actually attached to the frame in any way, it just rests on the frame, so it can come off reasonably easy in a drop...again, happened with  mine the first time i crashed at speed, severing the fuel line and spilling fuel all over the road.  It might be worth looking into a tank strap for this reason as well.