strange idle

[Etzy]

Just bought my first street bike, made it a 1992 k75. Love at first site. Noticed some popping as mentioned by others as normal for all, K75's . I have noticed something a bit different with the idle and that is a semi-regular hiccup that has a mechanical/metallic sound to it. Occurs when at stop but not noticed at any other time when riding and shidting. The bike runs great with only 21,000mi on it. Any ideas on this? Thanks

[Motorhobo]

Maybe check for intermittent arcing at plug end of spark plug wires or a small vacuum leak somewhere.

[kris]

Etzy,
It's funny, the noises these "German engineered" machines make. I made a similar comment earlier and someone replied that it was normal....like a bag of bolts at times. It's not as smooth as we might expect it to be but if that's the quirk then go with it. My Kawasaki doesn't make any noise like the Beemer...new territory to me, too. I just don't want to be doing unnecessary damage to my beast.

[Motorhobo]

Sorry, but I've had k75s for 15 years and when they're running properly I don't believe there should be any semi-regular mechanical hiccup. Which is not to say my bikes run perfectly evenly after 20 years...but a hiccup? Not sure what you mean. Maybe you could record the idle with your phone and post it here.

[kris]

fair comment....

[Etzy]

Thanks for the feedback. I did a little checking for some type of vacuum leak but couldn't find anything obvious. Not sure how to check for the arcing plug wire once again not seeing anything obvious. I'll try to record the idle this weekend, running the kids around to sports. Went for a ride yesterday and when started up gave a pretty good bellow of smoke, smoked for about 30 seconds and then stopped. This is the second time this happened in past month i've owned the bike, first time it was pretty cold outside and I thought it was condensation. Possible relationship here? Just trying to figure out what I should expect from this machine.

[kris]

Etzy,
You've probably read elsewhere that these machines, if parked on the side stand, will tend to smoke at start up. Oil from the upper galleries, I'm guessing, leaks past some seals and you get a bit of smoke. Apparently no harm done. The way to prevent it, and something you might want to do if you think you're chasing another problem, is to either park the bike on the center stand or to tilt the bike slightly to the right for a few seconds (once you've shut the engine off, clearly), allowing the oil to flow back into the sump, and then park it on the side stand.

Good luck

[Scott_]

Etzy,
You've probably read elsewhere that these machines, if parked on the side stand, will tend to smoke at start up. Oil from the upper galleries, I'm guessing, leaks past some seals and you get a bit of smoke. Apparently no harm done. The way to prevent it, and something you might want to do if you think you're chasing another problem, is to either park the bike on the center stand or to tilt the bike slightly to the right for a few seconds (once you've shut the engine off, clearly), allowing the oil to flow back into the sump, and then park it on the side stand.

Good luck

Actually it's the oil in the piston, around the rings and such, that when on side stand leak back past the rings towards the head.
It's worse on the older engines(I'm thinking pre-1990) as they changed the ring material to help address this oil issue. The later brick engines still burn some, just not near as much.
You are on the right track to lean to the right after shutdown to help drain it back to the sump.