K series speedo clusters
Posted: Sun 31 Jan, 2016 8:14 pm
The weak link in the system...BMW, it seems were too clever for their own good and the K series bikes that came out in 1983 were far more digital than their forbears. The early speedo clusters were renowned for failing within a few year of operation, generally due to ingress of water. Later models incorporated improved sealing and more screws around the periphery of the sealing backing cover. This is the cluster on my 1990, last of the pre ABS bikes and should not have been giving troubles, particularly as it only has 130000kms on the clock. But, as Goldy will attest, the copper tracks breakdown and can be gently repaired by adding small quantities of hot solder to the broken tracks. Brian Roberts. up in the hills was a very knowledgeable gent, who would take a dicky speedo unit and repair all the faults, usually for a case of beer. Unfortunately Brian passed away and that avenue is no longer available. I did, however remember him telling me of an old trick to twist the ends of the 24 pins, which have rectangular heads, so that they make a more forced point of contact with the female sockets, on the end of the wires feeding to the speedo cluster.
My speedo suddenly stopped reading kph, which in turn stopped the odo numbers tumbling and the auto-cancel on the indicators to kick in. First, I cleaned the pick up on the top of the final drive; clean as a whistle and applied some electrical contact cleaner to the brown/yellow wire connector just behind the RHS side cover but the speedo was still stubbornly not working. I opened up the back cover and it smelt like that virginal, clean electrical smell that often emits from brand new toys when you open the battery compartments. It was dry as a bone and all the tracks were in perfect order. Taking a baby long nose pliers, I twisted all 24 pins about 20 degrees towards the starboard beam and pushed the two white connector strips back into place. Put the whole lot back together and its been sweet as a nut since......
My speedo suddenly stopped reading kph, which in turn stopped the odo numbers tumbling and the auto-cancel on the indicators to kick in. First, I cleaned the pick up on the top of the final drive; clean as a whistle and applied some electrical contact cleaner to the brown/yellow wire connector just behind the RHS side cover but the speedo was still stubbornly not working. I opened up the back cover and it smelt like that virginal, clean electrical smell that often emits from brand new toys when you open the battery compartments. It was dry as a bone and all the tracks were in perfect order. Taking a baby long nose pliers, I twisted all 24 pins about 20 degrees towards the starboard beam and pushed the two white connector strips back into place. Put the whole lot back together and its been sweet as a nut since......