Dakar Fuel Pump and Frame Bolts
 

This is a question and an observation:

On one of Tanzania's loooong and horribly corrugated/stoney/sandy roads, my Dakar stopped dead, like it had run out of gas. After cleaning the fuel out, and checking the filter, I finally discovered that it was an electrical problem. Deep inside the fuel pump itself, the little brown wire (one of 4 in ther) had snapped.

Observation: When bike dies like you're out of gas, listen for the little 'whizzz' sound in the fuel pump. If it's not ther, that'll tell you it's electrical...

Question: Anybody else had this happen?

New question: What does a guy have to do to keep the subframe bolts from rattling loose on bad roads? For cripes sakes, I tighten them every day!

Hunter

Have you replaced the standard nuts with Nylocs or similar? Bit of Loctite would probably help also.

Also check to see that they are tightened correctly - if undertightened of course they'll come loose, but if overtightened they may have stretched past their elastic limit, and will never stay tight. Replace with new high grade (probably 8.8 or better) or genuine bolts, (BMW uses very high quality bolts standard) and as Steve notes, loctite them and use nylocks where possible - and tighten to factory spec with a torque wrench. That should do it.

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Grant Johnson

Seek, and ye shall find.
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One world, Two wheels.
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

On a Dakar 650 I put Loctite on the standard bolts (8mm allen cap) but they still vibrated out, and then I replaced them with 8.8 grade bolts with plenty of loctite which happened to be a longer than standard. But instead of vibrating loose, once in Ethiopia and twice in Sudan, they broke. It was mainly because of being frequently airborne (rocks and sand in desert section from Karima to Dongola), but you can’t stop having fun! Luckily the bolts I carried as spares were a longer thread and so I could grip the thread from behind with vise-grip pliers to remove the remaining bolt. So I would now recommend replacing the standard with a higher grade bolt of 30 or 35mm long, which would also allow a nyloc nut to be fitted on the inside if wanted, and that way you can remove the remaining bolt if it snaps, either by spanner on the nut or gripping the remaining thread.
My sub-frame cracked after that, so I also learned that a Dakar has to be ridden more calmly!

Simon
www.longdetour.hotfire.net

Hello.
Just a thought from left field here, but maybe you should leave the problem and check the bolts regularly, tightnening or replacing with the same kind. Something will always have to give a little when under heavy stress, and the more you can controll what that something is, the better!