Exhaust Bluing/Discoloration

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Dane

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On clutch side, after around 800 miles, the exhaust is showing a bright orange/red discoloration near the header while the throttle side does not. Is this indicating a problem and can that discoloration be removed? I'm wondering if any one else is seeing the same with only one side turning orange? I've ridden the bike up to 95mph once so most of the time, it's around-town riding.


Exhaust1 (2).png

Exhaust2 (2).png
 
The best long term fix is to richen up the mix. "Emission compliant" lean runs terribly hot. The aftermarket will catch up before too much longer and enable us do some performance tuning. In the mean time try to avoid extended idle situations and buy some Blue Away.
 
The would be extremely irksome. Do you have access to or would you be interested in buying an infrared thermometer? That'd be a quick and relatively accurate way to figure out if the left and right cylinder temperatures are within 10% of each other. If the temps are off, that's worth a shop visit because there's something amiss. My experience has been a timing problem resulting in exhaust valve either opening too soon or too late. If the temps are close (check in the same place in each side after letting her warm up), then it's an outer pipe-too-close-to-inner pipe situation...which would spell a trip to the dealership. Let us know the outcome.
 
Dane said:
On clutch side, after around 800 miles, the exhaust is showing a bright orange/red discoloration near the header while the throttle side does not. Is this indicating a problem and can that discoloration be removed? I'm wondering if any one else is seeing the same with only one side turning orange? I've ridden the bike up to 95mph once so most of the time, it's around-town riding.


View attachment 2196

View attachment 2197
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Usually:

Yellow/Gold = Lean
Blue = Rich

Thank you for the post.
Not sure if tis is a issue but,I won't be starting & or leaving my R18 running on its side stand.

Regards,Tom
 
All exhaust pipe discoloration is caused by excessive heat. There are several sources and causes (these days usually lean mixtures, but still sometimes rich mixtures continuing a heavy burn inside the pipe, chrome typically turns blue, stainless typically turns golden). Some discoloration is extremely hard to eliminate entirely. Long time idling, a lot of slow speed heavy traffic also contribute.
 
Hi friends. In an oversight I put the cover on the bike even though it was hot and part of the cover melted in the part of the exhaust that is in front of the cylinder. Does anyone know how to remove melted plastic from the exhaust?
 
Thanks to all for the suggestions. I just dropped the bike off at the dealer for it's first maintenance and brought up the fact that only 1 pipe is showing the bluing. I'll let everyone know comes out of it.
 
So it is really odd then to have only 1 pipe bluing at 600 miles. They found that BMW has released 18 software updates and the bluing condition may be addressed in one of these. I have to take it back next week for the update because they don't know how long it will take.
 
Bike is back from the shop. They said that there was a service update that addresses the bluing issue. They are now checking if BMW will replace the pipe. Am I incorrect in presuming that the pipe shouldn't be showing so much wear after only 1000 miles? Seems like a warranty issue if they specifically had to put a fix update out for it.
 
Good day Dane, I have an R18 Classic 2021 with same problem but my dealer don’t know what is the service update.
Can you require the number? In order to inform it.
Thank you very much in advance
 
Hi , I am having the same dis-colouration on the clutch side on my 2022 Classic as well i will see if my local dealer will address it for me , had this on other models of BMW in the past it seems that if it really bothers some owners they change the exhaust system ,to be honest if it does not effect the running of the bike that,s ok with me .
 
Thank you for reply.
My opinion is that I buy this bike for style and chrome particulars like exhaust pipes.
Normally we pay more money for sense satisfaction and for performances rear the brand.
The first thing for a dealer must be try to find a solution in order to represent honestly the brand and to permit the client to come back for other service.
Technically speaking for me could be an ignition problem, timing or fuel’s quantity or could be a distance problem from inside to outside pipe.
Sorry but my work is on engines marine and aeronautical.
You are right the motorcycle run good also with blue pipe but I like understand.
Ciao
 
I am experiencing the same thing on both sides with my 2023 Transcontinental. I will be using blue job to clean it up for show, but I deal with a lot of stop/go traffic here in Chucktown, so I'm not sure if this can be permanently fixed. I'll follow up with my dealer and see if it's an issue they are aware of.
 
I used blue job for cleanup and it worked great as I expected. However, while cleaning, I noticed minor impact damage to both header pipes leaving small scratches and craters. This type of damage ultimately results in corrosion. Is this just something BMW R Type owners have to live with or is there a way to protect the head pipes?
 
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