Rotting rubber woes…

[Slash2]

A few years ago a found a nice survivor R80GS that had been parked for 7-8 years and decided to bring it home and resurrect it. I went through and resealed everything, rebuilt much of it and generally fell in love with the bike. I completed the work about two years ago mounted a fresh set of Metzeler Enduro Sahara’s. Fast forward to the end of last season I noticed that a lot of the rubber parts I replaced were starting to crack and fail. Pushrod rubbers, driveshaft boot, even the tires with about 800 miles were showing cracks. Meanwhile the exact same tires I had removed which were clearly a decade old, though worn had no such defects. As I’m not really interested in doing a fresh top-end reseal every other year or having to replace driveshaft boots and tires as often I’m really perplexed as to what is going on. The bike lives indoors and is generally parked next to several other vintage classics that show no such rapid deterioration. I’ve put about 1000 miles of mostly paved riding on the R80 and other than that the bike has never been left in direct sunlight for more than a few hours.

Most of the rubber parts were sourced from either MAX BMW or EME. The tires came from Revzilla. I’m completely baffled by how these parts look to be easily 40 years old instead of barely 2. I know modern rubber parts are not nearly as high of quality as they once were but this seems absurd.

Any idea what could be causing such rapid deteriorating of these parts or is the quality just that bad?

[RideSolo]

I'm really sorry to hear about your rubber pieces going south! I could be off base here and maybe this is an "old wife's tale," but it seems like I've heard that ozone from an electric motor can be tough in rubber. Is your R80GS being stored near a heater or some other fixture with a electric motor? (Sorry, if the thing about electric motor ozone and all that is incorrect.) There are probably others on here who know more about that stuff than I do. Good luck!

[srankin]

This is a first for me, as you assumed when you changed out the parts and tires they should have lasted a long time.

These days I don't know where parts Max gets are actually from BMW or perhaps the same source as EME, that is another topic for another day. I haven't seen a difference in quality between either supplier.

The folks at EME are very good with customer service, Max is good but sometimes hard to get someone on the phone. I would give one of them a call and start the investigation rolling. They may find a larger stock item issue.

As for the tires, well same, perhaps an email to the manufacturer, would be in order.

It is definitely strange you have other bikes stored and do not have the problem, AND that you have the problem.

You are correct, you should get at least 40,000 miles out of seals, at least 5 years. And I mean at least. Good luck, St.