September gone?

um, yah. were you not paying attention? yes, actually, I was but I was not blogging, I was living. September is the most important month for me but I guess I won’t share that on a blog.

I was sorry to see my hot rod R75/6 go but felt that it was the right thing to do because I needed that R100RT Sharona to get to that job in Rockford IL. Right. That job is gone. The contract ended after 91 days, it did not lead to direct employment and maybe that is a good thing. But still, if I had known that I was going to be unemployed again would I have spent the $3000 on the RT?

I have adjusted to my 2nd stint of unemployment in 2009 by

• putting the R100RT up for sale. The original price was $3200 which went to $3000 and is now at $2700. It is the wrong time of the year to be selling old motorcycles. I have a couple coming here from Iowa to take a look at this bike this weekend. I even have a deposit from them but I am not terribly confident that they will leave with this ‘sight unseen’ motorcycle.
• I organized the remaining bits from parting out the traded-in R60/6 along with left over stuff from the R75/6 project and other things and started selling those online in preparation to …
• Paul and I went to the U.P. to Marquette Michigan on Lake Superior to buy a 1982 R100 for $1000. That may have been too much! I always want to rescue these old bikes but survival tells me that I need to part this out for a small profit. This was a good running motorcycle but there are some components missing that would make it profitable. It had a Pichler fairing on it which I haven’t gotten rid of yet. The fairing precludes some pricey parts like the headlight  and related parts. The tank may not be worth trying to sell. The front end was from a mono-shock motorcycle and are not really in demand parts. There is a lot of risk on this venture and prolly not a lot of profit. Well, I have just managed to make my $1000 back and that is in the bank in time for bills and I have a lot to sell yet but things are moving slowly. Still, it is providing some extra income and …
• I am always looking for the advantage; there are some parts of this R100 that will go towards putting the 1979 R100RT back on the market in the spring as a ‘bare’ bike and, if things go as planned, I may be upgrading my Gilera, the R100T, finally. I am hoping to add Nikasil cylinders, electronic ignition and dual Brembo disk brakes from this parts bike along with the reinforced swing arm from the R60 and the fork brace from the 1979 R100RT. So, Gilera has been patient and long-suffering; three years since I have done major work on her and probably some neglect before that. But with all the before-said improvements and stuff like a new rear main seal and other maintenance this poor thing will leap so far forward … there won’t be much else that I can possibly do for her!

Comfortable with that voice in my helmet

Oh, by the way, Rockerbox 2009 was a blast! I look forward to this event all year and it is always an adventure. It was such a summer's day with unpredictable rains and sun and late afternoon wind and humidity ... The rain in the morning was such that I couldn't connect with the Chicago Ton-Up club at Morrie's Place, so I missed that ride, but an adventure it was anyways.
I rode the RS to work today ... makes me appreciate the fine job that the RT does!! Don't get me wrong, I still really like my RS it is just that the RT has gotten so-o-o-o comfortable for the long ride to work. I had to adjust to the RS, not so good on the way to work but the ride home was a blast!
I am feeling so satisfied with the line-up in the mancave right now.


This is Gilera.
This is a BMW motorcycle.
This is a 1980 R100T that just turned 91,000 miles.
I like this bike.
The next time that you see this bike it will have dual discs in the front, San Jose fork brace, reinforced swing arm, a rebuilt engine, the Lester mags repainted and a bunch of other well-deserved treatments.
This is my favorite ride for no logically reason.


This is Huckleberry ... "I'm your huckleberry."
This is a 1982 R100RS.
This has gotten a lot of care lately to complete the rescue when I got him in early 2008. Lately the top-end rebuild has been completed.


This is Sharona.
This is a 1982 R100RT.
We have a very comfortable LTR ahead of us.


This is the donor.
This is a 1979 R100RT that ran into some hard times.
This was rescued by the PO and put back on the road but she bucked him off in Indiana (front brakes seized up???) and laid down at speed without the rider.
I was originally going to rebuild this to be my RT commuter bike but Sharona came along and changed all that. For now, many good parts will be donated to keep the others roadworthy ... eventually this may become a project.

Don't try to justify this .... I am really happy with what I do.
I can still say after about 37 years of motorcycle riding and at least 16 BMWs that I have never sold a BMW for less than I paid for it. That is much better performance than my 401k. And everything that I own is paid for. I owe nothing. Pretty good for 5 months of unemployment and the rest of this year under-employed. I am really happy with what I do. God the Father of all has blessed me in this way ... to keep me from despair. To give me happiness amongst His joy

R100RT

It hurts to even look at that picture of the /6's in the prairie hills of N.IL. (See previous blog 5/17/2009)
That 1976 R75/6 is one of the BEST motorcycles that I have ever ...
sob.

I did find a job, a contract job, no security yet. A job that is good enough yet pays at about 75% of what I was making, with no benefits, nothing, just a job. Not only that but this job is 70 miles away in SW Rockford IL, 140 mile round trip on some of the worst interstate surface ever. I-43 to Beloit is one of the biggest mistake in the interstate history, really bad surface. I have an $1800 Jeep Cherokee. If I drove that every day it would die. I know that it would. So I drive the RS. I modified the RS with K75S bars and new shocks and other things to make it more comfortable and reliable but I think that an RS is not cut out for this service. So I thought about GoldWings or some other kinda touring motorcycle to make this commute. What was I thinking? I do airheads. If anything else other than an RS it would have to be an RT. Too bad that I sold an '88 just a couple of years ago; I could use that now. Who would have known.
So I keep up the RS and keep improving it. I took the /6 to work a couple of times. It rode great but I fear that the wear and tear would ruin it soon enough. Sorry, RS, you are here for the abuse. I have been managing fine. Small amount of pride there; I'm a 54 year-old guy that can put 140 miles on an RS everyday in all sorts of weather ... let's see you try that. pffft.
I put the R75/6 up for sale.
I started searching for a good R100RT. I test drove several R80RTs and was tempted but knew that I would find an R80 disappointing in the long run. The motorcycle market is incomprehensible right now. there are a lot of motorcycles for sale for way more than what they are worth and no one is buying them yet they don't budge in the price. Really strange market. So, imagine my surprise when as interest was growing in my R75/6 sale I found a 1982 R100RT priced correctly in Madison. The R75 sold; I trailered it to Kenosha to meet with a buyer from Chicago. While I was making the sale of the R75 the owner of the R100RT called me from Madison to make an appointment to show it to me. I had boughten the R75/6 for $2000. I sold it for $3000. I gave that $3000 to the guy in Madison for the R100RT. In essence I traded straight across a 1976 R75/6 for a 1982 R100RT. I am that guy.
I have been prepping the R100RT for commuting work and it is almost there. For the most part I had to disassemble all of the fiberglass and replace/repair/tighten/fix every single connector on the fairing. The sidestand was wasted and has been replace with a Brown's stand. I replaced the old seat with a good 1979 RT seat from the donor bike (we'll get to that next). I replaced all of the oils including the forks and she is ready to go. For now. Soon I will convert the oil cooler thermostat valve to the R100GS no-valve oil cooler, replace brake pads ... that should do it. Nice.

Great River Run Rally (GR3) 2009

It is great to have a neighbor on the same street that likes sixes too. Pat had this idea, hey, let's go to the Great River Run Rally in Soldier's Grove WI this weekend! Motorcycle camping! Sure, I'd love too ... except that I don't have the six done yet. He has a 1975 R75/6 and I really want to travel with my R75 too. I'm in a pickle. The RS front end is making clunking noises (later I tighten the steering stem bearings and replace the damper valve circlip), The R100 is stripped of luggage and is not set up for camping ... I need to get this R75 done. All the previously mentioned work is done and I am working out the bugs in the dual-plug, electronic ignition system. I worked for hours on this from Sunday to Thursday and did get it done for leaving Friday morning but barely. The long story short is that I had to Dremel the advance mechanism base plate so that I could set the timing to 1° ATDC, replace the spark plugs with 5k ohm, route one cable from each coil to both cylinders and move the Dyna III ignition control out into the breeze to keep it cool. Sounds simple now but it took a lot of troubleshooting and trial and error to figure what worked best. I really believe that the biggest improvement was moving the Dyna III out from the hot place that the PO had mounted it, on top of the engine under the tank. It must have been overheating.
Anyway, Friday morning we finished up packing and hit the road. It was pretty cool to be cruising on pretty closely matched mounts ... two R75/6's. We had some rain and drizzle and hard south winds as we traveled but no problems. The rally was great like they said, the roads were nothing but fun, the camping was an adventure but even though it was 29° Sunday AM I slept real good and warm. We took the long way home and found some great deserted roads.

and then ... 1976 BMW R75/6

Don't even wait for that spot to grow cold. Time to get the next one on the lift.
Rebuild master cylinder, replace fork seals, dump the ATF out of the forks and put real fork oil in, replace the steering stem bearings, renew fluids, grease the final drive spline, for starters

Slimey Crud Run sighting

This was the first Slimey Crud Cafe Racer Run that I have ever attended. As soon as I pulled up in the parking lot at the Red Mouse in Pine Bluff WI this is the first bike that caught my eye!! bwahaha. The new owner drove over from Madison after fixing a defective starter relay.

Ship it out

Sold!! I had an offer from a guy in Madison that I really liked. He offered me cash plus his 1975 R60/6 in a box. I will elaborate on the R60 later but I thought that this was a really cool deal in that I had boxes of parts a couple of weeks ago and then I put it all together and now I have the cash that I need so badly and I have boxes of parts too! Well, my enthusiasm will be crushed later but today is a good day.

Wrap it up

Installing the instrument cluster, the headlight, adding fluids, adjusting things, double checking nuts and bolts, . . . . . finishing touches. I have video that is dated April 18 that is of the first start-up and alley test ride but I was still finishing things like wiring and such up until this day.

I had an issue with the shock absorbers; they would collapse as I was riding until the fender was into the tire. When I parked it they would slowly extend. This is not good. I swapped them out with a used pair that worked a little better.

Upgrade instrument cluster

This bike came without any speedo or tach; no instrument cluster at all. Way back when we located and won an eBay unit from Germany. This is a newer type with an electronic tach instead of the mechanical cable driven one. That is not a problem; it can be converted easily enough. What I didn't think about was the way that the indicating lights had been rearranged, both physically and electrically. At first I thought that I would just rewire it in the headlight shell. Nope, the plug from the instrument cluster goes straight into the main wiring harness. I cut the cable about a foot down from the plug and rewired it there by solder splicing them back together. That worked nicely.


Then I ran a separate wire the ended outside the cluster in an automotive connector. I hooked this up to a wire that I ran to the points wire on the coils. Now I have an electronic tach.

Initial start up

Off the stand

What is this? Competition??


It was really easy for me to put this frame on the stand all by myself but it is much heavier now. Had to use the hoist to lower it off the stand. I am such a wimp.

So now I can get the header, muffler and foot controls on.
Also, notice that Paul painted the "R75/6" badge on the starter cover. That made a big difference in blending the black to aluminum.

Handlebar is on ... or is it?

No, it is not. Another snafu. I was going to use these "S" bars but didn't realize that they will hit the tank if using the stock /6 triple tree top plate. These are coming back off and I will have to use the USA bar that I have; can't afford to buy the Euro bars that I would like to see on here.

Two wheeled motorcycle

The tank and seat are just set in place for conceptualization.
For the full black on black I was thinking of using the flat air filter assembly from the eighties. That is not going to happen. I didn't realize that the /6 tank's petcocks are placed differently than the newer ones and interfere with the air filter assembly. So, I am defaulting to the cast aluminum stock air filter assembly and starter cover.

It is really beginning to look like a motorcycle now.
Rear wheel is on.
Installed turn signals and taillight.

That is not a gray ghost in the background, that is the Norton all covered up.

Keep it up.

Fenders and front wheel.
I am pleased to see that the 17mm axle is working out just fine.
I am beginning to see the black on black come together.
It is bugging me that my photography sucks; there is a Norton Atlas that is cluttering up the picture in the background along with a bunch of other junk.

I mean it this time.

On go the triple tree, front forks, headlight shell with the wiring harness, coils, relays, ... pretty good days work, starting to build momentum here.

On with it

Organize, on the stand and attach the sub-frame. Now that there is a sub-frame we can attach the rear fork, drive shaft and shocks.

Focus .... what is this blog for?

This is actually Tuesday April 7th but I am back dating the next few posts to catch up on things.
I started this blog with honorable intentions. Buy a abused old BMW motorcycle and neatly journalize the restoration of that project. Very neat, concise and focused. Not happened yet and it ain't going to happen!! My life does not, has not and will not work in a neat, concise and focused manner. If you have followed this blog at all it has meandered seven different BMW motorcycles and I am about to blog about the eighth. Also, two Hondas have come and gone lately. Paul went to school and is back again. Luke has started school. I have lost my job and I am unemployed and searching. This is not about a motorcycle project, this is about life!!

This is a copy of a post I made on the BMWMOA forum

Well, I'm unemployed and the next job is not coming soon. I have been looking for ways to make extra cash and have been trying to flip motorcycles to see a small profit but that ain't working out that great. I'd rather only deal with airheads but
(A) most are going up for sale at twice what they are worth or
(B) if they are priced right they are
(B.1) absolute junk or
(B.2) sold within hours or less. I'm trying to work with '70's Hondas too but that is really risky.
Anyways, what this leads into is yesterday I called on a CL ad for a 1976 R75/6 and I called within the 1st hour. I left a message. I emailed. I left another message. I emailed again. I left a message. I went to bed and gave up. I woke up and there was an email apologizing and the owner would be calling me sometime this morning. Is this a blog or a thread? Sorry, ADD and on a scale of manic to depressive I'm manic right now. So, long story short, I drove an hour to pick up my 'new' BMW. Problem: I do not want to sell this one, something else has got to go. For a guy that grew up in the '70's this is a hot rod BMW. Somebody really took care of this one. It came from California, spent some time in Neenah WI and then the last five years in a very nice basement waiting to be cafed. This is one of the cleanest 33 year old motorcycles that I have seen. The Lester mags are cleaner and nicer than those on my 1980. Dual-plugged heads, electronic ignition, Koni shocks, San Jose anti-bottoming kit, nothing is missing, nothing is oxidized, comes with a big Clymers manual AND a BMW /6 service manual, all of the tools are there, crash bar, the Luftmeister is off but the lights have not been reinstalled. The bar-backs, American bars, Luftmeister and luggage rack will go on eBay but everything else is woot!! OK I'm happy.

2009-03-14 003

Take a stand ...

I have had this thing dangling from a hoist for so long which is not even professional looking or very easy to work on. I had just made a base for putting BMW's on the lift without having them sitting on the oil pan and then thought that the same base would be great for setting this one on too. So, I made another base and then made a stand for working on this. Looks really good and is very sturdy but, if you think about it, it's kind of a Mike Mulligan. If I assemble the whole motorcycle on this stand how do you get it off of the stand? That is where the hoist comes back into play. Still, better than being on the hoist full time.

front end, axles and wheels

Actually the aforementioned idea is working out pretty good. A series of events lately has proved that out.
On his birthday Luke said something about finding a complete front end so that we didn't have to mess with rebuilding one out of the two that I have for this bike. Just out of curiousity I went on eBay, found and won a complete front end; triple tree, bar clamps, forks and shocks, at a pretty nice price. I was pretty excited about that because that would cerainly make things easier and maybe things would start moving along. Yeah, right.
I received the forks. They were from a 1976 R90/6. I learned something new. In 1974 BMW's first disk brake was released on the new /6 series and as part of that design they went from the standard 17mm axle to 14mm. That didn't prove out to be a good idea so they quickly changed back to 17mm late in 1974. So, the 1974 front wheel that we have has a 14mm axle and I want to use a 17mm front end. See how simple this is?
I asked around and reviewed my options and what I am going to do is to modify the 1974 wheel hub so that I can uses post-1974 parts on it. This should be possible. I already have bought a 17mm axle and I needed to replace the bearings and seals anyway so the extra cost left is for the different 17mm axle spacing and shims. This should end well and it is giving me some momentum to get a little done.
Part of the momentum is that now I have three front ends and I want to just keep what I need and clear out the rest. I had today 9 auctions complete on eBay. Really disappointing. I had about $96 dollars in sales, 3 items didn't get any bids and the rest went for really low prices. Oh, well, cash is better than clutter.

Cleaning the stable II

Now that the R60/6 is gone the man-cave population consists of:
1982 R100RS 'Huckleberry'
1980 R100T 'Gilera'
1978 R100/7 - in storage. Another great buy but I am not sure what to do with it.
and, the star of this blog ...
1974 R75/6 ...

Yesterday I finally built the shelf over the motorcycles in the man-cave for helmets and riding gear. It looks like a firehouse now with the steeds ready to race off in a moments notice. I bought a 1"x 12"x 12' plank and all of the rest of the materials used to be a cedar picnic table.




The RS is getting it's top-end rebuild because that is my main ride. It is time to admit that this R75/6 project will be done over years ...



... I got everything out and laid it all out on the garage floor. I am moving all of this, except the frame and engine, into the basement for storage and safekeeping. Having it scattered all over the man-cave for years is creating a risk of losing or damaging parts. This way when someone has the time to work on this they can pull out carbs to rebuild or the forks or put new wheel bearings in ... we will continue on that way until light can be seen at the end of the tunnel. I was hoping that this would be done by now and it would if it were the only motorcycle but it is not. This will be awesome when it is done as you con invision from the photos above.

Cleaning the stable I

So, that sounded like a good plan and I did get the R100RS back on the road in August. It has proved to be the best bike ever; don't let Gilera hear me say that. Gilera did not get her tear down for maintenance. Instead I am prepping to take the R100RS back down so that I can have the top end rebuilt. 100 psi compression on both sides and about 140 psi when I oil the cylinder. I am looking at rebuilding the heads, oversize rings and new rod bearings. If I can afford it I would like to rebuild the brakes with EBC rotors and pads, re-pad the seat and new shock absorbers.

Meanwhile, or actually, before all of this, I had bought another R60/6 because I couldn't pass up that price. After some minimal work done to it, Luke rode it for part of the summer and fall. I have been trying to sell it since Sept. but I was way too greedy on the price. I just put it back up for sale at a reduced price and it finally has sold.

This is how it came in:
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This is how it went out: