Friday, February 27, 2009
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.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
