Click that ratchet to tighten

Gilera, you know Gilera, the German BMW that somehow gave me the same feeling as my first motorcycle (1st vehicle) what was an Italian Sears Gilera 124. Actually, Gilera is a 1980 BMW R100T, favorite for unexplainable emotional reasons. Also the most neglected when it comes to care. Ride it, ride it hard, put it away wet. Abusive. I have known for a long time that there are things that need to be taken care of to keep this thing on the road but other 'priorities' always bumped Gilera. Until I finally put her up on the lift, when was that, a freaking year ago, i don't remember. Still progress was slow and intentions were good. What has helped is that I sold the R100RS so now the R100RT is the only roadworthy. That gives me more funds and more time and less roadworthy maintenance. I have been working on Gilera but it has always been in the remove/take apart/disassemble mode. Today I just realized that I hit the bottom of the valley and am beginning to climb up to reassemble time. I have almost nothing else that I can take apart off this carcass and while I am waiting on parts I began to reassemble the rear fender/turn signals/brake light.
The heads are out for inspection and rebuild. I am getting a new cam chain and crankshaft sprocket. When I get the timing chain cover back on I can get back to replacing the rear main seal. I am down to the bare bones on the engine block and while waiting on parts I am working on some of the body parts.
Body parts? Yep, Frankenbike.
This is a 1980 R100T.
The valve covers are from a 1974 R75/6.
The nikasil cylinders are from a 1981 R100.
The clutch plate is from a 1979 R100RT.
The front end forks, brakes, electronic ignition, etc. are from a 1983 R100RS. I am not going to tell you about the trick suspension stuff that is in there.
The polaris silver paint set with the blue pinstripe is from a 1981 something. (?)
The seat is from a 1978 R100/7.
The cast aluminum turn signals are from something before 1975. The front ones came from a 1974 R75/6 and I am not sure what the rear ones came from, I just picked them up in Pecatonica this year.
The brake light is from a /6 but I may replace the lens with an early /5 before I am done.
The San Jose BMW steering top plate is from a 1983 R100RS.
The San Jose reinforced swing arm is from a 1975 R60/6 cafe project (basket case).
The Reynolds luggage rack is from a 1976 R75/6.
The crash bar is from ?
The hand guards are from a R80G/S.
The transmission is from, oh , I forget right now, you get the general idea. The cream rises to the top and Gilera gets the best parts that I can find.

I knew that I liked her ....

I heard this Democrat Congresswoman interviewed on the radio the other day concerning the new session of Congress along with a Congressman from Illinois. I really liked her attitude, her grace, her words. Now I come to find out that she is one of us ...
I have this on my desktop at home and at work to remind me to pray to God our Father for her healing.

Patty and Miss Kim

The story is that one day some renters across the alley were moving out and I saw this head sticking out from all the stuff that they were throwing out. This is Patty who previously was used for hairdresser's school but now protects my cave. Scares the heck out of people walking past the window.



Much later, I was in somebody's basement looking at a 1976 R75/6 basket case that he had for sale and while working the deal I saw this head sticking out of box of parts. I laughed and told him the story of Patty. He said that if I bought the bike I could have Miss Kim too. Deal! Miss Kim is meaner, too mean to sit in the window. She resides in the remnants of an R100RT fairing.



Don't laugh, it works! No hairdressers or red-headed women have ever broken into my cave!

Huckleberry's new skin

ta da

I'm cheating here ... I posted the photo on 1/1/2011 (that's twenty eleven, not two thousand ) but I'm blogging on the evening of the 3rd. As soon as I got the new paint set on Huckleberry I went into a slump, depression, holiday blues(?) Can't explain it. I think it is because everything has been goal oriented and suddenly, pfffft! I was done, enough, through. Christmas preparations, getting started on Gilera, the long day trip to harvest the RS fairing, spending the next two days making everything fit ... suddenly I was tired. I was only able to squeeze in a little 15-20 minute test ride and then everything was put away. 

I have bills to pay.

I have customers waiting on shipping quotes for Bruff motorcycle parts.

I have more Bruff parts to advertise.

I have housework to do.

I have ...

I got through yesterday by riding Toad over to a section of White River Trail and hiking down the trail for awhile. Today I'm back to work and I was able to get Huckleberry out for an errand to the store.

I just want to ride ... there are borderlands of the stateline that I haven't seen yet.

Huckleberry's new skin

I'll post pictures tomorrow. I am almost done. I have to put the exhaust back on to the R100RS and then it is complete.
If you read the sidebar from December 28th then you'll know where I'm going with this one.
I got Huckleberry several years ago and we have gotten along just fine except for his mismatched, faded, cracked, damaged, chipped, red-smoke paint job. I am not big on pretty and I rationalize that if it was really nice paint I would have to stress about taking care of it. Still, where is your pride, man?
Gilera is poised to get the well preserved Polaris Silver paint set from the swap meet which frees up her tank, fenders and side covers. You saw the attempt that I made in the sidebar to justify mixing that with the RS fairing. The picture looks better than real life. The nice silver paint brings out every flaw in the RS fairing.
Yesterday, 12/30, my daughter Beth, her faithful puppy, Maya, and I drove to Indianapolis, about 5 hours. We got there about 12:30 EST and went to work on this 1978 R100RS that this fellow intended to cafe. He had the luggage mounts off already but the fairing was all my job. I thought that I was well prepared with the floor jack and special tools but I got caught by a couple of snafus. One was that I forgot that the split lowers didn't come along until 1979 with the original RT and I did not have a header nut wrench; the headers have to come off to remove the lowers. That ultimately was accomplished by having the cafe wannabee buy a good channel-lock pliers and I very patiently, carefully worked on the header nuts until they loosened up. They suffered only minor damage from the pliers; blemishes that could be Dremel'ed out. As a last resort I was prepared to offer this guy a used set that I would send to him if we needed to break these ones off. The reason that I didn't need to is because this was a NEARLY PERFECT MOTORCYCLE!!
OK, let's get into that, let me vent. This guy is not an airhead. He has a newer BMW and got it into his head that he wants to build a cafe airhead project. More money than ..., oh, don't say it again, please? There is nothing wrong with a cafe project but the whole spirit of cafe is to take a well used mount and make it as efficient and mean as possible. Someone had told this guy that an RS would make a good cafe bike. Why? It is essentially the same as any other model except for the fiberglass and that is all that he did not want. So, he found this 1978 R100RS for $2500 and figured that this was the one. It is actually a hill of a deal. I am really curious about the history of this one because there was obviously a whole lot of care, labor and dollars invested in this bike and it seems that it was done recently. So, why was it going for so little $money? I wish that I was there 1st. The paint is brand new. I doubt if it has ever seen a bug on the highway yet. Lester mags, dual-plugged, electronic ignition, Corbin seat, ... this thing was built. It looks like somebody's baby. I took the RS fairing and the Krauser  luggage with the factory mounts and Beth, her dog and I hit the road about 4:30 EST. I searched out an Asian dinner to reward Beth for being so patient and we continued on getting home about 9:30 CST. I was kidding to Beth about betting if I would jump right in on swapping the paint set out in the morning or not.
I did jump right in. It took all day to take the old red smoke off and get the silver on. I have it all back together except for the exhaust system which, because of the 1978 non-split lowers, I want to get prepped really well so that they will be easy to remove and replace the next time that I want to get the right lower off to change the oil filter. The silver paint is remarkably well matched to the Polaris Silver, I might judge better in good sunlight, but it looks great to my tired eyes in man-cave night time fluorescent light.
Pictures tomorrow ... or next year sometime.
addendum:
It was 55° here at about 9:30 PM on New Year's Eve. The temperature is now finally falling and will continue to drop to a predicted high of 21° tomorrow. I will predict that I will test drive the new Huckleberry tomorrow in the teens. None of this global warming for me, thank you!

1982 BMW R100RT, the next winter ...

The roads are dry enough and the temperature was in the low thirties. I got out this afternoon and decided to visit the same roadside that I had stopped on in January. I tried to take the same photo shots as I did then from memory and got kinda close. I wanted to document the changes that I have made this year on this RT. This is on State Line Road just north of Hebron IL
January:

January 2010

December 2010

January 2010

December 2010: 1982 R100RT with R80RT Colorado Red fairing, Krauser bags, Parabellum windshield, Reynolds articulated rear rack, 1979 R100RT battery covers, rear drum brake from a 1983 R100, EBC front rotors ...

This reminds of a picture that I found online in the early nineties, after my /6 and before Sharona the 1988 R100RT. I was bike-less and then I was on a Honda V30 and was dreaming of those nice old BMW motorcycles. I found a really neat black & white picture of a 1979 R100RT parked on the side of the road in the snow. I was impressed; riding in the snow!! .

Gilera's Attention

I burned up the 1st bottle of propane this year.
I have the swing arm off, the exhausts off and the transmission out. It is time to study on the rear main seal replacement. I have gotten to the point where most stuff is done without a manual except to look up torque settings and the like but when it comes to something like a rear main seal, getting past the clutch and flywheel, ... I got to study on that.
I am not happy about the condition of the transmission input spline shaft. Shortly after I got Gilera, in the first big go-over, I had replaced the clutch so that spline bore is practically brand new. The spline shaft was worn a little but I let it go. Now, I think that I had better look into what it would take to replace this.

Side bar:
When I bought Huckleberry, the R100RS, the only thing that bugged me was that it was a red smoke. I don't like red motorcycles. And then when I bought the R100RT I was pleased with the black paint with white and red pinstripe but was disgusted to find out that there where hidden repairs to the fairing and fairing frame. That problem was solved by swapping out with a good R80RT fairing but, you could have guessed it, it is ... red, Colorado Red. That works and got the RT the name Toad.
No simple stories when it comes to my bikes. At Pecatonica this year my big score was a complete and perfect Polaris Silver paint set with blue pinstripes. The plan is it dress Gilera up really nice with this as her Polaris Silver is aged and not quite matched, no pin stripes on the fenders, etc. Normally I pay for a purchase with this by selling the parts that are being replaced. Well, the idea popped into my head that Huckleberry sure would look good in silver. What to do about the fairing though. Here is what I experimented with today:

Mmmmm .... no. It looks raggedy patched up and brings out the worst in the worn out red fairing. There is a fella in Indianapolis that is going to cafe the RS that he just bought. I offered to come down there and take it off for him ... it is a recent paint job that from all the digital pictures looks really close to Polaris Silver. Certainly a closer match than this! Money is tight right now. but still ...