The Carburetor Chronicles

Take Offs Round One

Friday night and I spent a couple of hours in the garage.  It was one of those days where you are only two or three decisions away from unemployment.  So I was in real need of some garage therapy.  My garage walls are insulated and I had an insulated garage door installed when we bought the house. One of the smartest moves I made. I more than doubled the outlets in the garage, and made them all GFI.  I still don't have enough.  I have a couple of small space heaters (see equipment section) that take the edge off but it is actually -4 degrees tonight so it will take a few minutes to preheat the garage. I get the garage warmed up just in time for my wife to come home, open the garage door and promptly turn the place into a meat locker.  The day is not getting any better.  Time for a beer and a sandwich.

Garage gets warm, sandwich gone (chipotle mayonnaise rules), beer gone, time for therapy.   Put new floats in the carb to finish them (see the Carb Chronicles).  Started the take offs. Work is going well and the shitty day melts away. 

The engine runs but the carbs need adjusted, engine needs tuned, and general maintenance issues still need done.  It does not look the bike will need any more mechanical work to be road worthy so I will start taking off parts for the powdercoater and the painter.  This is a very good thing because I have no ability to do much more than that, and my ability to do that is questionable.  

The dealer gave me a guy who has done hundreds of Beemers and uses Glasurit paint, uses the correct formula for your model year (if you are that anal). His name is "Billy Jay" and that is how he answers the phone, . . . cool. Billy Jay gives me name and number of a chromer.  All he has is his cell, he does not know his last name and he says I need to mention Billy Jay or I may not be able to get the work done.  This feels for all the world like I making a deal for good weed, . . . cool.  Billy Jay also gives me a ball park on a paint job that is more than half of what I paid for the bike, . . . not so cool.  Paint is the last thing you ought to skimp on, and if he is a good as I am told he is it will be more than worth the price he quoted me.

I think I am going to go with the traditional, but uninspired black with white pinstripes or maybe the green and gold they used on the R100CS.  If I am going to go with an "S" type of fairing I need to get it soon because I want every thing painted at the same time.

I found a guy selling an "S" fairing, and all of the body work from an R80 painted in a really nice color of white.  The color was originally used on Lincolns in the 50's.  It would work out to about the same price as getting my bodywork painted, and I would have a complete set of spare bodywork for use or sale.  The color is cool and some monochrome Von Dutch type pinstripes on the tank would look really great and make BMW purists go nuts, which I consider an added bonus.  I am not a huge Dutch fan, but I love his pin striping.

He striped a few BMW's in his time.

Von Dutch even striped a /2 BMW with a sidecar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The bike will probably wind up basic BMW black, and no added bonus.  Maybe I am a traditionalist after all, God I am getting old. Damn kids and their rock and roll anyway.  Maybe I'll just go completely crazy and get red or yellow spark plug wires, whoo hooo.

Anyway, the first thing to go is the seat. For now I am keeping track of the nuts, bolts, etc. by placing them back into the original holes. I am going to get a stainless set from the bolt guy. It is a couple hundred bucks, but for the frustration factor alone on reassembly I think it will be money well spent. Nearly all of the fasteners are corroded all to hell anyway. All those years of sitting have taken their toll.

Then the racks gotta go. I thought they would be easier than they were. I undid the side bolts and thought I could lift if off from the back.  No dice. The dark spots are liquid wrench. Patience and chemicals can save you a lot of heartache.  You will probably hear that a few hundred times on this site.

I tried taking off the bolt at "B" and still no dice. Had to also take off the bolts at "A" to get it off.   If you are trying a job like this and you do not have any liquid wrench stop what ever you are doing and go get some. No, seriously, go now. Trust me on this. 

I can't decide if I am going to have the racks re-chromed or powdercoated black.

I took off the rear fender and the exhaust pipes. It was pretty uneventful and the parts came off without a lot of effort.  

Seeing it like this really makes me want to go cafe with the bike. The problem is part of why I bought the R100 was so I could run off with my wife for a weekend or two over the summer, and maybe make a rally somewhere this year. So the cafe project will have to wait for a /5 or /6.  The /5's make the best looking cafe racers anyway.  Gives me a reason to have a complete collection of airheads. My next bike will probably be a Toaster R75/5 if I can find the right deal on one.

Here are the takeoffs from tonight. Front and rear fenders, side covers, mufflers, seat, luggage racks, bag mounts, rear pegs and lots of dirt and grease.

The mufflers are not in terrible shape, but they are not great either. I took some of this stuff, any body who ever spent time in the Navy learned to love (or maybe hate) this stuff when they had to polish brass. This stuff works great but it takes a lot of elbow grease as well (ok, hate it is). I spent a few minutes on one of the mufflers and the change was palpable.

After about ten minutes of elbow grease and some nevr-dull here is the result.

They are original equipment so maybe I will just put in the polishing time and reuse these. I really want some Epco stainless mufflers, but they are not cheap.  When I was in the Navy I hated polishing anything with a passion.  Polishing the muffler was satisfying, maybe because no one was making me do it. Seeing the corrosion almost disappear was great. Doing it for the amount of time it will take to clean these mufflers up might be a bit much though, we'll see.

That is all for tonight. It is about 1:20 a.m., the crappy day is long forgotten, some good work has been done, and I feel like I have earned my sleep tonight.

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