Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Upgrades, Repairs and Maintenance

I finally got the heads sent out to Porters Beemershop in Castro Valley, CA. There wasn't much difference between UPS 2nd day and UPS ground much to my surprise, so they should be there sometime today. I have yet to get an estimate of the time for the repair but last Spring, I did get a good idea of the cost. Quite a bit of thought this last Summer went into trying to figure out if the repairs were worth it. After all, the bike is 27 years old and has over 60K miles on it. I think that I'll probably have this old bike for quite a while and one of these days, I would like to put a side car on it.

Upgrades or repairs
  • Replace the valves seats and valves for use with unleaded fuel
  • Replace the stock 280 watt charging system with a 450 watt aftermarket (this also gets rid of the diode board)
  • Find more appropriate tires for use on all of the dirt/gravel roads in the area
  • Adapt the stock luggage mounts to use with the Reynolds rear rack
  • Upgrade rear lighting as the single tail/brake light is pretty anemic
  • Supplemental front lighting
  • Rebuild and balance the carburetors or at least take a look inside the bowls
Winter maintenance
  • Replace brake fluid, engine oil/filter, transmission oil, driveshaft oil, final drive oil
  • Replace oil in the front forks
  • Replace front fork boots
  • Grease final drive splines
  • Check out all of the brake pads
An update from the Beemershop. About 3 weeks before shipping them back.

    4 comments:

    1. Sidecar - Cool!
      Lots of nice projects to fill the winter months. I even recognize what most of them are.



      ...Definitely get a sidecar!

      ReplyDelete
    2. Sounds like a lot of projects and maintenance in the works. That'll keep you out of trouble. How's the weather up there?

      ReplyDelete
    3. bluekat:
      Still doing a lot of research into what is needed to add one to the old bike. Many people seem to think that it's a bad idea since BMW never approved the model for sidecar use.

      Trobairitz:
      Lots of projects. Today it has warmed up considerably. All the way up to -15F and it really does feel warm. Lots of people out walking today during lunch including a few runners.

      ReplyDelete
    4. I need to become more knowledgeable so I can do more stuff like that. Enjoy your project.

      ReplyDelete