Launch date

After Bob fixed the threads on the tank, it went on just fine. The last little bits went together, including hooking up the gas lines, checking over the bolts to make sure they were all tight (I found a couple that were NOT), and finally filling the engine with engine oil, the transmission, drive shaft and final drive with gear oil and the gas tank with gas.

Here's what it looked like, ready to go:

 

       

I kicked it through a few times to get the fluids flowing, turned on the gas, primed it, and two kicks later, at 5pm on June 6, 2011 it was purring. Rick adjusted the play in the throttle cables and adjusted the idle on the two carburetors to make them match. I have to say, it was pretty exciting to start it up and have it sound so great!

We put on a temporary mirror for the left side so I could ride it and yesterday (June 13th), I took it out to stretch its legs. We got up to about 55 and she wanted to run, but I thought we should build a little more trust before I give her the reins... :-) We went along a road near LAX airport and then down along the ocean and back to the shop — about 15 miles all in all.

I've been trying to choose mirrors. You see, BMW had a threaded hole for an Albert mirror on the left side controls, but not on the right (and I want mirrors on both sides.) There is an option to put a kind of ugly bracket on the handlebars and a straight stem and have a second Albert mirror on the right. You can also put mirrors on the side of the headlight bucket and then you're looking back under the handlebar, which seems kind of awkward. You could use bar end mirrors, but while those bar end turn signals that you see in the pictures were an option when this bike was built, I want to keep them.

Here's my solution...I have mirrors on order from a very interesting guy. Joe Groeger has been an engineer and special tool maker. He designed specially tooled brackets to go on the handlebar between the handgrip and the turn signal to hold a mirror. I tracked him down and he couldn't have been nicer. He's obviously very proud of his work. He's sending the brackets and mirrors to me and hopefully they'll be just right. Once they're on, I'll post a picture of what they look like.

I'm going to keep the bike at Rick's shop for a little while longer while I gather some tools in case I need to work on it at home and also, I'll need to make some more adjustments to it after it's been ridden 50 miles and I'd like to get Rick's help with that. There are still a couple of little fixes to make... there's a little leak from the drive shaft boot and there's a kind of ticking sound that seems to correspond to the speed of the wheels. I'll have to jack it up when it's cool and see if I can re-create that sound and resolve it. More on that later, but it's launched! It's kind of surreal to think that it's done... Now I'll have to make room in my garage for it...and ride it!

Oh yeah...and just as a reminder... this is where it started last October:

The last bits take a while...

It seems like the last bits take a very long time. Where exactly should the wires and cables run? Which mirrors should I use? (Perfectly authentic or safer and more functional? -- not yet decided, by the way.)

Then there are the little things that you didn't count on. For example, there is an electrical "switch" — kind of a hub where all of the electrical wires meet in the headlight bucket. It is suspended from the top by sliding four metal tabs (part of a bracket welded to the top of the bucket) through slots in the board and then bending them over.

Here are a couple of pictures:

The arrows point to the 4 tabs
The one on the top left is easiest to see.

This board also holds in the key mechanism, so when the key pushes in, it pushes on a part that makes contact with the electrical mechanism. If you bend them too much, the metal gets brittle and eventually breaks, just like bending a paper clip until it breaks. You don't want that. If a tab breaks, you have to take the whole thing apart and get the tab welded back on, possibly ruining the beautiful new paint job. We were very careful when putting this board back in, but once it was all put together, we discovered that the key connection was not so great. The key was not staying in, disrupting the electrical contacts. In short, it had to come out again, risking the metal tabs breaking. It took a great deal of work. We got the tabs up and the switch out without any disasters.

First we addressed the key mechanism and eventually found that of the two small ball bearings that hold the key in place, one was missing. Here's a diagram of how that works. Sorry - no pictures of this. I was too caught up in the finish line...

We replaced that ball bearing, so we were ready to put it back together. I read about a process called "annealing" where you heat up metal till it's glowing orange and then let it cool back down to room temperature. By doing that, you sort of "reset" the brittleness of the hardened, brittle metal and make it more malleable and hence, less likely to break. The concern in doing this is that you don't want to heat the paint up too much and ruin that. As directed by the manual from Barrington Motor Works, we put the headlight bucket upside down on a cool wet towel and applied a torch to the tabs one at a time, letting it cool from time to time so the whole headlight bucket didn't get too hot. The process worked beautifully, the metal was much more malleable and it all went together beautifully and it's now working great.

Another issue we didn't expect was trouble bolting in the gas tank. As I worked on the painted bike, I found from time to time that paint had gotten into the threads of exposed holes for bolts. To fix that, I would "chase" the threads with a tap to clean it out. Usually, this is just a little time consuming, but no problem. This time, however, I couldn't get the tap to grab on one of the two sides. The beginning threads were stripped and none of the taps in the shop worked. Incidentally, this was not the tank that was on the bike originally. I found out, from the owner before the last owner that the original tank had been stolen. This tank I got from Rick and it had never been on my bike, or I would have know that this was an issue. I probably should have checked that out before it went out to paint, but you can't think of everything! Anyway, we tried, unsuccessfully, for a while to get the tap started and then the next morning I bought a fresh tap that was sharper and had a slightly blunter point, so it could grab the threads sooner and it worked. Here's a photo of Bob Gregor as he carefully got the tap started:

A smiling Bob on hearing that he would be rocketed to fame on this blog.

Not much more to do, once the tank is on, I can fill it up with gas, engine oil, gear oil and see if she starts...

Looks like a motorcycle!

After my last post, I looked through some of the old photos of my bike and it's come a long way! I was struck by one of the photos I got from Hector, who sold me the bike. It's a picture of the rusty, dirty handlebar risers. Today I took a photo of them as they are now so I could do a before and after...

Before                                                                     After   (Just in case you couldn't tell...)

There is a decorative piece that attaches to the header pipe. Ostensibly, it's meant to direct the air to flow over the cylinders to help with cooling. It doesn't make much of a difference, apparently, and I was going to skip putting them on, but today I cleaned them up in the glass bead cabinet and they look pretty good. Here's another before and after... the glass bead cabinet. Actually, they'd both already been washed in the parts tank...

Oh yeah, we also put the wheels on today:

And the engine:

And the transmission:

More headway...

Here's another one from a few weeks ago...

Clean piston rings on the piston

When we measured the cylinder bore, we didn't need to size up the pistons or rings. If you're wearing out the cylinder, there will be too much space for the piston or the cylinder won't be smooth and  you have to bore it out and go to a larger size piston. This bike was in good shape and we could stick with the original size pistons. I got new rings for it and put them on the nice clean piston.

This is where she sleeps now...

Photo op at sunset in the garage.

Lacing up the wheels. I got new stainless steel spokes from Buchanan's and lubed them up and attached them all to the rim and the hub for both wheels so Bob could true them. Below is a picture of Bob patiently adjusting them, minimizing the "bumpity-bump" and the "wobbledy-wobble". (I've been working on my technical jargon...)

 

Trying it out on the bike, hanging on the
freshly installed final drive.

Waiting for the inner tubes.

That is a pretty tank, eh? I think the red pin striping came out great!

 To fully restore the medallions is a lot of work. The quotes and estimates I got were around $400 each!! Yikes. So, I asked Tony, the pin-striper, if he would take a shot at it and he made them look much much better! And they look great on the tank.

Improved medallion.

The rim, snugly in its tire. 

The handlebars went on today and it's so nice to have them on! I don't know why...maybe because that's what you hang on to control the bike all the time, or maybe it's like a head or a face, but I think it really makes the bike start to come to life.

HANDLEBARS!!

Finally!

It's finally time to put the parts together! I had a long wait for paint. I didn't really want to buy new chrome wheels and I couldn't find the high shouldered Weinmann aluminum rims that I did like, so after a great deal of debate, I finally decided to get the rims powder coated the same color as the frame — the same "Dover White" that the bike was painted originally in 1967. When I saw the rims, I knew they were wrong. They were more of a light yellow than the nice soft white that they should have been. Charlie, the painter, told me that he'd matched a spot on my old rusty headlight rather than using the original color that he'd used for these bikes before, and then matched the paint for the rest of the bike to that powder coat. He'd already painted the frame that wrong color. I don't know why that happened, but I suspect it had to do with the powder coating. I had been under the impression that we could match the powder coating to the color of the bike paint, but actually, I guess it's not so simple to match powder coat, so perhaps he tried to pick a stock powder coat color that was close to dover white and then match that with the paint. So, we had to start over again. Charlie repainted the frame and then we clearly had to re-powder coat the rims as they didn't look good against the dover white. I chose a different color that I thought would contrast and complement the white. I went with a gray and then chose a burgundy red for the pin striping. I added stripes to the rims and will use the same color for the pin striping on the dover white fenders and gas tank.

Here's a picture of the rims with the red stripes:

I know, I know... it's not "correct." BMW never put rims like this on its bikes and to my knowledge, never used red pin striping on the bike itself, but this is one place (maybe the one place) where I'm sidestepping authenticity. So far, everyone who's seen it has loved it, though, and I'm pretty happy with it. It's also a big savings over the Weinmann aluminum high shoulder rims that I did not win on eBay! I'm now happy with that loss.

I'll include pictures of the rims laced up with the hub and fresh stainless steel spokes next time. 

Now, I have to back up a bit as it's been so long since my last post...

I can't remember what I'd been working on here, but this was back in the middle of February. Clearly, I was still into something messy. Maybe I was cleaning up the brake shoes...?

No idea how all of that ended up on my face...

Brake linings...

After removing the brake shoe linings and cleaning up the brake shoes, we took them over to Dale at M&D Auto Parts. Okay, this might be a bit incorrect as well, but I understand it's safer and better. Rather than attach new linings with rivets, we had them do it a more modern way — with some sort of bonding. They're basically glued on. I understand that this is a more reliable way to do it and then you don't have to worry about wearing the brakes down to the rivets.

Brake shoes on Dale's counter.

Look at the before and after on this piston!

Just imagine that every time the engine runs, this piston is taking the brunt of every other explosion. I guess it should be called "combustion" and I say every OTHER because there are two cylinders and two pistons, but you can see all of the caked on carbon on there. A light cleaning on the wire wheel and it comes out nice and clean.

The cylinders...

I wasn't sure how to clean the outside of the cylinders. Several sources told me that it was just fine to glass bead them. Glass beading is like sandblasting, with a powder of crushed glass. It works great for getting rust and paint and gunk off of tight places, but no matter how well you mask the inside of the cylinder, the powder finds its way in. The sharp edges of these beads can get embedded into metal and no matter how much you scrub, they might only come out some time later and find their way into the workings of the engine. Not good. However, Garrick over at Kelly's Block Welding was pretty confident that it would be fine. He does a good cleaning afterwards in the hot wash - like a big industrial dish washer. I asked him if there was anything else I could do and he suggested washing it with soap in some hot water. I filled up a pot and put the cylinder in and washed it in as hot water as I could stand. Garrick warned me that I should dry it in the oven or blow dry it quickly so that it doesn't rust. That steel can rust quickly. I had no idea how quickly:

It bloomed even as I was drying it! Very disappointing. Now what? I tried cleaning it with rags and sandpaper, but I couldn't possibly get into every nook and cranny and I still had to clean it off before I could paint it black. I called Garrick and found out that he also does soda blasting. That's like glass beading, but with baking soda powder. Harmless! It's also not as effective on rust and paint, so it wouldn't have worked in the first place, but it worked great on this light rust, taking it all off easily. Garrick was great about it - didn't even charge me for the soda blasting. I painted it up quickly and it looks great! This photo doesn't show how black it is as the flash reflected a bit, but this was just after painting, in my garage, while the inside of the cylinder was still masked off.

Much better!

The painted frame came in and we got the bike up on its stand right away:

There were quite a few holes that got filled with paint that I had to clean out, either chasing the threads or for plain holes, sanding it out with a little round sanding drum on a dremel tool. That sanding technique saved me so much time!! It cleaned out the holes easily and well it was quick.

Here's a picture of some nice clean grease on the bearings. It looks dirty, but is clean and fresh and doesn't compare to what was in there before!!

Special thanks to hand model, Rick Monohan

Parts are going on quickly now...

 

Very satisfying to add that BMW plate.

I'm trying to be very careful during the installation to avoiding chipping paint, but it's unavoidable. That's what touch-up paint is for.

I've made more progress already, but I seem to have left my camera in the shop, so I'll have to add those next time. I think this is going to come together quickly now, providing that we haven't forgotten to order  anything that we can't get quickly...

The wait for the paint way over what I'd been promised was frustrating. That said, Charlie does a nice job and charges very reasonable prices. He's a really nice guy, but when your vintage project bike is sitting around getting even OLDER, it's hard to wait! I'm glad the wait is over and check back soon for more updates.

I plan to be riding this bike in May!! Hold me to it!

Shiny Metal

The cad-plated parts and re-chromed metal came back today. Of course, I found a couple more pieces that I'd missed taking with the first batch, so those will come later, but I got lots of shiny metal today and it really does look beautiful. Just knowing what it looked like before it went out, makes this even more satisfying.

Here are some pictures...

Chrome:

Cad:

I had to make the pictures big... 

             Pretty, right??

Sending the parts out

Well...I met my self-imposed deadline of getting the parts out for paint, cad-plating, and chrome and I ordered the parts I need. It was right down to my deadline, though, of the 18th of January and I was going out of town, so the blog had to wait till I got back...

Here's the pile of parts waiting for Charlie to pick them up and take them for a nice sandblasting and painting:

Most of the bike will be painted Dover White, as it was at the factory in 1967. Certain parts were always black. Thanks to Chris at Barrington Motor Works for helping me figure out which ones should be black (engine mounts, foot peg mounts, handlebar controls, and the tire pump.) The air filter housing gets painted silver as do the hub caps. The metal is in surprisingly good shape, with only a few slightly misshapen parts and dings, so we marked those up and Charlie will fix those before painting.

One little hiccup we had was removing the drive shaft from the swing arm. That sucker was really stuck in there. Finally, Rick and Bob teamed up and using the press in the shop, put a tremendous amount of pressure on it. It didn't come right out, even then. After a day under pressure and then some heat from a blow torch, thanks to Johnny, who owns the shop, it came out with a big bang. I wasn't there to hear it, but that's what I'm told. It came out unscathed and the swing arm was ready for paint.

To prep the steel parts for cad-plating, I had to clean them all up. The cleaner and smoother they are, the better the coating of cadmium you get, so I spent hours in front of a wire wheel, cleaning rust and grim off of metal parts. The big parts are easy and fun and quick. Very satisfying as you see years of filth disappear in a few seconds, quickly replaced by a nice dull sheen. The little tiny lock washers and nuts are still satisfying, but tricky to do without grinding the skin off of your fingers or losing the parts under some clutter in the shop.

Dirty and tired, this is a rare moment when the leather gloves were off.

Before & after springs

Half clean metal clamp.

  

 I do like getting dirty working on the bike, but there's something so satisfying about seeing them all clean.

"Do not lose!" hard to find pieces ready for cad-plating.

To be chromed...

 Tomorrow I'll prep the rims for powder coating. That's not authentic - the rims were always chrome or the Weinmann rims were aluminum, but this is less expensive and lower maintenance and totally reversible, so I thought I'd give it a try...

Besides that, we have to make sure that the engine doesn't need to go out for any repair, see if we might need new rings on the pistons and I don't know what else. After that, we'll start putting it back together!