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: