Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners

My 1968 R69S came to me with one of these installed and removing it was the first thing I did. The look is all wrong for a vintage BMW. It reminded me of a toy I had as a kid. I think it was called a Light-Bright.

Ditch that thing for a standard pan. If the bike needed more than 2 quarts, the guys who designed it would’ve said so. Oil changes with the standard pan are easy peasy. Drain hot oil, dump in 2 quarts and go. No measuring or fiddling around. Someone’s always trying to reinvent the wheel and in this ...

Can anyone speak to the driveshaft bellows tolerance of hypoid gear oil? These rubber boots seem to deteriorate rapidly and I’m wondering if hypoid gear oil could be a contributing factor.

I seem to recall reading that hypoid gear oil is more effective at reducing wear on helical gears and perhaps that’s what caused the change in recommendation.

Have you opened your gearbox after using this GL5 and inspected the condition of the brass bushings?

Isn’t Lucas a GL-5 product?

Wow! Great post. Thanks for sharing. Your gearbox mod is excellent reading.

I assume you didn’t recalculate the end play/shims in the gearbox after your last service but it sounds like it’s still working great. Very interesting.

I’d use Gl4 85/90 assuming you’ve got helical gears in that box. Not GL5!

Wow that end play looks massive. I don’t know if there’s a spec but you want very little play. I just like to see slight oil squish with I pull up/down but zero click if that makes sense. I don’t have a 51/2 but if you loosen your rocker bolts you should be able to tighten that up with a clamp and a...

My latest batch of gearbox tools are pretty poorly made. None of the holes perfectly line up and all need to be somewhat widened to use. It seems his quality is really slipping. I’ve ordered a few alternate tools from Salis recently and the quality is night and day. If only Salis had all the tools i...