Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners

If you fit a side car to any 1955 - 1968 BMW, According to BMW service bulletins, you are supposed to run STEEL rims. The aluminum rims are much more fragile, and warp more easily. Think about this. Once you fit a side car, it is no longer a motorcycle. Motorcycles lean in corners, side car rigs are...

Concerning the 1955 - 1969 throttles: "Did BMW make a quicker throttle with the same appearance?" The answer is no. That is not to say that you cannot make a change in the speed of the throttle response. It would not be easy to do, but it could be done. In the photo, is the cam gear and chain that p...

Jim, You asked me: What would be the best way to attach the magnets if an aluminum oil pan is used? Instead of putting the magnet directly in the oil pan, put it on top of the steel, screened oil pickup. Then, when you do drop the pan to clean the "hair" off the magnet, you will have to remove the p...

You wrote: Working on a 1958 R60 vin 619236. Good piston shows 72.45mm (1st oversize?) Yes, that is first over. But let me inform and caution you. First of all, pistons are measured nominally. What that means is, a 72.45, or a 72.47 or a 72.49 are all nominally considered to be 72.5, first oversize....

To answer everyone's questions You want to use only the high temp magnets. The oil temp will kill the strength of a magnet not designed for high temps. You want to put them inside the pan. That will expose ALL the sides to the oil. Yes you would put them on the outside, and no, they will NOT fall of...

This is where I bought POWERFUL nickel plated rare earth magnets.

https://www.kjmagnetics.com/

What fills up the slingers, by centrifugal force, is the wear of the rings and cylinders. If you put a magnet on the scraped out sludge, you will find that the magnet will pick put 100% of the sludge. There are two things you can do, to slow this process WAY down. The first is to have the cylinder w...

I told all my customers, and anyone else that will listen, the following: One should avoid heavily tickling the carbs. If you must tickle, a quick "blip" on each one should suffice. If you hold the ticklers down until gas pours out, you can get the plug wet with gas. My experience has been, and I ha...

Charlie, I can safely say, that even on a patched asphalt back road, it will "beat the shit out of you" at any moderate or high speed. ;) I never ran mine off the road, but I can imagine what it would be like. (painful at our age) One thing I learned years ago, with the hard tail BMW's (or any brand...

A silly question, but: You DID remove the lower ball race from the base of the steering stem, didn't you? If not, then that is why it appears not to fit. I sold, and personally installed LOTS of the tapered 31 42 1 000 000 tapered bearings for over 20 years and I never encountered any problems with ...