Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners

The damper from my '67 has been in the spare parts box for about fifty years. The bike is about to turn over 90,000 miles and there are no signals yet that removing it was a mistake. It's a gently used bike that's never seen a lot of stress, so maybe it's not a good example.

I think an appreciation and retrospective on Benchmark Works in the VBMWMO magazine is in order. Who is close enough to the operation, with detailed knowledge of the history, to write such an article?

I'm always intrigued by the range of opinions on slingers. As I recall, Duane Auschermann has said that he never saw a service bulletin on this. With thousand-mile detergent oil changes and relatively gentle use, the slingers on my faithfully maintained '67 R69S were cleaned at 57,000 miles. They we...

I almost feel disloyal to the /2, but I have to echo Kurt's point of view. I had an R75/7 that was the smoothest, most trouble-free bike I've ever owned. I sold it around 1987 and have regretted the loss ever since.

Just FYI, Keihan offer both 36mm and 38mm stainless mufflers for the R69S: http://www.keihan.co.uk/stainless.html

The slingers on my R69S were serviced at 57,000 miles after forty-some years of thousand-mile oil changes and otherwise good maintenance. They were half full. The bike just turned 90,000 miles and hasn't missed a beat.

When my R69S needed mufflers, I bought a set of stainless Epcos and regretted it almost immediately. They are ill fitting and LOUD! The guy who makes (made?) them advised me to make a shim out of a beer can to get the muffler to sort of seal where it slides over the header. I soon tossed them on the...

Why would you put grease on your rims? Every bit of dust and dirt will stick to the grease and you'll have a right mess. Why not just use a good chrome polish?

You are right! It is a nice result!

My R69S has been in the family since new and has had a wide array of seats over the years. It originally had the wide double seat, which for me was too tall. After that it had a Harley tractor-type saddle, which was very comfortable (I still have it), but I never found a good way to mount and positi...