1960 R60..EarlsForks

[Mattfitz]

Hi my name is Matt and I am a new member. Last November I bought a 1960 R60.It was driven into a large shed in 1976 and not moved since then. It is in poor condition. A BSA A10 front end and wheel was fitted to it. In another shed I found a set of Earls forks and a Borrani 18” alloy front wheel.The owner of the bike passed away some years ago and the family had very little history of the bike.I did some research and made contact with some former owners. To cut a long story short the bike was fitted with a Grattan Sidecar in the early 70s.When out on “loan” to a friend of the then owner it was involved in an accident with a car.The front wheel and forks were damaged. These were replaced by the BSA front end
and the bike was ridden this way for a number of years. At some point a set of replacement Earls Forks and the Borrani wheel were sourced.Both are in very good condition.There is a plate riveted to the bottom of the forks..it reads: BLP693646 with the letters I.C. UNDER also.
Being a complete Novice my question is are there different types of Earls Forks..?..Were they changed over the years for different models..? .
A few bits were also found in a large biscuit tin. These included two Carbs and an original BMW speedo clock. The carbs are marked 1/24/145 and 1/24/146. The clock reads to 90 m.p.h.
I intend to restore the bike and put it back on the road.
I already have a 78 R80/7.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for reading my post..(sorry if it’s a bit long winded)...Matt.(IRL).

[schrader7032]

Matt -

Welcome to the forum! What part of Ireland are you from? When you can, post some pictures of where you're currently at with the bike.

Sounds like the bike has had a rough life...good for you to put it on a path to being roadworthy! As far as the forks, I'm not sure what the riveted plate could be...my R69S Earles fork has nothing on the underside. Could be that's some kind of system to document the bike in Europe. You might be able to find out more information on the bike if you send the VIN to BMW archives at historisches.archiv@bmw.de. They can look through the record and provide information on where the bike was first shipped.

There were various versions of Earles forks fitted over the years. This mostly had to do with the cross member as it changed shape to avoid contact with the front of the engine under heavy front download. Duane Ausherman has a page on that here:

https://w6rec.com/earles-forks/

The bike sounds like it might be something of a marriage of parts. My R69S speedometer goes to 120mph...I'm not familiar with the other models and their speedos...could be they only went up to 90mph as they didn't have the horsepower of the R69S. If you were interested in when the bike was built, besides emailing BMW, I believe the speedometer body has a date painted on the side of it. That would provide some general idea of age. You could also click on Knowledge Base > BMW Model Info in the upper right. Type in the VIN and that takes you to the model of the bike. In that page, there is a PDF file which is a running collection of years and build dates...you can see where you VIN generally falls.

As for the carbs, the Bing manual indicates those are of an R50/2. They could be used on your bike, and R60, but might require some internal changes to provide the proper fuel flow for the slightly bigger engine.

[Daves79x]

Congrats on your new bike! Research, research, research! BTW, what is the ratio stamped on the speedo face? Something like 1.2, etc.

Dave

[Mattfitz]

Hi, thanks for your replies . I live in Cork which is on the South coast of Ireland. I am lucky in that a Registration Book /Title came with the bike which shows that the year of manufacture was 1960. The Speedo face shows 2.0 on it.

[schrader7032]

With the 2.0 on the speedo face and the 90 mph limit, that matches some published info that the speedometer is likely for an R26 or R27 with a 27:8 rear end ratio.

County Cork...thanks. My relatives go back, as far as I know, from County Clare, in a townland SW of Ennis.

[Mattfitz]

Beautiful part of the world...West Clare. Thanks for your reply...Matt