Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners

Hi again,
EuroIron, thanks for filling me in on what a nerf bar is, from what you describe the Germans probably call it a beiwagenhilffersgriff or something similar. I thought to begin with that you might have meant something like this:-

that thing and I see them often on solo only bikes

I suppose useful as a grab rail for a pillion

Dig the centerstand on the sidehack mule

My own two cents on the oil analysis question is that for purposes of supplying information about the condition of an engine on a vintage bike, it comes under the category of "nice to know" but not essential. If the machine runs well, has good compression, doesn't smoke, doesn't use oil excessively, and doesn't make any strange noises, just change the oil regularly with the best you can find of the appropriate type and don't worry about it. You can send a sample off, they run it through the spectro, send the results to you and then what? You either have all of your good feelings about the machine confirmed or you wind up losing sleep over, possibly, nothing. And if the data does show something amiss, what will you do then? Undertake a major mechanical something or other based on the spectro data? Probably not. Or - - not me, anyway. Don't get me wrong - - I think this kind of analysis has its place. But I question its practicality here.

Hello All,

I recently purchased an R60 and I took it to our local Vintage BMW Guru who said the bike runs great. I told him that I don't know a lot of history behind the engine and I would like to know what condition its in. He said it runs strong but also said I could send 6 oz of motor oil to a lab for a Spectrographic Analysis if I wanted more information. The analysis will tell you what condition the engine is in etc and costs about $20.00 or so.

See: http://www.blackstone-labs.com/motorcycle.html

Has anyone used a service like this for engine analysis? If so, any labs you would recommend?

Thanks,

Phil