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New to the world of Beemers, wanted to say hello!

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KlausRS
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Joined: Mon Jul 12, 2021 4:21 pm

New to the world of Beemers, wanted to say hello!

Post by KlausRS »

Hello! This first post is what I hope to be the start of a long and enjoyable relationship between a man and his new two-wheeled air-cooled steed named Klaus, and the greatly articulate phenomenally knowledgeable stupendously generous airhead community, part of which resides on this board.
My name is Joe, and I started riding street bikes in 1974 and of the 20+ bikes I’ve owned, this is the first BMW. I’ve actually wanted an airhead for about 25 years but my 20 year-old mind wouldn’t go for it, as all it wanted to do was strafe apexes on high powered corner-carving machines. Well, finally the mind conceded and the 66 year old body and mind are now talking. Long story short, I am currently attempting to get a 1977 R100RS roadworthy. It’s been sitting since 1995 and I am now slowly becoming acquainted with German engineering and the bike in general. I’m now finishing up the R&R of the steering head bearings and next on the agenda is the rebuilding of the front forks. When I first saw the bike, I didn’t give it a second glance because the fairing looked weird, being all bulbous and whatnot. After another bike I was looking at fell through, walked over and looked at the RS again. It was part of a collection and didn’t have a speck of rust on it. It is pretty original except for the seat which I will be replacing. It does have
a few dings and wear marks as it wasn’t a restoration. Overall looked very sound. The owner started telling me about the 1977RS and how iconic of a bike it was, well, not being familiar with BMW’s, I took that as simply sales talk - until I did some research. Well, here I sit with Klaus in a boiling garage twisting wrenches and becoming friends. It’s good to be here and I hope to meet many of you as I begin this journey into the land of Muth. All the best.
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srankin
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Location: Spencerport, NY USA
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Re: New to the world of Beemers, wanted to say hello!

Post by srankin »

Welcome to the Vintage Airhead gang. The 77RS is a beautiful bike and well worth the effort to restore to ride. I have a 78RS which is a little different but pretty much the same.

One of the things you should do is look at Brook Reams's garage https://brook.reams.me/

He did a 77RS restoration and while I have not been in that section of his website, I have been looking at and using another section where he restored a 83 bike. I am in the middle of restoring/overhauling my 83 RT and Brook's extremely well done documentation consisting of write ups, pictures and very good videos can't be beat when memory fades or I am not sure how something should go together. I can bet, the documentation he did for the 83 bike was also the same quality and quantity he used when restoring the 77RS.

Have fun, good luck, St.
Owner of a 84, R80RT and 78, R100RS

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schrader7032
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Re: New to the world of Beemers, wanted to say hello!

Post by schrader7032 »

Welcome to the forum! The '77 RS is certainly a pinnacle of a bike for BMW...more powerful before the USA EPA got ahold of things. And the spoke wheels are the best!!

Another place to bookmark on the web is Snowbum's site. A little quirky in his style and verbose, but there are some nuggets there.

https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/technica ... s-list.htm
Kurt in S.A.
'78 R100/7 '69 R69S '52 R25/2
Fast. Neat. Average. Friendly. Good. Good.

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srankin
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Re: New to the world of Beemers, wanted to say hello!

Post by srankin »

The spoked wheels on the 77 RS look far better than the snowflakes BMW installed in 78 and onwards. One other thing I regret BMW doing was changing from the drum brake on the 77RS to a disc brake set up on the 78RS and other bikes.

I ride a drum brake equipped R80RT as well as the 78RS and to be perfectly honest, I would convert the RS to drum in a heartbeat if I could find the parts and had the money.

Disc brakes work great up on the front but on the rear, they wear out faster than sugar candy in the rain, make rear tire changes a bigger pain and don't stop any better than a properly adjusted BMW drum system.

I put 200K miles on my original drum brake system before it finally wore out and I needed to replace shoes and unfortunately the rear wheel (BMW incorporated the drum into the wheel, so if it wears out, it has to be relined, or replaced)

As for HP and power, Kurt hit the nail on the head with the 77 to 79 bikes being the best airhead HP and torque bikes. Not until modern engine control systems came into being has there been better. St.
Owner of a 84, R80RT and 78, R100RS

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srankin
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Re: New to the world of Beemers, wanted to say hello!

Post by srankin »

Joe, if you are near Rochester NY, and need a hand, give a holler, I may not know everything but perhaps enough to help get the bike on the road. St.
Owner of a 84, R80RT and 78, R100RS

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