Would you like to share your trip or restoration with the club?

[Darryl.Richman]

We are always looking for material for The Classic BMW Motorräder, and we would love to publish your travel story, your maintenance or riding tip, or your restoration story. If you're a club member, the easiest way to do this is to create a photo gallery with the text of your story and the photos you'd like to include, and then [url=mailto:editor@vintagebmw.org]send a link to it, to our editor[/url].

(If you aren't a member, we'd still be interested in your story. In that case, you can write it up here in the forum and send a link, as above.)

Please don't worry about: spelling, grammar, punctuation or general writing ability. We have proofreaders standing by to help! We'll make your story look the best we can. We want to share your story/experience/knowledge with the club and make it useful and entertaining.

So don't delay, send in the link to your story now and become a published author soon!

[schrader7032]

Darryl -

I kept up with my R25/2 teardown thread mostly to document the progress and shows bits and pieces of the bike that sometimes aren't usually seen. It also helped me remember how things go back together!

http://www.vintagebmw.org/v7/node/8763

There have been some activity since my last post after sorting out some of my issues. I'm at the 100 mile point and will be doing a head torque and valve check this weekend as well as another oil change. I suppose a good wrap up for my thread would be to document where I'm at right now.

[anderson7585]

I have a good buddy who owns a Triumph/BMW dealership and started with vintage bikes (Cliff Holland, Gulf Coast BMW/British USA in South Houston, Texas).

One day I pulled up out back and the R2 was sitting in the shop, I was captivated! so I asked the Mechanics "who belongs to this?" and I was told it was Cliff's.

I got a ramp, loaded it in my Truck, locked the tailgate and went to find Cliff to see how much he wanted for the bike.

Cliff told me it was not for sale, I told him "that's right, I have no intention of selling it", he laughed and asked me if I had already loaded the bike and since he knew I was not going to unload it he sold it to me (for almost twice what he had paid 20 minutes earlier but still a "bargain" price).

So began the journey, I found an owner (in Germany) who copied a parts book for me for cheap. I inventoried the bike to see what was missing and the list got long, fast (this is from memory):

rear end/drive shaft, oddly enough I found one in Pennsylvania through a Vincent m/c owner.
headlight lens and rim, I found a VERY NICE repop in Sweden.
toolbox, found on German ebay, it was not "perfect" but it is now!
switches, nice repops found in Berlin, Germany.
speedometer, found in the Netherlands on it's way out of Poland.
carb, found in Germany (I had to go there to find it) and I ended up buying 2 to get the air cleaner, I found the 2nd one in the Netherlands.
tail light, nice Polish repop found at a bike show in Ulm, Germany.
gas cap, handmade in Oklahoma.
muffler, found on Polish ebay.
centerstand spring, found NOS in Spain.

plus the damaged/unusable parts:
headpipe, found on Polish ebay.
front axle, found on German ebay.
seat cover, found NOS! in Oklahoma
horn, found in Poland.
Speedometer cable, found NOS in Spain.

I got a "zertificate" and noticed that the bike is "numbers correct" so I figured that I should restore it, I have restored many British bikes and "close enough" is fine but BMW's need to be "correct" so I opted for a pro-restoration.

When I delivered the bike Todd said "where's the bike that this rear wheel came from?" so:

rear hub, found on Polish ebay (the hub was over 165.00 Euro's plus shipping).

Some lessons I learned:

Follow ALL leads, even if it does not pay it might lead somewhere that does.
For a lot of the foreign ebay sites R2 can be (and is sometimes) written as R 2.
When all else fails just put the part number in Google and click on stuff until your eyes bleed.
The language barrier is not that big a deal, just learn the words you need (like Wegzahler), part numbers are the universal language.
NEVER! send $ Western Union, the only time I got ripped off was when I WU'd $700.00 to Poland.

The bike should be completed "this winter", this has taken over 13 years (and a small truckload of $) since I bought it but it is looking great and is coming back "correct".

I will continue to edit this as needed.

Vince

Here she was "as found"

[bmw-mechanic]

hello

ok, i`ll introduce some improvements i`ve made at my bmw r90/6 to get more reliability.

the brake master cylinder (ATE 15mm from the R90S double disk model) you can by new in germany from the bmw dealer.
but these parts are not cheap!!

mostly it`s sufficient to replace the breake cylinder piston itself and the seal rings.

next, i reworked the ate brake callipers, as well with new pistons and new seal rings.

spiegler ate at breisach (near freiburg breisgau) refreshes old bmw brake disks with floater disks.

next step was to reduce the primary current flow of the ignition coils through the interupter contact. i build in a helotronik FET power switch module (www.helotronik.de) (img_3882) and the interrupter contact with the flywheel is now used as sensor.
this fet switch module reduces the voltage loss of long cables, so you can enjoy the full power of the old 2*6V ignition coils.

the best improvement was to replace the old rectifier and regulator stuff, and build in a silent hektik regulator module.
with ~1100rpm the battery will be charged and you have the recommended charge voltage limit of ~14,2 V.
but, to keep in mind, if your alternator is not working well, you`ll not get a better voltage supply when you build in a sh-regulator.

additionaly i replaced the starter relais with a bmw k100 starter relais which fits in the installation m6 screw threads of the /6.

regards

dieter