Greetings from a Vintage Guy

[Fred Heiler]

My first motorcycle was a 1967 R60/2, which I bought new from a long-gone motorcycle shop in Wilmington, DE, where I also met a guy who had bought the identical bike, only 11 serial numbers from mine. We became good friends, making bike trips with our girl friends, first to Montreal, then to Key West, FL. One day my buddy Ted borrowed my old Beetle to go pick up some bike parts. On his trip, he swerved to avoid a dog, rolled the car and was killed. Being a pallbearer at his funeral was the most anguished moment in my life. Since he totaled my car, his parents gave me his motorcycle, assuming I would sell it to buy a car.

I wanted more power than my R60, but in 1969, there were no Japanese superbikes, and Harley, Triumph and BSA weren't nearly as good as they are today. While working in the service department of a VW dealer, I had the idea that a Beetle engine would almost fit in a BMW bike -- same engine architecture and crankshaft rotation. I decided to begin this wacky conversion project with Ted's bike, and continue riding mine. I cut, spread and rewelded the frame, also fabricating an adapter plate. To make a very long engineering story short, the bike was (and still is) wonderful -- really smooth, reliable and very strong.

My girl friend at the time had learned to ride my stock R60, so she asked to buy it. I agreed, and for decades, I regretted letting it go. I lost track of the girl, who moved overseas and left the bike here. Fast forward, my 32-year-old son Tim found the bike and tried to buy it a number of times. Earlier this year, the owner agreed to sell, so Tim rented a trailer, got five friends to help him winch out of a dank basement, and he surprised me with it one evening! I was blown away, but the R60 was in bad shape -- a rusty frame, and the engine was missing a cylinder and head.

I've spent the past few months joyfully restoring my original R60 -- stripping the frame, getting it powder-coated, replacing all its bearings and seals as well as rebuilding the engine and transmission.

VW bike.JPG (37.81 KiB) Viewed 209 times

[Fred Heiler]

A footnote to my previous message, this one focusing on the tech details of the transmission in my VW-powered R60/2:

More than an engine-transmission adaptor and frame mods, a tall-geared trans was essential to the success of this wacky project. While the stock /2 bike does about 4,000 rpm in 4th gear at 60 mph, I needed to cut the VW engine speed in half on the highway, both to keep it cool and to make good use of the extra torque. After researching BMW final drives, I was disappointed to learn there was nothing much taller, not even on the racing bikes.

As a result, I replaced the small drive gear on the transmission input shaft with a larger one (an extra 4th gear from the output shaft; changed the input gear ratio from 1.5:1 to about 1:1, making all four gears much taller). To do this, I had to relocate the cluster shaft so it was further from the input shaft, but was still the same distance from the output shaft (see attached "shafts" photo). To do this, I welded up the cluster bearing bores in the box and the cover, then re-bored them (see attached "cover" photo). I was lucky to use two excellent machinists, because the backlash on all the gears feels absolutely the same as stock! I wish I could take credit for this design, but it actually came from a guy who lived near Danbury, CT (can't recall his name).

In 50-plus years of riding this machine, the trans has been nearly bulletproof, despite transmitting 2-3 times the engine torque -- one bearing failure, which I caught before it did any major damage (I probably screwed up end play), and two spun output shaft flanges, the weak point of the gearbox. First, I replaced the keyed flange with the stronger non-keyed one, and now run a flange with two large keys, which has been fine for at least 20,000 miles now.

One postscript: initially, the new ratio of first gear was somewhere between the old second and third, which was tough to deal with in traffic. Somewhere I found a set of sidecar gears that use lower (higher numerically) first, second and third gears, which work well in this odd application. The result is a wide-ratio transmission that feels perfect from a stop light to about 145 mph. I know there are much faster bikes these days, but perhaps this project will help someone modifying a later BMW.

[staggerlee]

too cool. would love to see the pics.

here is what i do. open your folder where your pics are then drag them over to your post/reply. give it a minute to upload and preview before submitting. tip: if you want a picture to be first, you drag it over last (drag them over in reverse order to how you want them to appear).

[schrader7032]

Never tried a drag-n-drop on this forum...not sure if it works. The standard way is to click on the Attachments tab at the bottom of the screen, then click on Add Files. From there navigate to where the files are on your computer. I would recommend that they not be huge...maybe 1Mb each would be fine.

[cbclemmens]

Fred;

That's really cool. I would like to see the pictures too.

Just 1 little point though. You said there weren't any Japanese "super bikes" in 1969. I owned a 1969 Kawasaki 500cc 2 cycle 3 banger that had way more horse power than I could handle. If that wasn't a "super bike" I don't know what was. BTW I worked overseas in 1971, and when I came back I traded that bike in on my first R 75/5 (which I wish I still had).

Craig

[808Airhead]

Aloha Fred! Great stories…. Looking forward to the pics! If you need any help or parts, here is the place.

[FL54]

Great story and good on your son. In high school, I rolled my ‘53 Chevy onto its side avoiding a dog. Junkyard fender, door and windshield repaired the damage. No one wants to hit a dog but I’m not sure I would take that evasive action again.

[Fred Heiler]

Thanks for all your comments, guys! Yeah, I try not to hit animals, but never again to the extent of losing control and endangering a human life. BTW, with your help, I figured out how to upload photos -- check them out.

Craig, you're right. Really fast Japanese bikes were emerging in the late '60s, and I do recall the 3-cylinder, 2-stroke bikes were the hottest item for a while. The first bike I acknowledged was clearly faster than mine was a 900-cc, 4-cyl. Kawasaki in the early-1970s. By then, I had bought a couple expensive output shafts and flanges, so I was ready to admit our BMWs were not ideal drag-race bikes.

[Slash2]

Wow! Great post. Thanks for sharing. Your gearbox mod is excellent reading.

I assume you didn’t recalculate the end play/shims in the gearbox after your last service but it sounds like it’s still working great. Very interesting.