I finally got decent weather for painting this Sunday, low humidity and temperatures in the low 70′s.  I had prepared the frame, sub-frame and swing arm for painting over the past two weeks during the evenings after work.  I used body putty to fill in where the paint was chipped from stones and where acid from the battery had removed the paint when the bike tipped over. (Would anyone who owns a bike for 35 years and never had it tip over, please raise their hand?  Hmm, is that a hand up way in the back?  ).

It was hard to sand the putty on the tubes since they are round.  I found using 400 grit paper and just curling it around the tubes and using light pressure worked.  I had to apply the body putty several times to fill in low spots and holes so this took a couple of nights to get the frame and swing arm prepared.  Since I stripped the subframe down to the primer, it was ready to go.

I built a paint booth in the garage.  I used several plastic drop cloths and stapled them to the joists to create an enclosure around the frame with enough room to paint the swing arm and subframe as well.  I taped the seams between the drop cloths in several places to help seal them.  I didn’t tape one seam so I could get into the booth.  I used clothes pins and rolled the edges of the two plastic drop clothes together and fastened them from the inside with the clothes pins to seal the entry.

I removed the cars and the other bikes before I painted as spray paint sends small droplets of paint everywhere even though I was painting inside an enclosure. 

Prior to painting, I used windex and paper towels to clean all the surfaces and remove any dirt or oil traces.  I wore nitril gloves to keep finger print oil off the surfaces.  Then, I wrapped all the surfaces on the bike that I wasn’t going to paint with newspaper. Finally, I covered the floor with newspaper as well. 

Sunday, I taped off the bearings and covered the ends of the rear drive in the swing arm with newspaper and hung them from the rafters.  I used wire for the swing arm since its heavy and string for the subframe.  I had left enough room inside to hang those behind the bike and could walk around the front and back end of the bike to get to all the parts.

I used a hat, mask, nitrile goves and a long sleeve shirt when painting.  It gets all over you, so covering up is a good idea.  I also recommend wearing safety glasses to keep the paint out of your eyes.  I opened the back door and cracked open the garage door to get some air circulation to remove the fumes, but not enough to have to worry about dirt and dust getting on the parts.  I painted each part with about 4 coats of gloss black enamel paint available at my local auto parts store.  I painted 2 coats in the first pass and let that dry for about an hour.  I filled a small butter tub with Laquer thinner so I could clean the spay head in between uses to eliminate paint globs. 

As I painted, I found the newspaper got very sticky and I was pulling it up when I walked on it.  Perhaps, using some wax paper on the bottom of my shoes fastened with duck tape might have prevented that.   I’ll have to try that next time when I prime the tank and fenders.

I inspected everything using a drop light after the first two coats and was amazed to see a half dozen places that didn’t get covered well.  When painting black paint on top of black paint, its hard to see where the coverage  is thin, and it’s especially hard to see when painting tubing.  I painted the final two coats starting with the areas that were thin from the first two coats.  I kept the final 2 coats light but made sure they wet all the painted surfaces.

Despite covering up, I got paint on my cheeks and forehead, so taking a shower right after you finish painting is a good idea as the enamel takes several hours to really dry and a shower seemed to remove most of it from my skin and beard.

Here’s a picture of the mask I wore after I finished painting.  This is a pretty graphic demonstration of why you don’t want to paint without a mask.  Most of that would have ended up in my lungs.  I suspect that’s equal to a month or two of a 2 pack a day smoking habit

I’m letting everything dry for two days before touching them.  Enamel takes awhile to harden, so its good to be patient and avoid touching the parts so you don’t get finger prints in the paint.

The Ghost has an oil leak from the transmission neutral switch and, the subframe is broken.  So Branden and I removed the old subframe, shocks, swing arm and rear drive and the transmission.   Well, he did the work and I watched

Removing the subframe is straight forward.   We removed the rear tail light and turn signal assembly earlier when we removed the rear fender for paint preparation.  To remove the subframe, we disconnected the wiring harness from the tail light assembly and pulled it forward out of the front hole in the subframe.

Then we removed the bolts connecting it to the frame, the swing arm and the shocks so we could take the subframe off.  You can see the broken section of subframe tubing Branden is holding.  I had it welded about 8 years ago, but it didn’t hold up.  Hence, the used subframe I scored on eBay. 

Next we removed the battery and battery box.  In getting the battery box out, one of the lower rubber isolation bolts had a nut that we couldn’t remove.  It had corroded and rusted enough that it was in between a 10 mm and 9 mm wrench size.  So, we had to drill it out from top side to remove it.   It’s the one on the right.

At this point, I put a board under the front of the oil pan to help support the bike so it wouldn’t fall forward when we removed the rear drive, swing arm and transmission.  Then Branden drained the gear oil from the transmission, drive shaft and the rear drive.  He also removed the tachometer cable from rear of the transmission by loosening the bolt.

There are four bolts that that attach the transmission to the engine.  You can see one of them in the upper left in this picture.  There is a nut on the upper right used to attach the right side air cleaner housing and then two more bolts on the bottom. 

On the bottom of the transmission is the clutch throw out rod.  Remove the clutch cable and then pull the C-clip on the top of the pin that attaches the throw out rod to the transmission.

Next, we loosened the drive shaft rubber boot to expose the universal joint.  It attaches to the transmission output shaft with four twelve sided bolts.  You can see one of them in the picture.  Use a box end wrench to take these bolts off. We found that sitting on the rear tire while pressing the rear brake kept the drive shaft from turning while Branden loosened the bolts on the universal joint.

Next, we pulled the swing arm nuts using a socket that had been turned down to fit inside the swing arm housing.  Then we backed out the bearings the nut secured so we could slide the swing arm and rear drive off the frame. 

After that, we slide the transmission to the back and off the spline on the rear of the engine.  When it cleared the engine output shaft, we  pull it out on the left side.  It wasn’t too heavy, but both of us supported it as we witdrew it so we didn’t score the splines or put let the transmisson hang on them. 

You can see the old transmission neutral switch on the bottom of the transmission (I turned the transmission upside down, so the switch is on the top in this picture) just above the shift lever.  The phenolic securing the switch to the nut had separated and I could spin the center of the switch inside the nut.  Yeah, that would let gear lube leak past the switch all right.

The transmission splines were dry and need to be lubricated, but otherwise, they look to be in good condition.  I had them replaced at about 50,000 miles when they failed.  I hadn’t lubricated them at 24,000 miles, so I deserved that   It looks like they can do with some molylube again.

Last, we removed the rear drive from the drive shaft by removing the four nuts that attach the swing arm to the rear drive. 

I cleaned up the transmission, rear drive and the swing arm which was pretty caked with dirt and dried gear lube from the leaking neutral switch.  I’m going to paint the swing arm and also do some spot painting of dings on the frame which are a lot easier to get to with the transmission removed.

The pace picked up as the weather improved.  I focused on stripping the paint and getting the parts prepared for painting.  Everything is plastic on the R75/6 except the gas tank which is steel.  So, sandpaper is your friend

I found that sanding the short radius curved areas first prevented rounding off the profiles.  I used wet/dry paper and wet sanded to help the paper last longer.  I dipped the paper in water and cleaned out the paint accumlulation from the paper frequently so it continued to cut quickly.  As soon as I could see a good deal of paint flakes in the water on the parts, I’d wipe it up with rags so the paper wasn’t resanding removed paint flacks.

Brian told me to use 2 strips of paper, folding them in half, then inserting them so the seams are opposite each other.  For sanding flat surfaces, this gave me four sanding surfaces and I got two strong edges for sanding the grooves and tight radius contours.  With the paper wet, having the rough side of the paper under myu palm helped keep my hand from sliding off the paper.  Go slow in the tight radius areas and contours to keep the edges crisp and avoid rounding them off.  In the tighest areas, I used a small flat blade screw driver to crack the paint off.  The blade is thicker than the paint scraper so it doesn’t gouge or scratch the plastic.

I wet sanded using 220 grit to start. I stripped the clear coat, color coat and primer coats until I started to take off  the next to last primer coat.  Then, using 400 grit, I stripped the next to last primer coat.  This left a smooth surface so hopefully I won’t have as much sanding to get the new primer coats smooth.  We shall see.

I found a used R90S bullet fairing with mounting hardware and windscreen on eBay for a good price, so I picked this up and added it to the stack of parts to strip.

I saved the gas tank and subframe for last and used aircraft stripper to get the paint off.  I found that process was less labor intensive than sanding.  I found it took several applications of the stripper following each with a paint scrapper to get the loosened paint off.  The color coats and top primer coats would bubble up, but the lower primer layers required use of a paint scraper to get them off as all the stripper would do was soften them, not lift them.

After the paint was removed, I took a dremel tool to grind out any cracks that had developed in the plastic parts.  Then, I used fiberglass resin to fill in the ground out areas so they won’t crack again.  Any cracks will grow cracking the pain. The other impact is they also will soak up the paint and develop blisters, so you need be sure you get all of them ground out and filled.

After the resin had cured, I sanded the area where fibreglass resin had spread on the surface near the crack.  Then I used spot putty to fill in low spots and to smooth out and level the fiberglass resin filler in the cracks. 

You need to keep the putty layers thin.  It usually hardens in about 3o mins.  I lightly sanded with 400 grit to smooth it out and if I needed another layer, added it.  This part of the prepartion is fussy work, but getting the surfaces smoothed out as much as you can goes a long way to having a high quality paint finish, so take your time. 

I had a small crack in the dashboard of the R90S fairing between the cutouts for the two instruments.  Again, I used fiberglass resin on the back to fix the crack.  I found the fairing had been painted over the top of the original paint, so there was a lot more sanding required.  Along the seam at the bottom of the wind screen the paint build up was quite thick so I took it down to the plastic using the folded sandpaper sandwich. 

I estimate it took me about 30 hours to do the preparation for two fenders, two side covers, a gas tank and the bullet fairing.  Patience is a virtue when it comes to preparing parts for painting.  By the way, your finger tips are very sensitive and good measuring tools to feel high and low spots.  Use them to check your spot putty filled areas as you sand them.  If you can’t feel the edge you have it feathered into the surrounding surface correctly.

Parts Cleaning

Well, not as much progress as I would have liked, but progress nonetheless. The weather has not been very cooperative for working in the garage until today. So, I washed and cleaned the fenders, tank and side covers in preparation for sanding them down.

I’ve also been grinding out the cracks in the fiberglass around bolt holes in preparation for repairing these stress cracks.

Grinding out Fiber Glass Cracks

Today I also got the cylinders and cylinder heads back from Clem.  He has the rings gapped, and provided a new carburetor top as mine had a cracked throttle cable bushing.  I also expect the repaired carburetor back from the Bing Agency next week along with the carb rebuild kit. 

I sent out the cylinder head with the cracked fin to Randy Long of Long’s Custom Services in Pennsylvania.  He specializes in head work and can repair the cracked fins.  You can see the blue paint from the wheel well of my Saturn where I hooked the cylinder head when I was backing out of the garage.  When I get the repaired head back, I’ve got a couple of places who can bead blast the cylinders and heads and I’ll get them cleaned up.

Cylinder Head Fin Damage

I’ve decided to go ahead and add an R90S fairing and may have located one in good shape with most of the hardware.  I picked up the correct turn signal stalks which are longer than the ones on the R75/6 on eBay last week.  The longer R90S stalks are used for the lower mounting points for the fairing.

I’ve been updating the budget as I go and right now I’m just a bit over budget based on current purchases and estimates for the remaining parts and materials, so that’s good.

Parts have been coming in and I’m under the impression that I’ve ordered most of what I need.  To date, I’ve received:

• Battery Box, strap and hardware
• Bar end mirrors
• Electronic ignition and 2-port coils
• Ignition wires
• Exhaust and mufflers
• Instrument cluster circuit board and back  plate

I sent one of the carburetors to Bing International  last week.   See part 5.  I ordered the #6 rebuild kit and Bing Carburetor maunal which I’ll receive when they return the repaired carb. 

Other items I still have to get include:

• Clutch neutral switch and gaskets (leaking and bike doesn’t start in gear when the clutch is pulled in)
• Gas tank rondels
• Gas tank nuts and washers
• Cylinder head gasket (seems I only have one, not two)
• Rings

I also have to decide if I am going to keep the stock seat, or get the Bushong cafe seat w/ tail cone and have that upolstered and paint it .  And, I  have to make the call on the R90s aftermarket fairing.

I heard back from Clem at BMW of Denver last week on the engine.  The good news is it checked out fine.  I was concerned the valve seats may have needed replacement, but they are doing well.   I’ll need new rings, but that’s about it for engine parts as I have all the gaskets except one.

One of fins on the right cylinder head got broken [I hooked my car bumper on it a couple years ago when I was backing out of the garge … one of the lowest days I’ve had in a long time    I found a guy in Kansas, Cycle Works,  that repairs them, and sent a note for a quote.

 I realized that there are quite a few rennovations being done.  I put together a spreadsheet of the work and then grouped the tasks by major subsystem.  Finally, I organized them into a work flow that I hope will keep the work orderly and prevent forgeting tasks or having to remove what I just installed to do the next step.  I was surprised by how many things are getting done.  The task list will come in handy to help Branden and I coordinated.

I’ve been scoping out the painting and have a couple estimates from shops who do motorcycle painting.  I’ve also been combing the web for information on painting, preparation and do it yourself painting. 

I’m debating if I want to add an R90S bullet faring and also if I want to add a new cafe racer style seat with tail cone.  Part of that decision is controlled by the budget.  Adding these parts includes adding the cost of painting as well.

R90S Bullet Faring

R90S Seat w/ Tail Cone

I talked with a local shop about my ideas for the paint scheme and spent some time discussing how to prepare the parts prior to painting as I’m certainly able to strip and sand with the best of them    I also provided a description of the paint project to a nationally well respected motorcycle restoration painting company to see what they would estimate.

My reaction after I got the estimates:  YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING !!!!  Nope, they aren’t. 

When I had the Grey Ghost painted in 1981 in an approximation to the R90S Smoked Silver paint scheme, I think it cost me less the $500 to have have the tank, fenders and side covers stripped, painted and hand pin stripped.  It’s north of $1,000 for that if I do all the paint stripping and also sand the primer and color coats at the local shop. Adding the tail cone and fairing pushes their estimates north of $2,000.   The nationally respected paint shop is also north of $2000 if I provide stripped parts ready to prime and paint

That’s a budget buster.

It turns out I have an acquaintance who restores Trimuph motorcycles and cars and is a professional gear head as well as machinest, Brian House.  I figured I’d call him up and see what he could suggest for options.  Well, one thing lead to another pretty quickly.  He does his own painting, has the compressor and guns and offered to show me how “to do it yourself”.  That’s cool because I’ve had a hankering to try my hand at painting, but didn’t feel qualified nor did I have access to guns, compressors, etc.

This afternoon I brought the parts over to his place so we could talk about the process.  In the meantime, he  showed me the 1968 Ford pickup he is restoring and some pictures of two of his Triumph restorations.  Drool … very nice.

We are going to paint with laquer as its a ”forgiving” media compared to the currently popular urethane two part paint systems a lot of the shops use today.  Based on the pictures of the Triumph he restored, the laquer work he produced was awesome.

The conclusion from inspecting the parts is I need to strip the tank to bare metal as the almost 30 years I got out of the last paint job has resulted in paint cracking down to the primer.  We will hand sand the fiber glass parts down to the gel coat and fix the cracks at the bolt holes with fiber glass resin and cloth for strength.

Stay tuned for the adventures of Brook and Branden as we learn our way around “DIY” motorcycle painting.  I’ll be providing detailed descriptions of the preparation and painting process as we work away under Brian’s tutlege.

I’ve been looking on-line for pictures of cafe-racer restorations, typically those for BMW models. When I started, I thought I would follow an R90-S style. Here are some pictures of what I had in mind.

Here are some very nice cafe racer models I found.

I’ve been busy using Max BMW’s parts finder to look up parts and retail prices.  I put together a spreadsheet to collect all that information and to let me do some “what if” scenarios on options.  I’ve also been visiting eBay regularly for their motorcycle parts listings.   It’s amazing what and how much for old BMW’s is there.  It’s a great resource.

Battery Box

I’ve decided to replace the modified battery box that I cut the sides off to fit a lawn tractor battery, with a stock box.  eBay has quite a few of them as good prices. 

Battery Box

Instrument Cluster

The instrument cluster has a cracked back where the cable harness plugs in.  I also suspect the circuit board wiring has a break as some of the lights don’t illuminate.  I found this set on eBay.  The exterior plastic housing is pretty scratehed, but he parts I really want are in good shape.

Instrument Cluster Parts

Exhaust System

I had kept the original header pipes and mufflers with the intent of using them again.  But upon finding them and looking at them, they are dented, scuffed and pretty used up.  So, new exhaust and mufflers from an after market supplier (stock BMW is just too $$$$)

Niche Supply - R75-6 Complete Exhaust System

Ignition System

The points ingnition system needs to be upgraded.  The breaker plate has problems and I’m not sure the points cam doesn’t need to be replaced.  I had the heads bored for dual plugs and used an Accel amplifier and dual ignition coil set back in 1980, but it was diagnosed as faulty several years ago.  I pulled the second plug wires, bought new coils and went back to the stock ignition.  Okay, let’s do the DynaTeck electronic ignition with dual port coils and a new set of dual plug wires in YELLLLLOOOOWWWW  ….

Dyanteck D35-1 Electronic Ignition

DyanTeck DC2-1 Dual Port Coils

YELLLOOWW Dual Ignition Wires

Carburetors

I broke the float hinge post on one of my carbs many years ago.  I had epoxed it together, but that really wasn’t working.  Several years ago, to get on top rough running problems, I found a carb body from an R75/5 and used that.  I still have the orignal carb body.  You can see the left pin is shorter than the right.

The Bing Agency offers parts and repairs for all Bing carbs used on BMW motorcycles since 1926.  They can fix this broken pin.  It’s about $35.00, so I’m going to send it to them and let them do their magic.  I wish I had known about them back when I decided to buy the used R75/5 carb body.  No worries.  Either I’ll put it on eBay or use it when I rebuild Rochelle’s R75/5.  I’ve been looking at their rebuild kits, and am going to go with the #6 kit.  That provides all new gaskets, o-rings, diaphrams, jet needles, needle jets, float needles, new floats and the throttle plate screws.  As my carbs are 35 years old w/ 100,000+ miles, I think they deserve a complete rebuild.

Mirrors

I also stumbled on some R90-S bar end mirrors the other day, and decided to go with them.  I’m either going to restore this as a naked bike, or budget permitting, put an R90-S style bullet faring with screen on the front.

R90-S Bar End MirrorsR90-S Faring

Font Turn Signals

I lost the front turn signal stalks when I put the Windjammer on.   I picked up front stalks, turn signals and lens on eBay. Shortly thereafter, as I was cleaning up the garage and going through my various part stashes, I found my orignal signals and lens.  Eventually, something will go back on eBay.

R75-6 Front Signal stalk, signals, lens

 R90S Style Faring

I’d like to put this on the bike as it has a cool 1970 cafe racer style to it.  Budget is the issue.

R90-S Faring

I found that Boxer Cafe has some reproduction R90-S faring with dash at a very good price.  They advertize windscreens from Gustafson that are pretty inexpensive as well.  When I get the paint estimate, I’ll decide what I can afford.

So, most of the parts are identified and many ordered from suppliers.  Clem hopes to complete checking out the top end of the engine by the end of next week.

I’ve bumped into a fellow, Dave Porter,  in town who owns a bycycle shop (Aravada Bycycle Company) and who also has a business selling used, new and NOS Triumph parts and does Triumph restorations.  It turns out, his son and my son have been friends throughout their school years.

Dave gave me a couple of leads on folks in the Denver area (one in Arvada) who do paint work.  Today, I pulled the rear fender, side covers and tank off the Grey Ghost in preparation for getting some painting estimates. 

The first step was to remove the tail light bracket & turn signal bracket along with the license plate holder

Next, I removed the four bolts that attach the fender to the subframe and carefully rotated the fender toward the rear around the tire.  I kept all the bolts and steel straps on the rear subframe so I don’t loose them.  I’ll be removing the subframe and replacing with a used one since the original subframe has cracked and broken through.

Last, I removed the gas tank and drained the fuel into a gas can.  Remember that each pet cock has a reserve setting, so you have to drain the reserve fuel from each side.  Then, with all the gas out, remove the pet cocks from the tank.  The nut next to the tank takes a 24mm open end and pet cock body takes a 17 mm open end. 

Here’s the end result.  Total time was about 45 mins.

First, a quick update on the frame straightening.  I got the Ghost back in December after dropping it off on Halloween.   I was in South Africa most of November.  As the fork tubes were bent and on back order, it took a few more weeks to get them and complete the front end work.  Replaced parts included the upper and lower triple clamps, but fortunately, I secured a used lower clamp at $250 which was a good savings over the $460 retail. 

Today, my youngest son, Branden, came over and he took apart the the top end with some instructions from me.  I’ll take the parts over to BMW of Denver so Clem can check them out.  I suspect the valve seats will need replacing and the valves lapped.   I’ll also install new ring sets. 

Here’s the sequence of steps Branden followed to take apart the top end.

Remove Carbs & Plugs

This is pretty straight forward.  Removing the cables and the air tubes securing the carbs is simple.   Remove the air tubes then detach the throttle and choke cables from the body.  Branden is holding the carberator showing where the throttle and choke cables attach to on the back side of the carberator.

When Branden pulled the plugs, it was clear the right side (top plug in the picture) was running pretty lean.  We’ll be doing a carb rebuild and will balance the carbs when we reassemble the bike.  I tagged the plugs with the side they came from so I can keep track of things like this.

As Branden removed parts, we put the parts we are keeping in the garage in one box, and the parts to take to BMW of Denver in a second box.  It’s good to label parts for which side they were on and take pictures during disassembly.  You don’t know how long it will be before you put things back together and you will forget small details.  Labels and pictures save a lot of time and mistakes.

Here’s the bike when Branden got the carbs and plumbing removed.

Remove Exhaust 

We used the BMW supplied wrench to remove the exhaust nuts securing the headers to the heads.  Since these nuts are cast aluminum, banging on them with a mallet is a great way to break them.  The wrench ensures this won’t happen.  Be careful fitting it to the nut and make sure its inserted all the way or you can break a fin on the nut. You can use a cheater tube on the end of the wrench to get them loose, or you can use a mallet on the wrench handle to get the nuts to loosen up.  Then, you can spin them off by hand.  Branden used the mallet.

Next Branden removed the bolts securing the muffler to the right exhaust hanger.  I had installed an after market Lueftmeister 2 into 1 exhaust back in 1980.  You have to remove the pipes from the right and left hangers if you have the standard exhaust.  I’ll be installing the stock muffler and exhaust pipes on this rebuild.  The Lueftmeister has a crack. so I’ll like scrape it or sell the headers on Ebay.

There are steel rings inside the exhaust nut that seal the exhaust pipe to the head.  These nest into each other to create a seal preventing exhaust gas from blowing by the exhaust pipe.  The outer ring is solid with a square profile and curved inside radius.  The other ring is split and has a beveled profile.  These fit together as shown. I taped them together the way they are assembled so we won’t have to think about how they go together when we reassemble the exhaust.

Here’s the bike with carberator and exhaust plumbing removed.  We found we had to also remove the rear brake peddle to allow Branden to remove the exhaust.

Remove Valve Covers

There is a chrome nut in the center of the cover and also two small nuts behind the valve cover near the intake and exhaust pipes.   You can see the stud on the cover here.

It’s a good idea to put a pan under the cover as oil will drip out from the bottom of the valve covers when they are removed.  You can see the oil stream as Branden pulls the cover off.

Remove Cylinder Heads

The cylinder studs extend through the head and are used to secure the rocker arm assemble of the valve train.  These are torqued in a cross-wise pattern, so I like to loosen them in a cross-wise pattern and then remove them.

The rocker arm assembly has two square steel blocks, pillow blocks, on top and bottom of the rocker arm assembly.  There is also a shaft that the rocker arm rotates on.  Inside the rocker arm are needle bearings.  Branden has his thumb on the rocker arm. The pillow blocks are visible with the slot cut through one side and the shaft the rocker arm rotates on can be seen at the center of the pillow blocks.  The nuts on the cylinder head studs have been loosened.

To avoid dropping various parts, its a good idea to pinch the pillow blocks as you slide the rocker assemble off the cylinder head studs.  Branden is squeezing the pillow blocks together as he slides it off the cylinder studs. 

Next Branden pulled the push rod out and labeled the parts showing the side, and if the rocker was the intake or the exhaust so we can assemble them correctly. Note that my push rods are not the standard steel ones.  They are titanium racing rods.  See Part 1 about how those got there

Branden then removed the nut that is above the spark plug hole.  There is a second one on the bottom of the cylinder head directly beneath the top one.   Although I haven’t dropped one into the spark plug hole, be cautious when removing it.  If you do drop it inside the engine, no worries because in another minute, the heads come off anyway so you can retrieve the nut.

It’s time to remove the heads.  There is a head gasket and sometimes the head does not want to slide back right away.  Working it back and forth will loosen it enough for it to slide back.  Be careful you don’t pull too hard, or when it comes loose, you can end up on your butt or drop the head.  Be patient.  It took Branden a couple of wiggles to get it loose.

Remove Cylinders

I like to position the pistons at top dead center before removing the cylinders.  This leaves the connecting rod extended as you pull the cylinder back.  I don’t want the rod to fall onto the engine case when the piston comes out of the cylinder, so once enough of the connecting rod is exposed, I stuff some shop rags between the connecting rod and the engine housing to support it.  The base gasket can also be a bit stubborn, so you may have to rock the cylinder a bit to break it loose.  Branden didn’t have that problem on either cylinder.

Gently pull the cylinder back and catch the piston with one hand and gently let it rest on the cylinder studs.  It is a good idea to wrap it in some shop rags so you don’t harm the rings.  We’re going to replace them, so we didn’t worry about that. 

Once the cylinder is off, you can remove the head gasket.

And you can remove the push rod tube boots.  I knew they were leaking, so likely they were split.  As you can see, that’s the case.

Remove Pistons

To remove the pistons, there is a C-clip on each side of the wrist pin that has to be removed.  There is a slot at the top of the wrist pin hole in the piston.  Use an awl in the slot to pry the C-clip loose. 

Branden is using the awl to pry one of the C-clips loose.

Now, we have to remove the wrist pin.  You need a drift to help tap the pin out.  I use an appropriate sized socket with an extension as the drift.  Be careful that the diameter isn’t too large or too small.  The socket should rest on the shoulder of the wrist pin.  Use a rubber/plastic mallet and tap gently increasing the force a bit until the pin starts to slide out the other side.  The mallet ensures you don’t ding the piston or rings should you miss hitting the drift.

We labeled the pistons and wrist pins so we know which is from the right and left cylinders.  Here’s a picture of the pistons, wrist pins and tools used to remove the wrist pin.

We completed the top end disassembly in about 2 and 1/2 hours working at a leisurely pace. 

Here’s the heads and cylinders after removal.

Next week, I’ll take the box of top end parts to Clem at BMW of Denver to inspect them and we’ll see what needs to be worked on or replaced.  In the meantime, I’ll be looking for more parts on eBay, inspecting the stock exhaust that I had stashed back in 1980 when I put the Luftmeister 2 into 1 on to see if I need to replace some of the components.  I also am on the hunt for a good local motorcycle paint shop.  I’ve finalized the color to be R90/S smoke silver similar to what is on the Ghost now.  However, that paint job was not done correctly, so I’ll be looking to get this one right.