When I did the inspection of the bike, the throttle and choke cables looked pretty worn with kinks showing in the outer armor. The Bowden connector rubber boots are disintegrating. I’m replacing the cables before riding the bike as I don’t want a stuck throttle or broken cable to happen. I found removing the cables from the Bowden connector required a little technique, but once I figured this out for the choke, the throttle was done pretty quickly.
Choke Lever Removed from Housing (Note Broken Strand in Choke Cable)
Choke Bowden Connector on Left Side With Disintegrating Rubber Boot
Choke Cable Part Numbers
Assembled Choke Bowden Cable
I’m completing a front fork rubber cup replacement and check of the fork alignment. I hope to post that soon. After that, I think the bike is ready for my first ride.
You know, being retired just seems to leave no time to work in the shop. I end up doing all sorts of things and the next thing you know, time for bed. Anyway, I finally wrote up the Bing carburetor rebuild/refinish work I did on the 1983 R100RS project.
When I rebuilt a 1973 BMW R75/5, I covered the procedure I used to rebuild the Bing type 64 carburetors, which are 32 mm, and the Karcoma petcocks. The R100RS has type 94 carburetors that are 40 mm and the Karcoma petcock outlet is 90 degrees from the inlet instead of directly underneath the inlet as for the R75/5. After 10 years, the designs are essentially the same, but there are some differences which I cover in the procedure write-up.
Here is the link to the R100RS Bing type 94 rebuild/refinish procedures.
The R100RS write-up contains links to the R75/5 procedures for the Bing type 64 carburetor and notes any differences or changes in how I did the work on the R100RS carburetors. Here is the link to the R75/5 type 64 carburetor rebuild/refinish procedures.
The combination of these two write-ups covers the type 64, 32 mm (64/32/10, right side and 64/32/9, left side) and the R100RS type 94, 40 mm (94/40/114, right and 94/40/113, left) carburetors.
I hope this material makes it straight forward for folks to rebuild these carburetors who may have been afraid to tackle a carburetor rebuild. Here are some before and after pictures of the carburetors.
Before Rebuild/Refinish
Before-R100RS Type 94 Left Carburetor
Rusty Screws and Cap on Dome
Grunge and Fuel Stains
Float Bowl Removed, Missing Paint on Emblem
After Rebuild/Refinish
Engine Side of Restored / Rebuilt Carburetor
Top Side of Restored / Rebuilt Carburetor
Outlet Side of of Restored / Rebuilt Carburetor
After-R100RS Type 94 Rebuilt and Refinished Carburetor
In January, I found my next project bike, a 1983 R100RS with 83,382 miles on the odometer. The bike was build on February 9, 1983 and delivered to RPM Motorcycles in Ventura, CA on March 1, 1983.
1983 R100RS Project Bike
Original Dealer Prep Date, March 1, 1983 (European Date Form)
I created a project index page where I’ll post links to the procedure write-ups as I work on the project. I’ll also post short introductory blogs for each phase of the work as I did for the 1973 R75/5 restoration project I completed on July 4, 2014.
This is the link to my initial inspection and extensive “before” photos I took.
Based on the inspection, I plan to do a major service, carburetor and petcock rebuild, and any other essential maintenance. Then I will ride the bike for a couple hundred miles so I have a baseline for how the bike runs and handles before I dive into the rebuild.
So, I’ve been pretty inactive in this blog since July of 2014 when I finished the rebuild of “Grover”, a 1973 BMW R75/5 that I worked on over an 18 month period. But, you haven’t. As the picture below shows, monthly visits to this site have gone way up since I started posting my progress on that project starting in December of 2012 and continued to stay high after the project completed on July 4, 2014. The material I’ve posted is averaging 5,500 to 6,000 visits a month.
I never expected that much interest, but it shows the power of the internet as a low cost way to find information anywhere in the world. In looking at statistics about where people come from and sites that have linked to this content, folks in Australia, Brazil, England, Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, and Switzerland have visited.
The top 11 most popular write-ups with their [number of visits] are:
The carburetor rebuild work is actually represented twice; the highest hit rate was for the work write-up and the other was for the blog post announcing the availability of that write-up.
Plans for 2015
I’ve had a list of bikes for my next project and have been cruising Craig’s List, BMW MOA, and Google searches for one of the following bikes.
R69S
R90S
R80/7
R80RT
R80ST
R100RS
K75S
This week, I’m finalizing the purchase of a 1983 R100RS with 83,000 miles. My plan is to rebuild this bike and document my work as I did for the R75/5 project. So, there will be more blogs and write-ups coming soon. 🙂
I’ve become pretty active in the Airheads Beemers Club in Colorado (ABC-CO). I helped start a Down to Meet site to promote all things Airhead. If you live in the state, or are passing through, please join one of our “Parking Lot Universities (PLU)”, “Ride-to-Eat (RtE)” and our annual Tech Day which is held in April.
One idea I have is to create some PLU activities using my garage (so more of a BGU) so Airheads who want to learn more about the R100RS can participate, grab a wrench, or just hang out as I work on this project. It should be fun.
During the recent rebuild of “Grover”, my wife’s 1973 BMW R75/5, I wanted to restore the original Windjammer II fairing it came with. The Windjammer was designed and sold by Craig Vetter who has long been associated with motorcycles, fairings and fuel economy. So I was pleased to find he and his wife maintain a web site and store for his fairings with what I needed to repair it.
I had a question about what adhesive was used to attach the headlight bracket to the fairing and sent a note to Carol Vetter, his wife. In short order I was in an email exchange with Craig. I thought at the time how cool it is to be able to get information directly from the designer of the Windjammer 40 years later.
When I got done with the fairing repair and paint work, I send him a link to these write-ups.
Last week I got a note from Craig saying he would be coming through Colorado on his way back to his home in California and would I like to get some coffee. And yesterday, I got coffee with Craig Vetter.
Craig Vetter
What Craig Has Been Up To
Craig has documented the work he has been doing to build “The Last Vetter Fairing” in his quest to boost fuel economy and mileage for motorcycles. He had been in the mid-west at a mileage competition, the 2014 Vetter Fuel Challenge at the AMA Vintage Days, but the weekend before we met, someone stole his trailer with the bike in Kankakee, Illinois. The good news is the bike was recovered but the bad news was the trailer is still missing and he was now returning much later than he had anticipated, but he was still willing to stop and chat with me.
I rode Grover over to a Starbucks near the intersection of I-76 and I-70 where Craig would be arriving so he wouldn’t have to detour far from his route.
We talked about his goal for energy efficiency, a long time passion, and his efforts to “learn what I don’t know” to design and make available a motorcycle fairing that can double fuel efficiency. So, does anyone really care enough about conserving fuel on a motorcycle to want a fairing that doubles the mileage? He admitted it has been a struggle, but he believes the need for energy efficient gasoline powered bikes is inevitable as the cost of oil exploration continues to rise with the corresponding hike in gasoline prices at the pump. The near term opportunity lies in the emergence of electric powered motorcycles since they need more range between recharges and that matches up with a well designed, cost effective, slippery fairing that cuts drag enough to double the range of any electric powered bike.
As you might expect from a man who built a successful company, sold it and then continued to work on projects to extend the limits of what is possible for motorcycle fuel efficiency, our conversation was fast, wide ranging and equal parts observation, questions and guesses about what the future could be. It was the best hour of coffee drinking I’ve spent in some time.
We took some pictures of the old (Grover with a Windjammer II, circa 1974) and the future (The Last Vetter Fairing) that span 40 years of Craig’s thinking, learning, testing and trying in the parking lot at Starbucks.
Craig Vetter Surrounded by 40 Years of His Innovation
Only 16 HP, 70 MPH, and Over 100 MPG
Me Holding Grover’s Hand
One of the stories Craig told me is whenever he rides the bike or trailers it, it’s almost always a women who will stop to ask him what it is, but not men. We both think men are reluctant to ask because they are uncomfortable admitting they don’t know what it is (sort of a corollary to the “men don’t ask for directions” syndrome), but women are genuinely curious and are not so encumbered. He jokes with me that if the women is older he will tell her “It’s really a chick magnet” which always gets a chuckle before he tells her the rest of the story and why it matters.
And then as he is about to leave, a lady drives by the two of us and leans toward the passenger window of her car and asks, “What is that?”
“What is That” From a Women Passing By
Craig looks at me and just smiles. He tells her what it is and before you know it she is out of her car and the two of them are talking about fuel economy, how to get 100 MPG on a motorcycle and why he believes this matters.
Then, after saying good bye to her, he tows The Last Vetter Fairing out of the parking lot and heads west on I-70 toward home. As I fire up Grover, I realize rebuilding this old bike opened a door for me to get a cup of coffee with one of the icons of motorcyling. The old airhead engine runs that much smoother as I head back to work.
