keepemflying
hard-to-get-at valve stems on snow- flake wheels. The irons and right angle thing can be ordered from any BMW dealer; look in the “71” section of any BMW micro-fiche online. I also add a tire plugging kit. While it has no use for my tube-equipped Slash Five, I have used it to help out riders of bikes with tubeless tires. You can usually plug a puncture without having to remove the wheel from the affected bike. Susanna used to ride a R 1100 RS, and I rescued her on the way to the Bend, Oregon, National Rally a few years ago. On my trips, the most common
problem, following flat tires, seems to be electrical issues. My 1972 Slash Five was one that arrived new lacking any fuses. I had done the usual modi- fication of cutting the power supply wire at the positive side of the battery and soldering in a fuse holder with a 20 amp fuse. About ten years later, I replaced that with a pair of ten amp aircraft circuit breakers that I found at the local flea market. One circuit covered the headlamp and the other everything else. I do carry a few spare fuses in case I need to help other rid- ers out. I also carry a spare circuit breaker with a pair of jumper wires attached. If I’m trying to chase down a problem on a bike that involves blowing fuses, I can clip this in as I chase down the short. Far and away, the most useful
electrical trouble shooting tool I use is a test lamp. These can easily be made from any 12 volt lamp, but the ready-made tool with a sharp probe is really handy. When something quits working, this tool very quickly tells you if it is the item that failed or that the problem lies “upstream” somewhere in the wiring. There have been times when I was caught short without this tool and I fashioned one out of one of my turn-signals and a couple lengths of wire. BMW sells an elegant, compact one for about $10 (part # 71 11 1 237 863). It is also part
44 BMW OWNERS NEWS February 2016
of the “Super Tool Kit.” The second most useful tool to me seems
to be a small volt ohm meter. These tools are a bit fragile so I try to check mine before setting out. Recently, eBay has been selling a lot of cigarette lighter plug-in voltage meters; these are great if you are lashing up some sort of temporary voltage readout as you run down the road. You can find these for under $10. The ohm meter function is useful too. You may find yourself wanting to know the resistance of a spark plug cap or the alternator rotor, so that little meter really IS useful! I usually carry a small sol- dering iron and an inverter to run it off the bike battery. The inverter is available to power any other 110 volt device, such as cell phone chargers or the like. A small hunk of rosin core wire solder goes with the iron. I have small motorcycle jumper cables in case I get caught with a stone dead battery. Spare parts in the electrical area include a
used but good alternator rotor. Along with the rotor, you HAVE to have the extracting tool, which is nothing more than a machined long 8mm bolt. If you chose to make one of these yourself, the bolt MUST be hardened steel. A common bolt made into this tool will only get you into SERI- OUS trouble as it bends and gets stuck in the front of the crankshaft. A spare diode board is less often called for, but it takes up little space, so it comes along too. Taking up even less space, I have a pair of rotor brushes, even if this is something that should be attended to at home with routine maintenance. A set of light bulbs in small pill containers goes in there. I have selected a handful of crimp-on connectors and a few short lengths of heat shrink tubing. A small selection of fuses is in another small bag. A Powerlet BMW-to-cigarette lighter adapter allows me to plug into the special-to-BMW electrical socket. You know, when the Pow- erlet folks set me up as a vender 15 or so years ago, they were real sure that ALL motorcycles would
soon be using the BMW style plug. I guess that design hasn’t reached THAT far, other than with Triumph, Ducati and John Deere! The remaining bits and pieces fall into a
“miscellaneous” category. Tools to undo the exhaust nuts and the swingarm lock nuts are in there. I also carry things like feeler gauges, tools to pull off the alternator rotor, spare cables, bailing wire and duct tape, along with a few tools that I have found to be VERY handy in my day-to-day work on airheads here at home. I’ve been stuck a few times because I did not have all this stuff with me. Even then, there’s usually a work-around with the stout bike that we ride. Years ago, when I forgot a spare rotor and Susanna’s R100/7 lost its alternator rotor at the Guate- mala-Mexico border, we made it back to the U.S. by strapping on a car battery and run- ning “dead loss” for the rest of the trip. It would have been a fifteen minute repair if we had brought all of this equipment instead of a big bother every morning and evening. There usually is a work around; when I was lectur- ing about this topic at the Sipapu Rally, Larry Stonestreet pointed out that if your alternator rotor is dead and you don’t have the extrac- tor, you can carefully pound the rotor off the end of the crankshaft with a hammer. After all, it is not going to be used again. That’s the spirit of these airheads!
It is surprisingly compact when everything is put away until next time! Nice to have it all ready to go.
TECH
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