keepemflying
Setting up the Mexico Bike and some Las Vegas auctions
By Matthew Parkhouse #13272
This is the dead of winter. Snow outside, temperatures below freezing. The Mexico Bike is on the lift, having two inches grafted onto the back of the frame to extend the wheelbase of the 1972 Slash Five. Other than changing the engine oil, filling the tank with gas and draining the carbs, I haven't done any maintenance since returning from
the Yucatan last March, 2015. While it never missed a beat for the 6,000 or so miles, the bike sure collected a few "service items" on the last trip. I figured I'd attend to them as I pulled parts off for the work of extending the wheelbase. I am also updating the driveshaft with a post-1979 cush-drive shaft. I began the work by removing
the solid long-wheel-base drive- shaft from the swing arm that I am installing. That bit of work really does call for the proper tool. Only the specialized puller will fit around the coupling bell and pop it off. Once I had the pre-1979 shaft out of the swing arm, I installed the spring-loaded post-1979 shaft into the longer swing arm. As the shaft was not from a 1979 or 1980 bike, I had to grind opposing flat spots on the collar that is cast into the shaft. There just isn't enough clearance to allow it to drop into the tapered swing arm. The entire procedure took maybe 30 min- utes, and I had a long-wheel-base swing arm, with driveshaft, ready to bolt onto the Mexico Bike. At this point, I pushed the bike up the ramp into my shop for
Mounting the new, two-inches-longer sub-frame on the Mexico Bike. I left for the Las Vegas auctions the next day.
voltmeter, I remembered the speedometer. It died a noisy death only 11 miles into this last trip. The mechanical gauges really do not like cold weather, and it was 11 degrees that morning last February when I set out for Mexico. The tachometer had failed about five trips ago, and I've just shifted by ear since then. I have a Slash Five instrument cluster I had rebuilt many years ago and have not had occasion to put it in anyone’s R 75/5. Several hundred dollars back then, no additional cost
now...it should take less than an hour to mount in the headlamp shell. I got a good look at the road-side welding repair to my left bag mount. It looks stout but I’ll need to get a different set of mounts for the longer wheel- base. There are a few on eBay, but they seem a bit costly. The mounts can be added later, when and if I head south. The broken mir- ror that had been replaced by a make-up mirror was properly replaced with a BMW mirror from my collection. The rear fender that I mended in the hotel parking lot in Merida appears quite strong as it is, after being cleaned in the shop sink. It will go back on the bike with the patch in place. The front wheel nut that fell off as I was heading home was replaced by God-knows-what in the way of hardware from a roadside junk- yard. This roster of issues pretty well covers the wear and tear the bike suffered on the last trip. As I unbolted the bike’s short-wheel-base
sub-frame, I noticed a bit of firecracker-col- ored paper blasted into a crevice next to the
the rest of the transformation. As parts came off, they were cleaned up and put aside. As I checked the old battery, I remembered that the voltmeter had quit during my last trip a year ago, just one of the several service items needing atten- tion. I took a quick look at what was being offered on eBay and ended up buying a never used Harley-Davidson voltmeter. I am not too concerned that the gauge has "Harley-Davidson" emblazoned on the dial, just as long as I get an accurate read- ing of the bike's charging output. As I worked with the
50 BMW OWNERS NEWS March 2016
seat lock - just a souvenir of the Tultepec Fiesta de San Juan fireworks festival from last year. The seat lock and lifting handle came off, to be reinstalled on the longer sub-frame. With a squirt of silicone lubricant, the wiring for the tail light and rear turn signals pulled out of the hollow tube of the sub-frame. As I installed the longer sub-frame, I reworked the two parts of the battery box to be mounted two inches back. To accomplish this relocation, you need a pair of tubes with ¼ inch diam- eter holes and two pieces of plumbers’ strapping. This change in the wheelbase allows the use of the larger batteries of the Slash Six and later airheads. The battery box parts and a number of other bits and pieces were cleaned up and repainted in gloss black. With the replacement swing arm and sub-frame in place and the fender remounted, the rest of the bike should go back together pretty quickly.
TECH
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