keepemflying
I talked with the MECUM staff people to
inquire how the auction worked. Sellers pay an entry fee that varies with the time of day the bike is offered up, as there are more bid- ders at certain times. The fee runs from $200 to $500. The auction company then gets a 10 percent cut of the final bid. So, if your bike netted a closing bid of $10,000, MECUM gets $1,000 of that. In addition, the winner also has to pay a sum to MECUM of ten per- cent of the selling price. If you won the bike at $10,000, you need an additional thousand dollars. If one exercises a certain amount of discipline and really knows about the kind of bike being sought, these auctions can be a good place to shop for a decent ride. Almost every bike was detailed and cleaned to a very high degree. There were a few that looked like they had been ridden there, but not many. The bikes were not permitted to be started, let alone test ridden. It was a fun few days, though not exactly
the cheapest vacation we’ve been on. Ballys, for example, was selling imported beer at $12 a bottle, domestic for $10! I found out that the hotel offered ZERO drinking fountains and ended up getting a glass of water at one of the bars. Yeah, I admit that we Airheads are a cheap bunch, but there is a limit to what one should pay for sustenance. A shopping run to a local grocery helped with stretching our snack and drink dollars. Dinners were another story but, by and large, worth the price. We are back home now, and I’m finishing
up the Mexico Bike project. Our week’s worth of held mail has arrived, with my new Harley-Davidson voltmeter, and it looks like it will be a perfect fit in the old BMW volt- meter pod. At a total cost of $18, it certainly beat out the used BMW voltmeters I looked at. I’ve heard of people fitting almost new Harley mufflers to their airheads. I haven’t done this, but a quick look at eBay shows a LOT of very new-looking
The nice new voltmeter, along with the one that served the bike well for 10 trips south of the border. The gauge lined up perfectly with the mounting screws but what had been male fittings were now female. Took a couple of trips to a good hardware store to sort that out.
takeoffs from
people fitting their new Harleys with after- market (and no doubt louder) pipes. They look like they could be fairly easily adapted to a BMW airhead. Has anyone done this? I bet Harley takeoffs might be a good source of a few parts for our old bikes.
52 BMW OWNERS NEWS March 2016
The moved-back battery box. The strips of perforated plumbers' tape and the two shiny tubes, plus some longer bolts are what is needed to shift it back the extra two inches. I'll be able to run a 28AH battery rather than a 20AH one.
TECH
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124