keepemflying Slash 5 headlights and much more By Matthew Parkhouse #13272


HOME FROM THE rally! After a couple of days recovering from the drive back and forth to Billings, more than a week of sleeping on the ground, non-stop


socializing and bike repair, I have now spent a pleasant few days at work on the low-mileage Slash 5. The rally site was kind of spread out,


and what with our pleasant camping area at one end and Airhead Central at the far corner, I was VERY glad I had brought along my three-wheeled elec- tric unit (the Slash 5-E) to whine around on. We had a number of “fix- its” at the Airhead pavilion ranging from gearboxes, to GS drive shafts, to swallowed valves. We also saw a few later post-Airhead model machines, as there really was no dealer support at the rally. If you had a problem, you were referred to Airhead Central and the lifts that were set up there. Thanks to overnight delivery, most folks were able to repair their problem; others found helpful people to haul their mounts home or had rented U-Haul trucks. Still more owners were instructed in the finer points of main- tenance and tuning of their recently acquired air-cooled twins. The large tent featured the usual fine interior decorations found in a Billings thrift store and was a constant center of social activity. We towed our trailer with the elec-


tric bike behind my “Swedish Air- head,” our Volvo 240 wagon, which developed a coolant leak and started seriously overheating. We drained the melted ice water from our cooler into the tank and saw the temp gauge drop back into the normal range. At the


48 BMW OWNERS NEWS October 2015


After the new “expansion tank” arrived in the mail at Rally Receiving, it was a quick ten-minute job to replace the leaking old one in our “Swedish Airhead” in front of our tent in the camping area.


next town, I added about three quarts of water to the system. That night, I went on eBay, located a new “expansion tank” (the part that had developed a leak) and had it sent to the rally address at the fairgrounds. It showed up in plenty of time, the Receiving staff was looking for me, and I got it installed in about ten minutes. So, even though we didn’t ride up there, we had our “Airhead moment.” I assisted Alice Hanes, one of the older


riders at the rally. She had blown the head- lamp bulb of her Slash 5 and was hoping to find a replacement at the rally. The Slash 5 bikes were the last models not to use the H-4 headlamp that so many of us are used to. The standard bulb is a 35/40 watt incandes- cent (not halogen) lamp that gives off a yel- lowish beam of light. The best “fix” for this is to replace the lens, reflector, lamp holder and trim with parts from a BMW R-65. The


R 65 ran a scaled-down version of the H-4 system. It all just kind of snaps in place on the Slash 5, and the white halogen H-4 light is considerably brighter. The sort of half- way upgrade for the Slash 5 is simply to locate a bulb that has an H-4 bulb grafted onto the P45T base that the Slash 5 utilized. I had just stuck my last one of these in the low-mileage Slash 5 I am reviving at home! Unfortunately, this year was one of those “oil filter-less” rallies. No-one was selling the basic parts that airheads, K bikes, oil- heads and all the other models sometimes require to complete the trip to here and back home. After talking with Alice, I hap- pened to intercept Bob Hening (in mid-bite of his ambulatory lunch) and was able to ask him. His shop back home (Bob’s BMW) has the improved H-4/Slash 5 base lamps and suggested that an overnight order would get the lamp here in plenty of time. I never


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  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140