TECH
keepemflying
took off. I arrived to join a small group
gathered around a K 75 RT at the side of the hotel building. I pulled out a few new cables and started compar- ing. After finding a match in length, I quickly discovered that one serious difference between K-bike and air- head clutch cables was that the K-bike cables had double the length of the exposed inner wire. This is because the distance from the lower cable attachment site to the throw- out lever is about half on the K-bikes. Thus, all of my airhead cables had twice the exposed wire of the K-bike ones. After a quick check of ALL of the clutch cables I owned and finding none that were the K-bike variety, I tried tying a knot in one of my used cables, to shorten up that length of exposed wire. After a couple of adjustments, the cable fit perfectly. At least the ENDS of both styles of cables were the same! The clutch action was just as it should be, and the cable appeared firmly in place. I was invited to return for the group dinner that evening, which I was glad to do. When I returned, Sam told me that he had ridden a couple hundred miles during the day and the makeshift cable worked just fine. He also said he had a new cable for the bike at home. Forty-four years into this work and I’m still learning things. Another reminder of how things
used to be for me: A traveler stopped by a few days ago. I used to get one or two calls a year from folks using the Anonymous Book, either for a prob- lem or just to stop by. That has sort of fallen by the wayside of late. This rider, a lady named Louise, was from Quebec and was making her way south, hopefully to Central America. She works in the summer and rides the rest of the year. She emailed me a couple days before arriving here, and
50 BMW OWNERS NEWS December 2016
Installing a replacement clutch cable on a visitor's K-bike. I have about fifty cables, new and used, on hand, all of them for airhead BMWs. I managed to modify one to work on Sam's K75.
Because the distance from the lower cable attachment point to the throw-out lever is half as far on a K-bike as on an airhead BMW, the length of exposed cable is twice as far. Once I shortened it by tying a knot in it, it fit just fine!
Louise prepares to depart after a short visit. She's on her way south, way south, as in Central America. That's a ride I hope to do in a couple of winters.
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