firstbike Two to turn 50 By Jim Blanchette #130385


ONE OF THE ADVANTAGES OF buying a new home is having a garage large enough to take on a project such as rebuilding a classic car. GBut given the cost of any of the vintage cars that I grew up with, I knew that such a project was out of my budget. Instead, I turned to restoring a classic motor- cycle. My search for a pre-1970’s BMW began, fueled by a 1992 BMW R 100 R I bought two years ago. At the time it was in the need for some seri- ous care, and I enjoyed bringing it back to life. It is now a fun weekend bike.


Within days I contacted the owner and


arranged to see the bike. It was “all there,” but it had also “been stored in a shed” – and as stated. And the shed was not kind to it. There were many small dents on the tank and rear fender from objects falling on it, and exposure to the weather had caused some rusting. I knew immediately it would not make a good survivor and would need to be fully restored. The owner, who restores classic American iron got the bike with hopes of restoring it, but but found out the German machines were not the same. We negotiated a price and then loaded my 1966 R 50/2 onto the trailer. Driving home, I made a plan to have it road wor- thy for “Our” 50thth birthday.” Upon getting it home


and into the garage, I performed the basic checks. The spark, compression and the carburetors were not bad, but the tank and petcock had more varnish than a 1950’s Chris-Craft. I made a short list of every- thing that needed to be done. Everything. Less than 2 years may not be enough time to finish the project; and it wouldn’t fall within my budget.I had less than two years to complete the project and a limited bud- get, so I armed myself with two2 full cans of Kroil and, jumped right into, and started the disassembly. After a couple of weeks and amazingly only one broken bolt, the only thing on my lift was the frame. Besides the varnish in the fuel system, the only thing I found that might have sidelined the old girl was a loose drive shaft. Out of the four bolts, two were finger tight, one was barely holding on, and the other was


During a weekly motorcycle get


together at a friend’s house, my friend Larry asked meI was asked by my friend Larry if I had found a bike yet. Although I had looked, I hadn’t found anything yet. Larry let me know that one of his co-workers was selling a 1966 BMW. He had my attention. I grilled him with a series of questions, and he never faltered. He described the motorcycle as “being all there” and “looks like it was stored in a shed for many years.” My interest was piqued. It was a classic BMW, and as chance would have it, 1966 was my birth year.


112 BMW OWNERS NEWS June 2016


lifestyle


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