Wrench'n Ride'n

Got to go for a wee ride yesterday. Not far. About 270 odd klicks. From home here to Glenorie. Then down to Sackville Ferry. Up to Bilpin. Back to Glenorie and then home. All roads I have done and reported on in this blog. Sharon, a very dear and old friend, has this year started riding. Her first bike was a GPX250. Now she has a very nice and loud red Suzuki SV650S. She rang and wanted me to go for a ride with her. How could I not. The LT has not had a good ride since the stud repair. Commuting to and from work is not a ride. It is a chore. So 600 odd kilometers after the repair I headed up to Glenorie to collect Sharon. The LT is purring along nicely. It is good to be back on the open road again. Arrive at Sharon’s and she fires up the SV. She has had a Yoshi muffler put on it. Oh the magnificent sound that comes from the new muffler is pure music to the ears. She has asked me to ride the SV later so she can hear what it sounds like now. Off we head. I set a pace that I t...

Steve Doyle has put together this great and simple guide to tuning your Bing carbs. No need for expensive tuning equipment. So over to Steve...... Any feed back on this How To please email me and I will pass it onto Steve. There are 3 common methods to syncing the carbs. They will all work 1. Shorting the plugs. http://bmwmotorcycletech.info/synchcarbs.htm and http://www.airheads.org/content/view/216/98/ 2. Using a manometer of some sort. Carbtune, Twinmax or home made http://www.airheads.org/content/view/183/98/ 3. Using your ears. No comprehensive articles that I could find.. In the spirit of learning to service and tune at home and after lots of reading, I decided that for me the "by ear" technique might be the most useful, as it doesn't require any special tools and can be performed anywhere. There is no risk of electrical damage to the bike or the one doing the adjusting. It was very difficult to find a comprehensive description of the procedure, so using the combi...

1983 R80RT road test by Clymer Manuals. Shame about the backing music. ;-) http://au.youtube.com/user/ClymerManuals

Chris from San Jose BMW shop has allowed me to share this great cafe styled BM with you all. Chris had posted this up in the Old Skool forums over at the ADV site. This is not just a stunning show bike, it is used in anger. It holds a land speed record. Amazing. To see this bike being built CLICK HERE . Last Winter we were upstairs at the San Jose BMW shop, and found that we had enough spare parts to build a new airhead. Thought that some of you might like to see the results... Like everything at SJBMW, we just had to race it - So off to Bonneville we went. And we got a new 750cc record - Just over 130 mph! Not bad for a 750 at 4600ft of elevation and a 100 degree day. The bike was built to be very period correct - vintage parts for a vintage machine. This included items such Makuni round slide carbs, Akron high shoulder wheels, drum brakes, and a VERY custom, period correct fuel tank.

I found this on U Tube. I believe Tom and his R80 Street Fighter are from Switzerland. This is an amazing looking creation. It would go like crazy too with so much chopped off the original bike. I have shortened the video down so you can hear the bike start up and then be ridden away. Pure music to the ears.

Here is part 3 from the Macquarie Towns Motorcycle Restoration & Preservation Club annual Motorcycle Show. The show was on at Macquarie Park, Windsor. Bikes from 1941 to 1950.

Thank you to Pezz_GS and Wato from the ADV forums for coming around this afternoon to have a look over the bike. Turns out the left hand carb was out of sync. Pezz put that right quick smart. Both said the engine was sweet sounding. So Sonny and I did a good job after all on this engine. I took the bike out for a short ride. Everything seems fine. A big thank you to everyone that has either laid their hands on the bike or offered help on the many forums I posted to about this saga. I have learnt so much about BMW airhead engines over the last month. Now to get some rides in.

Sydney Motorcycle Show Part two. Those 3 wheel scooter things. Custom Bikes. Around the World Ride. Fighting Prostate Cancer. Moto Guzzi. Kawasaki. Buell's new 1124CR. Some of the bikes outside the show.