from [URL]http://www.net-motorcycles.com[/URL] I wasn't looking for a BMW - they're too expensive and usually ridden by elderly gents - but I was dissatisfied with my XJ600 Diversion. There was nothing actually wrong with it, I'd been rallying all over the country on the Divvi over the course of the summer and it performed faultlessly, coping well with the copious luggage I like to take and, quite frequently, the luggage of other club members. As my better half is not into the rally scene, I always have an empty pillion. It's just that the Divvi was, well, a bit dull and a touch embarrassing to roll up on - it lacks a certain presence. So there I was looking through the pages of the local Free Ads and I noticed "BMW R80 Flat-tracker style" at around 500 notes - I've got to look, I thought, so I went to Ashfield for a gander. Incidentally, the area around Kirkby-in-Ashfield has a massive bike scene, my last five bikes have all been from there. I saw it, I loved it! It was cut down to the bare minimum. Single seat (a flat aluminium plate with no padding), shortened rear sub-frame, LOUD megaphone silencers (sic), K and N air-filters and a minimal electrical set-up tucked into a box under the seat. The owner started it up - bloody hell - it was banging from side to side and when you revved it pulled strongly to the right. EXACTLY the kind of thing I wanted after the sugar-coated Yamaha. Once I got it home I started what I knew would become the big job of sorting the bike out. It was very rusty, the silencers, electrics box and much of the frame were brown, the lower half of the engine was plastered with black sticky oil and the left hand carb kept flooding. In terms of modifications I wanted to make it needed an oil pressure light hooking up (why on earth would you not want an oil pressure light?), the Bates headlamp was crap, the seat was non-existent and I couldn't see the pushbike speedo at night (no illumination). It also needed engine bars, with those pots sticking out the side, you don't need much of a get off to completely destroy the motor. I started on the engine, it was very noisy - valve gear clatter - I adjusted the clearances but found that the needle rollers on the rocker shafts were worn, so I replaced those. Quietened it down a lot, changing all four sets of oil (engine, gearbox, shaft and bevel drive) also seemed to help the smoothness. A mate from the club came up with a headlight from a CB750, which takes a halogen bulb, and I bunged it out front with some universal headlight brackets I got from the bike shop. I wired up LEDs for high beam and oil pressure, the wiring for the oil pressure switch easy - one of those short-to-ground types. I put on a new pushbike speedo, made an aluminium cowl for it (to keep the rain off) and inside I made a bracket to hold one of the instrument illumination bulb assemblies that I ripped out of the original clocks. The cosmetics were easily sorted out with a tin of Hammerite. I glued two layers of foam to the aluminium plate and fitted road legal silencers, which the previous owner had given me with the bike (nice chap), then went for an MOT. It failed, the front mudguard too short (it stretched about two inches either side of the forks). I had been meaning to change it as I didn't look forward to the idea of water spraying up inside my helmet! So I shot round to Manhattan's (in Sheffield - one of the last proper bike shops in the country) where I cajoled the proprietor into giving me a mudguard from an Indian Enfield for a fiver; he lent me the tools to drill and fit it, too. Straight back round to the MOT centre and a one year ticket was mine! I started to use the bike more and more instead of the Divvi, I just couldn't be bothered with the Yamaha any more. As the miles piled on I noticed a new rattle from the cylinder head. A phone call to Motorworks up in the Yorkshire Dales put me right, it was the valve guides. No problem, the heads come off so easily it's a revelation. Well, it was, once I chiselled the exhaust nuts off and repaired the subsequent damage to the threads on the exhaust stub with a needle file. While I was doing the engine I thought I'd try to solve the black sticky oil problem, so the barrels came off too. I noticed that the right hand piston had a damaged compression ring, which I believe was due to ham-fisted rebuilding in the past, so a set of rings was ordered. Motorworks handled the valve guide replacement, but it meant that I had to go to the Yorkshire Pudding Rally on my CG125 (god I love pushrods) and on the Saturday I pushed on up to Meltham to collect my heads, so I wobbled back from the rally with all my camping gear and half a BMW engine on the back! I was learning that these old boxers are nothing like the Jap iron I was used to - there's not a single part that can't be replaced, everything runs in replaceable bushes or bearings. For instance, the bores are chrome plated, that means that they (in all practical terms) never wear out, the pistons are rock hard too - so they never wear either, but the piston rings are soft and so they are a service item, as are the bronze valve guides. It's a different way of thinking - where's that copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? The rebuild went easily enough, although I had to buy a piston ring compressor - that's probably why the previous rebuilder had damaged the rings! Fired up after a couple of seconds of churning and sounded lovely! So the long running-in process began, 500 miles of gentle wrist action. Around this time I started to get the alternator warning light flickering on - off with the front cover to reveal a damaged alternator brush holder and amateurish soldering on the alternator coil output. Motorworks supplied the parts and I supplied the soldering iron (I'm an electronics engineer - soldering is not a problem!). Motorworks also advised me to check the diode board, it's held in with four bolts and all four need to be fitted to ensure good ground contact - sure enough, two were missing. The charging problem cured, I started to hear another new rattle, this time from the front of the engine, Motorworks to the rescue with a new timing chain and tensioner slipper, and a few hours of my time saw it sorted again. The difficult part was getting the alternator rotor off - I took the advice of my Haynes Manual, made a pusher-rod by grinding down an allen key, which then fits in the end of the shaft and when you screw the alternator bolt back in, it pops the alternator off - magic! I made a better seat with some memory foam and some leather which I got from a lass at the club. That helped my arse - the bike took me to the OGRI Rally and round Snowdonia (regular biking weekend in the company of some mates) with aplomb. Around this time I fitted longer rear shocks, the previous owner had lowered the back end a bit and I didn't like the way the sump kept scraping along on bumpy roads! I picked up another R80 from Edinburgh (through eBay) and brought it home. I was going to run it but then thought why bother, so broke it for parts - the decision was helped along by the oil pressure warning light coming on at tickover (not a good thing), sure enough when I took the engine out of the frame there was oil dribbling down from behind the clutch, where oil should definitely not be! So that engine is on the bench awaiting a rebuild. The second bike did have a funky arctic camo paint job, so I swapped the tank and front guard on to mine (had to clean the fuel taps out, though). I've now fitted the side plates of a Givi Wingrack, to make rallying a bit easier next year - I was really struggling for luggage space, had stuff strapped to the forks, the tank, the engine bars, etc. The left hand carb was still periodically flooding, someone had badly bent the floats in a previous attempt to fix it. I tried a new float needle valve, to no avail, so I changed the floats for those from the other R80, which has cured the problem (hopefully for good). The build quality of the chassis is fantastic, taper roller bearings are used throughout and they just don't wear out. The front brakes are very good, dual twin pot Brembo calipers on stainless discs - my bike has braided lines coming from a dual banjo on the master cylinder. A mate from the club tried the bike and specifically commented on how good the brakes were, but then he does ride a CB750 (ouch)! In the middle of all this the Divvi was sold to a bloke at the club, and promptly exploded two days later - the camchain tensioner actually came unscrewed and popped out on to the top crankcase! We looked into the engine, eight bent valves, eight cracked valve seats, probably some bent rods. So a new engine bought (through eBay) and bunged in - the motor from 2003 and the bike '93, so there were some differences with the plumbing, but it went in and worked fine. Shortly after, the new owner was T-boned by some woman at a crossroads and the Divvi written off. The engine survived and was sold to another bloke from the club! Everybody said the Divvi must be jinxed, but I pointed out that it was fine for the nine months I had it, so maybe it's my mate that's jinxed? So in conclusion, I am converted - I LOVE the BMW. Simple to fix, fun to ride and it's got real character. Okay, I've done a lot to it, but I put that down to correcting years of neglect, now it's sorted it's as reliable as any bike could ever be and I should say that during all of these trials and tribulations, it has never once broken down - it's always got me home. If you know where your socket set is and you are not afraid to use it, I'd definitely recommend buying one. To be fair to the BMW, how many Jap bikes can you buy that have over 100,000 miles on the clock, that are over twenty years old, but which can be rebuilt for a couple of hundred notes and be as good as new? Bob of AIMCC Chesterfield from [URL]http://www.net-motorcycles.com[/URL]
