After the Restoration: Initial tune
February 2000
Once the bike was kicked over a vacuum gauge was used to balance the idle speed. Balance at RPM was a bit more difficult as the brand-new-from-BMW throttle cables give next to zero play. I also played with the timing.
I rode the bike to Joe
Groeger's where we fiddled with the setting and got things
slightly smoother. The bike now has over 30 miles on it since rebuild. The
ride included the freeway. I'm keeping the speed/RPM down for now, going no
more than 55-60 in the slow lane.
I haven't really done anything the last 100 miles except replace the
aftermarket mirror with a /5 style mirror. It helps. I can see more
than my sholder, now. I have added about 1/2 pint of oil. The oil
still looks pretty clean; it's hard to read on the dip-stick.
It's been wet and (at least in my driveway where the landscapers are mid-deconstruction) muddy. The bike cleans up quite easily. I wipe it off with a damp rag, then wipe the water marks off with a dry rag. These pictures show the bike on leap day.
Yesterday I tried to show someone how well the horn worked. Of
course it didn't. Today I took it apart and found a plastic
(bakelite?) insulator in pieces inside the body of the horn.
That's what those little bits are above and to the right of the
red multimeter probe in the picture. It's job was to keep
the screw and spring (to the left of the coil at the top of the
picture) from shorting to the brass colored metal bit which
is part of the horn circuit.
I've used a bit of super glue to hold the plastic bits together and then used some epoxy for strength. I also put a bit of heat shrink tubing over the screw to act as an extra insulator. I'll try to put it back together once the epoxy has set.
The epoxy has set and the horn has been re-assembled. The picture
shows the insides prior to putting the cover on. I got the
adjustment close using an ohmeter. The horn was then put back
on the bike. A slight tweak of the adjustment screw resulted in
loud noises, again. I hope the repair will last.
