New Rubbers

Since the mechanic had my bike in the shop and the original tires were cracked and dry rotted, I decided to heed the advice of the Airhead Archive list and try out the Bridegstone Spitfire S11 tires.

I also listened to the whole thread on whether to use tubes or not.  I decided to go with new tubes, rim strips, and new tires.  I went online to American Tire and ordered the following for the bike.

1 x BRIDGESTONE S11 100/90H-19 BW FRONT (B1150) = $51.01 

1 x BRIDGESTONE S11 110/90H-18 BW REAR (B2140) = $53.36 

Sub-Total: $104.37 GROUND SHIPPING 

(Code 2000  Texas, United States  ): $16.79 

Total: $121.16

These tires will hopefully last 10K miles.

Some major items

In mid July, the guy I bought the bike from had his mechanic finish some items that needed looking after from the Bill of Sale.  This wrencher loved to work on bikes, and seem to have some good knowledge of beemers.

He drained the brake and fork oil, replaced some seals, rebuilt one of the brake calipers, replaced the valve cover and oil pan gaskets.  He also installed the grab bar and brand new turn signals on the front.

One thing to note is on the 1977 BMW R100S, the front turn signal brackets are chrome plated metal, gut a later R100CS model uses black metal brackets which are much cheaper.  Rusty at MAX BMW turned me onto this and I had the mechanic install those instead.

Napa inline fuel filters

After noticing that my petcocks had no internal screens in them (I will replace these when I service the petcocks), I decided to go with the inline Napa Fuel Filters (paper ones).  These are cheap and can be purchased also in bulk at some marine supply stores.

Here is the Napa link for future reference, Part Number 702323.

http://www.napaonline.com/NOLPPSE/(S(oimsun55uan0n0vr40qfbt55))/Results.aspx?Ntt=702323%20&Ntk=Keyword&N=0&Nty=1&D=702323%20&Dn=0&Dk=1&Dp=3

These fuel filters are easy to install, but I did remove the cross over line between the original fuel T joints to make these fit.  I have the older Fuel Petcock Style #2, the the output nipple sticking straight down, not to the left or right on later bikes.

Lets get Wrenching

Ok, my first maintenance item.  I found a very useful post on how to fix a slipped gear within the airhead boxer odometers.  

This link (http://www.airheads.org/content/view/160/98/)  is awesome, has pictures, and a very well laid out description on how to fix the slipped gear preventing the odometer to advance.

I carefully removed the odometer, the tac cable was a bear to remove, laid out everything on the dinning room table and dismantled this baby until I could see that the gear was indeed slipping.  I proceeded to use JB weld to fix the gear as instructed, and everything went as planned.  Fixed odometer.

Got to love free resources.