More Tokyo street spots

Some more Tokyo street spots snapped on an amble up and down the 311 between Haneda and Kamata. The Beemers and BSA were outside a Beemer dealership and a very friendly chap came out for a chat when he saw that I was paying an interest. I found it strange but admirable that a load of dusty (though good condition) classic rides were fronting a showroom full of very shiny modern BMWs. The Yamaha was outside a Kawasaki dealership and looked like it was perhaps the daily rider of someone who works there.

Unusual to see three 100RS together.

A distance shot on the Beemers.

BSA A65 Lightning. Looks like a 1970 model.

The Yamaha SRV250 was made
from '92 to '96 and is a really
sweet looking bike that never
made it to the UK.

BMW R100RS for sale

The time has come to part with an old friend. Not sure it is the right move, I've owned BMW airheads for the last twenty years or so and every time I sell one I just buy another, and this one is a good one...

Anyway, too many bikes, not enough space or money and the urge for a change drive me to offer the old faithful Bimmer for sale after 9 years of adventures.

The price I'm looking for is GBP 4,500, at the same time it is on ebay so we'll see how it goes.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124897911280

All details are on the fleabay listing except for the emptiness I will feel when it has gone!! There's even a very poor quality walk around video.

Popham Megameet 2021

It's been a few years for me since I was last at Popham Megameet but I had good memories of it as a decent sized enthusiast focussed local one day show where a lot of the bikes are ridden in. Come the day rain was forecast and it almost looked like it wasn't worth setting off from home but having been starved of events for the last eighteen months or so off we went. In the end it only rained for the first fifteen minutes or so from the gate opening but sadly for the organisers it was enough to put a lot of folk off and attendance through the gates was low. A shame as the club stands were all there, the autojumble was pretty much there too and only the ride in exhibitors were low in number. So, there you go, a good day out in the open air, some interesting bikes and autojumble bargains to be had. If I can I'll be back next year. Below a few snaps of bikes that caught my eye...

Royal Enfield J2 in good unrestored
condition on the REOC stand.

Seven or eight WW2 Germans combos were gathered
together, both BMWs and Zundapps.

Loved this cheeky retro tax disc humour.

Unusual fairing and front mudguard on
this Beemer airhead caught my eye. On
closer inspection it's a Krauser fairing.

The seat unit on the BMW carried this 'San Jose
BMW Sport Pac' logo.

Beast! Supercharged Kawasaki Z900 powered Rickman.

Nearside view of the Rickman Z900 power
unit. I'm not familiar with Z900s but it
seemed like some serious mods had been
done to the oiling system.

And the offside view, no missing the supercharger.

This Silk was ridden in and sounded great.

I've got a thing for two stroke twins and for me a
Silk is pretty much the ultimate.

Another two stroke twin. Moto Rumi
Bol d'Or scooter. 125cc, twin carbs,
vertical draft, you wouldn't want the rain to
pour down those trumpets!

The Moto Rumi Club were out in force
with both motorcycles and scooters.

Bol d'Or in its distinctive bronze paint and a Tipo
Sport in the background.

Also on the Moto Rumi club stand was this very
wonderous homebuilt four cylinder Rumi creation.

Very nicely and authentically restored
WD16H Norton on the Norton Owners
Club stand.

Also with the NOC crowd this road registered Manx.

Cute Chinese Money Bike based Metisse was on the
Rickman stand.

Replica of a 1962 Bultaco Metisse was also on the
Rickman stand.

Great turn out of on and off roaders
from the Greeves Riders Association.

Also a good turnout of S7 and S8 Sunbeams from
the Sunbeam Owners Fellowship. This S8 fitted
with repro Rodark panniers made by Craven
looked really nice.

The Rodarks suit the lines of the Sunbeam
really well.

Another top unrestored bike was this BSA Golden
Flash on the BSA Owners Club stand.

Finally on the Vintage Japanese Owners
Club stand this Yamaha AG100 caught
my eye and made me feel slightly nostalgic
about my recently sold AG200. Immaculately
restored it was apparently a pre-production
machine and was offered for sale at £3500.

BMW R100 Bob Porecha fairing bags

The '76 RS has been the latest recipient of my fetish for period accessories. There's just something about vintage bike luggage..... Here are a pair of fairing pockets made back in the day by London based BMW guru Bob Porecha.

The bags fit neatly between the tank and the fairing and are neatly shaped to match the RS fairing pretty much spot on. They attach with velcro straps on the fairing brackets. In use the bags are not in the way as they are neatly tucked away. They have no internal stiffening so any load has to be balanced, light or shaped to the bags, preferably all three of these. I'm not sure of the capacity, suffice to say that they are capacious and should be just the job for keeping odds and sods to hand whilst touring. Their test run was on a ride to a local farm shop where they proved to be particularly adept at keeping a pair of pasties snug and safe on the ride home.

Sixties Beemer buffs

Looks like some owners club action going on here. BMW motorcycles would have been a rare sight on British roads in the fifties and sixties. They were prohibitively expensive and slower than the British offerings of the time. The Beemers may have had the edge in real world mile after mile flat out down the autobahn performance but a good Brit parallel twin could usually beat them to the next cafe. As such BMW ownership was a somewhat niche activity.

Elefant Rally / Elefantentreffen 1966

In memoriam of rallies we have missed out on this winter here are some of the nicest events photos of yore that I have come across for a good while. They're amongst the favourites in my collection. Pictures from someone's album of days gone by of a trip to the Elefant Rally in 1966.

(tip - as with all photos on this blog click to enlarge. If you then want to see them in even better resolution right click and open in a new tab or view image. All pictures on the blog are scanned in high res.)

Top right a winterised BMW combo - check the
homemade muffs around the heads and barrels to
stop it getting too cold! As a testament to their
quality you still even now see BMWs like this doing
the rounds of the winter rallies.
Bottom left the Nurburgring pits and grandstand area.
Bottom right. Well done sir! A venerable plunger framed
Golden Flash BSA has made it along from the UK.

Top. Tents under the trees with a
Jawa combination.
Bottom a very smart Vincent Black
Prince combination. Note the Harro
Elefantenboy tank bag and five inch
Black Shadow rev counter. The Black
Knight was already out of production for
more than ten years by the time this picture
was taken but it would have still been the
most potent bike at the event.

Top left a pair of Harleys.
Top right, those Harleys again. The license plates
are US forces in Germany type.
Bottom left. A glamorous visitor from Britain -
Vincent Black Shadow with Watsonian chair.
Bottom right. A NSU 501T from the late twenties.

Top left a sweet cafe racer based on a DKW RT350
twin.
Bottom left a Beemer combo alongside another
DKW - an RT200(?) this time.
Bottom right. US visitors. A Harley Duo-Glide
to the fore.

Top right a Triumph hitched to a child-adult
chair leads a Royal Enfield with Wessex sidecar.
Bottom left, the pit area at the Nurburgring.
Bottom right another Brit bike, an Ariel Square
Four MkII.

BMW airhead pushrod seal replacement

A point came a while back where getting oily boots every time I took a ride on the R100RS was really beyond a joke. I took my usual course of action which was to park the errant bike in a corner of the garage and move on to something else that worked slightly better. A few months on having now broken that bike which I had moved on to and continued the cycle my attention turned back to the Beemer.

I placed an order for a top end gasket kit and sparkly brand new stainless pushrod tubes from Motobins. The parts arrived next day and then I sat on them for another couple of months. A few days ago with all the extra lockdown workshop time many of us have been experiencing of late I decided to knuckle down and do the job.

For some reason it seems like it might be useful to share the experience with others... Two points first though:

1. I take a perverse satisfaction from doing jobs on my bikes without workshop manuals and taking the time to work everything out for myself as I go along. I only refer to a manual if I get really stuck. So, if you are like me please feel free to read on and then ignore all to experiment for yourself.

2. This was a really easy and fairly quick job and I wish I had done it earlier rather than put up with an incontinent bike for quite so long.

First job should be to clean up the dirt and oil from all around the heads, barrels and base of the barrels. This should be before even ordering parts. If I had done it the correct way round I would have found out that my bike already had stainless pushrod tubes and I would not have then bought another set and then sat on them for several months - way too long to send back for a credit note

Next up remove the carb by undoing all the jubilee clips and wriggling it free. It's easiest if you take the carb to airbox connector tube off first. Remove the downpipe lock ring - easy if you always keep the threads lubed with copper grease. Valve cover off next then spark plug out.

Take the head off next, always just slightly loosen each holding nut before undoing any single one all the way. 

Lay it all out on a clean cloth or sheet of paper in the order it comes off and in the right position. 

Turn the motor manually so that the piston on the side you are working on is at top dead centre or thereabouts. Wiggle the barrel to free it off, give it a tap with a leather mallet if necessary. Someone has previously tapped the fins on my barrel in the wrong place and too hard.. Slide the barrel up to the skirt of the piston so that the gudgeon pin is exposed. The first side I did I exposed the rings which meant that I ended up taking the barrel all the way off and then had to remove the gudgeon pin and piston to re-assemble and get the rings back in the barrel safely. As I learnt (and would have surely known if I had used a manual!) there is no need to do this at all, it's perfectly easy to replace the seals with the barrel sitting as per the above picture. On the plus side I discovered that the bores on my bike are in very good health, far better than I had expected.

The old rubber seals for the pushrod tubes should come off easily. I cleaned the mating faces of the base of the barrel and crankcase and applied a smear of gasket sealant before re-assembly. In an ideal world you would replace the o rings on the upper studs but this is an extra complication I personally didn't want to bother with and in my mind isn't really necessary. If you really want to replace these o rings you can of course pull the barrel off altogether or remove the studs with the barrel in situ to fit new ones. Now put the new seals in place, make sure they are aligned (there should be an arrow to face downwards but even without the marker the alignment should be fairly obvious).

Slide the barrel back in - it wont go all the way until you get the head on and tighten it down a bit. The new seals need some pressure to seat themselves.

Now back on with the head and rockers.

For the head bolt torque settings and valve clearances there's a handy table for all 1970-85 models on the Horizons Unlimited site: https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tech/R-1970-85-techspecs

Once again, I strongly recommend using copper grease on the exhaust ring thread.

Once all re-assembled move over to the other side and repeat.

And now you can go out for a test ride wearing your finest brogues.