First Day of R60 Tweaking...At Mike's Place

My good buddy Mike, who I met on a Beemer messageboard a year ago, lives a few miles away. He has an R100 with a fairing on which he does cross-country touring, and a perfect R65. He spent quite a few years restoring the R65, and finished it a year or two ago. It's what I want all of my bikes to be eventually -- as nice as when it came from the factory (or, actually, nicer). Have a look...

He was the devil on my shoulder when I was considering picking up another bike (not that I needed any encouragement), so when I told him about the R60/5 in Oakland he said "DO IT!"...or something to that effect. Today was to be his first time seeing the bike. Another local Airhead guy, Scott, came over to Mike's place as well. Scott has a bunch of bikes...an R27, an R75/5, a Slash 2, an R100GS, etc. He's also got a few 2002 BMWs, which are on my short list of cars I want to own in the very near future. Definitely a good guy to know.

Mike and I immediately got to tweaking on the R60. I don't remember the exact order of the work we did, but here's a list of what we did:

- Verified fuel flow from petcocks. Flow is extremely strong, so no clogging in the petcock screens.
- Disassembled, cleaned, and lubricated throttle handgrip assembly. Removed 1/2 turn excess play.
- Checked spark plug coloration, applied anti-seize plug threads on reassembly.
- Removed left hand carb to inspect float needle. Found needle worn excessively, binding inside shaft.
- Re-set left hand carb float shut off level.
- Removed left hand intake spigot at head, cleaned threads, applied blue Loctite.
- Tested and verified bad brake light switch at hand lever.
- Re-stripped wire for better connection at right front turn signal.
- Removed exhaust nuts, cleaned threads, applied anti-seize upon reassembly.
- Removed driveshaft fluid fill plug. Found that threads had been Helicoiled in the past. Helicoil installed improperly, not square to hole bore. Tried 3 stacked aluminum crush washers to seal plug to hole, still leaking. Will have to fit a rubber "crush washer" for now, re-Helicoil the hole later.

So, a productive day. The left hand carb is dripping fuel, so I'm going to order a pair of rebuild kits for the carbs this week. At that time I'll re-set the idle level and jets (it's idling mighty high after we adjusted the slop out of the throttle gearing today) and sync the carbs.

I'm also going to get together all the necessary parts to do a full fluids swap next weekend, and get my hands on a new brake light switch for the hand lever.

I found that those bullet auxiliary taillights are only running lights, not brake lights. Both had bad bulbs. I replaced the bulbs and found that only one of them works...so, I think I'll just pull both of them off. I've already ordered a Beacon LED taillight insert from Motorrad Elektrik (http://www.motoelekt.com), and I'll probably put a set of P3 lights (http://www.lights.skenedesign.com) on the bike in the near future as well.

And now for more photos. First, the R60 in Mike's shop, borrowing the hallowed ground on which his R65 normally parks...

Now from the other side, with Mike's R100 in the background...

And then Mike took the R60 out for a test run, just to make sure I wasn't missing any obvious problems with the clutch, transmission, brakes, etc.

Good news; He gave it the all clear! Time to start ordering parts...

'Till next time!