I’ve been tearing my hair out for the last ten weeks. I paid $7,500 for my 1979 R65 from a Motorrad specialist in Calgary who will remain nameless. It didn’t sound good when he started it up, but he adjusted the floats a bit and it seemed to sound marginally better. Or maybe it was just the money burning a hole in my pocket and wishful thinking.
Anyways, when I get it home (100 miles away in the back of a pick-up), I notice that it didn’t run nearly as nicely as my old slash 5. And then a day or two later, I noticed that the neutral switch was leaking gearbox oil. And about the same time, I noticed that the float bowl was weeping a bit. And the brake caliper bolts were nearly ready to fall out.
So I started the whole tuning procedure, going all the way back to torquing the cylinder heads. Found that the 4 valve assembly bolts on the left cylinder were way under-torqued. Oh well; they’re good now. Adjusted the valves. Disassembled the carbs and thoroughly cleaned everything. Built myself a manometer. Balanced the carbs. Now it’s running much better.
Ordered a Boyer ignition that caused pinging in the bike, a tach malfunction, and a near nervous break-down. But that’s another story.
All this time, the Motorrad specialist was assembling a bunch of stuff for me for low (sport) handlebars (ie, handlebars, shorter cables and brake hose).
Now it’s close to two months after purchase. I’m filling up with gas one day and notice that the left float bowl is no longer weeping. It’s puking. So I get home safely and take the floats out to see if they float. They don’t.
Now for the past few weeks, I’ve been phoning to see if all my handlebar stuff has come in. Throttle cables still taking a while to come in from Germany. So I take the opportunity to ask if they have floats in stock. Nope. They’ll take a few weeks.
At this point, I snap. I diplomatically register my displeasure, hang up the phone and advertise the bike on Kijiji.
But it is a nice looking bike, so during the next 24 hours, I scour the internet for floats. There is one place on e-bay that has them, but they don’t ship internationally. But I send them a query anyway. I check bmw2valve.com. They have them listed, but they’re out of stock. I phone and they say that stocking is about 2 weeks away.
But I’m OK. By this time, I’m thinking of a brand new Royal Enfield or a Moto Guzzi…even if it means that I have to shell out another wad of cash. I’ve had enough of the BS associated with this particular bike.
However, on one of the beemer sites, it mentions a place called Shail’s in Langley, BC. Not really expecting anything, I call them. EUREKA! They have floats in stock! They can ship them via Greyhound! And as I type this, three days later, they’re in my bike – which miraculously is now bone dry on the bottom of the carbs.
Oh, and I took the bike off of Kijiji.
Oh, and Shail’s also had the throttle cables in stock for the sport bars, which up until now supposedly had to come from Germany.
I now have Shail’s on speed dial.
(Sorry for the rant).
