I used to be a Rat Bike...

[ged in oz]

Hello, I posted an intro in the General Announcements section but I figured I would try and collate this stuff in a resto thread. I’ve already had some fantastic input from members here, so thanks very much guys for the help so far. I’m not a BMW guy, so I really appreciate the guidance.

Ok, so I’ve acquired an ‘83 R65 that has spent the last 6 years as a Rat Bike. The seller was a nice young fella who had a reasonable understanding of the bike and it’s mechanical requirements, so despite looking ‘ratty’, it’s actually not in bad nick mechanically for a 35 year old bike. It certainly does need general maintenance and plenty of issues attended to, but overall it’s not toooo bad, other than being”cosmetically challenged”. Oh boy, is it ugly!

I’ll post a few pics to give you the flavour.

[ged in oz]

I’m struggling to get photos uploaded here. Any tips?

[ged in oz]

As you can see, it’s covered in road grime, oil, grease and muck, as befits a Rat Bike. In fact I doubt that it has seen a wash in the past 6 years. At least he’s kept the oil and grease up to it!

As Joe (Wilcom) mentioned in the other thread, BMW’s are supposed to be oil tight!, but that doesn’t suit the Rat Bike ethos I suppose so the young bloke has gone out of his way to make sure all of its daily sludge stayed as on board as possible...

I also pointed out in the other thread that it has had a single seat modification undertaken at some point in the past, which allows you to get a discount in your annual registration costs by removing its pillion capacity. Personally, I don’t think that saving 50 bux a year or whatever is justification for butchering up old motorcycles!

For those not in Australia, that particular registration discount only existed in Queensland, 9and as Tony pointed out, it has now been abolished). I live in the neighbouring state of New South Wales, (10 hour round trip to go and get the poor old girl - it was up in Toowoomba), where we have never had a state sanctioned program to butcher your classic motorcycle!

Another difference between Qld and NSW is that you need to have your vehicle inspected annually in NSW in order to keep it registered. No such bother in good old Qld! As long as it still starts and runs, you’re good to go..... Most people on this side of the border therefore avoid buying QLD vehicles like the plague. Although annual inspections are a pain in the butt, there is a lot to be said for them in terms of maintaining safety standards and even reliability.

There is pretty much no way that this bike would have been on the road in NSW. The oil leaks would have been a fail. I think one of the photos shows a small puddle of oil that collected in the trailer on the way back home. So I was pretty surprised to find once it was degreased and pressure washed and given a good warm up and run that it doesn’t really leak that badly at all. It was just the accumulation of 6 years worth of muck!

Copper washers in the final drive, drive shaft and gearbox all need replacing and I’ve found some dodgy threads in various filler plugs as well, (I bet that’ll be fun...)

The previous owner assures me that he was running pod filters on it but pulled them off a few months ago (when it was off the road) and just didnt get around to replacing them. I hope so. Am I correct in thinking that these things have Nikasil bores? They’re certainly worth protecting!

More pics

[ged in oz]

The Hot Dog mufflers really were a bridge too far for me, so they got short shrift pretty quickly! My brother had left a pair of (certainly not Dunstall) Megaphonies from his Hinckley Bonnie in my shed, so with a bit of cutting and shutting, they’ve been pressed into service until something better turns up. The header pipes had been fabricated out of mild steel exhaust tube, so no real drama butchering that up.

A big thanks to Tony up in Cairns who gave us the tale of the
Don Wilson front disc. That’s an amazing bit of history in that story! I’ve spent a couple of hours yesterday and today trying to clean 6 years worth of brake dust off that front wheel so it’s worthy of carrying that little piece of history around on it!

The objective at this point in time is to get it back on the road, pretty much as is, but serviced and sorted so that it’s safe and reliable. I’ve got a rather expensive package on the way from Moto Bins and another order ready to go for Munich Motorcycles as well as an air box and bits on the way from a wrecker in Sydney. Where do you guys recommend for bits in Aussie?

[Tony Smith]

It is amazing what you can bring these old things back from.

Here are three timeline shots of mine - first immediately after cleaning 20 years of rat shit of fit prior to starting the rebuild. Then just prior to registration and finally more recently just after fitting the K100 front end to it. I do wish I'd done the cosemetics, but I was in a hurry to have something to ride.

[Tony Smith]

Where do you guys recommend for bits in Aussie?

Nowhere. They are all too absurdly expensive. The bits I needed for mine came from around the planet, mostly courtesy of eBay.

I have a personal hatred of Munich motors and would not buy a part from them if it was the last one on planet Earth.

[ged in oz]

Wow. That’s come back a looong way! I’m looking forward to reading more of the journey.

Cheers for tip on MM. I see that they have air box spring clips at $15 each!  I’ll see how my MotoBins order goes this week.

[Tony Smith]

There is a photo essay of the journey on this very site. My reason for posting the then and now photos is to pass on my major learning, which is - do the bloody cosmetics.

Yes they are time consuming and yes they cost money. But if you don't you end up with a perfectly mechanically restored bike that looks pretty ordinary.

[ged in oz]

There is a photo essay of the journey on this very site. My reason for posting the then and now photos is to pass on my major learning, which is - do the bloody cosmetics.

Yes they are time consuming and yes they cost money. But if you don't you end up with a perfectly mechanically restored bike that looks pretty ordinary.

Yep, point taken. I guess we tend to focus more on reliability and making sure the bike makes it back home, than on how it looks but ultimately it’s value is determined by what it looks like!

And gee, on that basis I’ve certainly got my work cut out for me...

Mind you, I learned a long time ago to never go into these things expecting to even recover your costs. Besides being foolhardy, it’s possibly the worst motivation you could have undertaking a project like this. If you aren’t in it for the love of doing it, you’re going the wrong way!

I had a long winded order lined up on MM web store, but they wanted a credit card rather than PayPal. I hate using my credit card, so I left the order sitting in my basket overnight and now it’s dissappeared. Oh well, guess I’ll just get another moto bins order underway.

[Tony Smith]

Why anyone buys from MM is beyond me. Unless they have changed their pricing policies, 9 times out of 10, their price before the lethal amount they add for post is more than MB's price including post.

[ged in oz]

Why anyone buys from MM is beyond me. Unless they have changed their pricing policies, 9 times out of 10, their price before the lethal amount they add for post is more than MB's price including post.

Why anyone buys from MM is beyond me. Unless they have changed their pricing policies, 9 times out of 10, their price before the lethal amount they add for post is more than MB's price including post.

Yeah, I don’t get that. I guess some people are just reluctant to import from OS. I don’t think I’ve ever had a parcel gone missing even in the pre Ebay era.

So Tony, what d‘ya think is going on here?... The coil has been, ever so neatly, mounted to a chunk of blue RHS! Whaaat the...

[Tony Smith]

So Tony, what d‘ya think is going on here?... The coil has been, ever so neatly, mounted to a chunk of blue RHS! Whaaat the...

The author of that bit of gross overkill is a man after my own heart. Downstairs I have a very similar arrangement (except I used Orricon steel which is silver) to mount some non BMW coils. And I suspect for the same reason.

Your bike is of an age that it would have left the factory fitted with the (in)famous crack-o-matic grey coil. There is a BMW owners refrain when it comes to coils "if it's grey, throw it away". I would say one of your POs (previous owners) took fright at the cost of a replacement Bosch coil and decided to adapt - hopefully they got the resistance about right, and used the lump of R-section to mount them and provide a heat sink.

In my own case I ended up with a double ended Mercury outboard coil because it had the right resistance and I also used a piece of R-Section to mount it.

When my mercury coils began to give trouble I bit the bullet and bought a Bosch coil. I also upgraded the ICU to the latest model and the bike has never looked back.

Dyna coils are a very acceptable replacement for the Bosch coils, but here in Australia they end up costing near as much as the Bosch coil, so I bought the bosch.

I strongly urge you to check the resistance of your coil because too high or low will greatly shorten the life of the ICU. And I just know the next question you are goign to ask is what should the resistance be and frankly I've forgotten.







[/quote]

[ged in oz]

Haha, I knew you’d have the answer!

All of that makes sense and yeah, that ICU would no doubt be pretty sensitive to changes in coil resistance... I guess I’m measuring the resistance of the Primary side?

I’ll keep my eye open for a replacement original.... The ICU is not the sort of component you want to fail in the middle of nowhere! and the cost of original coils is likely to be cheaper than the cost of getting it towed back home!

Cheers Tony.

[Tony Smith]

And "snap" here is my contribution to the rogue's gallery of awful kludged coils.

[ged in oz]

Are you sure that you didn’t do the job on mine?! It looks like the same bloke did both.

I’ve been reading your progress threads on here Tony and it’s been most enlightening! Lots of hints and links for suppliers and information. Thanks!

I’m presently reading the Snowbum files.... including all of the back info on coils (with the correct primary and secondary coil resistance readings). Pretty handy stuff. Mind you, all of that can stay right where t is for the time being, until I get it back on the road. I’ve got a barrage of Roadworthy items to attend to first and that’s going to be sufficient challenge for the next couple of weeks.

I’m waiting on a few different parcels to arrive from numerous origins around the planet at the moment. Moto Bins for most of it including fork seals, a (square) master cylinder reservoir, foot pegs and handgrips etc, all the usual Roadworthy fail items basically. A second parcel should arrive next week with service kit and more tidy up sundries. I’ve also got and Airbox coming up from a wrecker in Sydney.

The latest Ebay purchase this week however is a bit of a punt.... My fuel tank cap is stuffed and there is no way it will pass inspection in NSW. The original cap seems to be unobtainable (?) and the repro options seem to start at $150 to $200! The cheapest option I found was a Chinese repro at about $130. So,..... I found a scrappy but complete tank with cap, tap and badges (my tap needs a kit as well) for about $180 landed (including the bloody GST now payable on EBay international transactions - if you see Joe Hockey poke him in the eye for me).

My tank is a definite challenge!,  so we’ll see how this one goes. It’s been repainted (black with pinstripes) so I’ll assume it’s full of filler, but that won’t stop it being roadworthy. It’s coming International Priority from Louisiana which is usually pretty quick, so we’ll see how’s it goes. Fingers crossed.

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