Boxerworks.com

Airbear wrote:Last week there was an entire running R90/6 sitting in my shed. Now it's like this -



It all started with a valve adjustment. The clearances on the port side jug had grown again since last adjustment. After adjustment I pushed the old girl off the centre stand to go for a warm-up ride and noticed a very spongy front brake and a notch in the steering. "O bother", (or something similar) I said. "Time for some slightly more serious attention."
Fast forward and the frame is completely stripped, ready for blasting. Parts are laid out on every available horizontal surface or are being soaked in various toxic solutions. New and pre-loved parts are winging their way from various parts of the world.

Here are some observations:
A BMW Airhead is composed of a great number of parts. Most of those parts are filthy.
The frame is really light in weight. Much lighter than I thought possible.
I enjoy doing this sort of thing.

Brunhilde will be 40 next year - a tricky age for a girl - so a makeover is bound to cheer her up. I want to make her look nice while retaining her hard-won patina. The paintables will be painted and decisions still need to be made about the rest.
Just thought I'd share.

That is a very nice little shop Charlie , love the bench! I keep promising myself something pretty like that but never get around toit, should by a packet of them. i just know you won't do one of those godawful super polished restos . Brunhilda looked just lovely, just the way a 40 year old bike should look .

I am in serious denial about the suspicious wafts of smoke Tilly is blowing and I know given time it will heal.

Sibbo wrote:That is a very nice little shop Charlie , love the bench! I keep promising myself something pretty like that but never get around toit, should by a packet of them. i just know you won't do one of those godawful super polished restos . Brunhilda looked just lovely, just the way a 40 year old bike should look .

I am in serious denial about the suspicious wafts of smoke Tilly is blowing and I know given time it will heal.

Thanks Peter. The shed is far too small for everything that must happen in there, but I manage. The bench was a project about 8 years ago, and fun to make. A good friend gave me some lovely, very heavy slabs of yellow box for the top. The base is Vic Ash with mortise and tenon jointing. Like Brun, it's one of my favourite things.

Don't be concerned about any bling appearing on Brunhilde. It would be criminal to deny her that hard-won patina. She will, however, be clean. I will warn you that I have been polishing the Staintune exhausts. Surprisingly, all that brown, baked on stuff comes off.

Re Tilly's smoke. Don't be concerned - they all do that, sir.

I have been surreptitiously leafing though my Hayes manual but it's intimidatingly complicated . I'm focusing on wishful thinking at the moment and the dip stick level is holding firm.

I've just started a small sailing boat Charlie, you might enjoy the thread ....I know you built one quite a while ago.
http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread. ... canoe-yawl Not really suitable material for Post '70 Airheads but so be it.

Yes! ....wooden sailboat building...love what you're doing.

Its a great time waster during the winter months here in the GWN. Built a 15' Snipe sailer about 20 years ago and it was one of the most relaxing things I'd done in a long time. Don't have one pic left of the project. Don't know where any of them went. Damn...

I sold her about 10 years ago to a friend after our kids had used her. He called me a few years ago and ask me to have a look at her and see if I would be interested in "re-skinning" her sometime. It was sad to see her in such shape but I declined due to other committments...he's still got her...probably rotting her guts out somewhere

Now that I'm out of bike projects for this coming winter, save one... in boxes, I'm looking at restoring a 16' cedar strip canoe. She's was a beauty, all originally hand built by master canoe builder in the Ottawa Valley region. I acquired her with a cottage/camp property we bought years ago...sold the camp but kept the canoe. Needs to be re-canvased and tuned up so to speak. Its amazing that all materials required are still available in these modern times e.g. duck canvass, dope (not the smoking variety) brass nails etc...Never recanvassed one but there's lotsa info on the web.

Sibbo wrote:I have been surreptitiously leafing though my Hayes manual but it's intimidatingly complicated . I'm focusing on wishful thinking at the moment and the dip stick level is holding firm.

I've just started a small sailing boat Charlie, you might enjoy the thread ....I know you built one quite a while ago.
http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread. ... canoe-yawl Not really suitable material for Post '70 Airheads but so be it.

The Haynes manual is like that. The writers like to create that element of mystery by leaving out critical information. The Clymer is much more useful.

And the canoe yawl is underway at last. Well done, Peter. Mind you, I'd hate to be boatbuilding with that lot of tyre kickers looking on. (Ok, I'll throw my bit in - I like the compass spiling method best). I'll keep an i on the build on WBF.

Ah Moose - excellent. Perhaps Boxerworks should have a boat building sub-forum. There's a few of us afflicted here.

Sad about your Snipe, and definitely best to not touch her again - that would have been heartbreaking. I'll be keen to know how the canoe project goes.

moosehead wrote:Yes! ....wooden sailboat building...love what you're doing.

Its a great time waster during the winter months here in the GWN. Built a 15' Snipe sailer about 20 years ago and it was one of the most relaxing things I'd done in a long time. Don't have one pic left of the project. Don't know where any of them went. Damn...

I sold her about 10 years ago to a friend after our kids had used her. He called me a few years ago and ask me to have a look at her and see if I would be interested in "re-skinning" her sometime. It was sad to see her in such shape but I declined due to other committments...he's still got her...probably rotting her guts out somewhere

Now that I'm out of bike projects for this coming winter, save one... in boxes, I'm looking at restoring a 16' cedar strip canoe. She's was a beauty, all originally hand built by master canoe builder in the Ottawa Valley region. I acquired her with a cottage/camp property we bought years ago...sold the camp but kept the canoe. Needs to be re-canvased and tuned up so to speak. Its amazing that all materials required are still available in these modern times e.g. duck canvass, dope (not the smoking variety) brass nails etc...Never recanvassed one but there's lotsa info on the web.

A canvassed canoe .My Dad did one when I was a boy in New Zealand , a beautiful creation , all the right aromas !

Airbear wrote:[
The Haynes manual is like that. The writers like to create that element of mystery by leaving out critical information. The Clymer is much more useful.
.

Is this your recommendation Charlie? http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDet ... %26sts%3Dt

or this one ?

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/clymer- ... =1&afsrc=1&

Yeah Charlie, will take some pics this time around!

Think we need a "boatbuilding" sub-thread. Remember a post/pics of you sailing your boat across a lake...was long time ago I think in the old forum....nothing like a nice breeze, a pint or 2, and cruising along...ahhh

Canvas "dope" is interesting....puts me back to my youth in the 60's...can get pretty wonked on that stuff...kinda like LSD trip....mind blowin' man...ha ha..sure the wife will make me put an exhaust fan in the window. On the other hand maybe she'll just leave me there in my heavenly bliss...insurance is paid up I think.

Ah now Moose, you behave yourself, young fella.

Sibbo, either one should be useful - the later one more so. Mine covers 1970 - 1994. Just a different edition.
The Clymer has a lot of step-by-step pics, helpful info on special tools and workarounds. Not always completely accurate, but none of them are.