At the tech day...with the MT. Airheads Flag in its' rightful place.
The ride to Missoula was very windy and a struggle at some points. When the wind hits from the left, along with a sloping road it takes a certain amount of effort to keep the rig going in a straight course.
Below: A plains view before the mountains....west of Simms MT.
We made a quick pit stop in Lincoln for fuel. Ran the rig with the smaller touring tank this trip so gas stops were no more than 100 miles apart.
Some great river road riding between Lincoln and Missoula
Pulling into Missoula....the driver with a stupid look on his face.
Navigator self portrait
Leaving Missoula Saturday morning we headed north towards Kalispell, then west towards Paradise.
This is an animal overpass to keep the critters off the road.
Traveling along the Flathead River
We arrived at the "Tech Day" location at about 11:00am. Quite a few attendees. Numerous small repair / maintenance projects were in progress. Below is MT. Air Marshal John Werre's BMW and Jupiter sidecar. John's rig is pretty much original condition. My old rig has had the frame modified and was missing original lighting, badges and wind screen hardware.
Our rig in the background. Don't often see Jupiter sidecars...much less two in one place....Johns' is the first one I've ever seen , other than mine...
A lot of observers during repair sessions
I had a couple of "Airheads" Stickers with me so offered one to Terry from Washington. He was riding a very nice Plum colored BMW GS.
The weather forecast was for rain on Sat. night and Sunday so we planned on heading towards home Saturday. Upon starting my bike preparing to depart some serious back firing issues were apparant. I decided to take a few minutes and perform a quick valve adjustment...elapsed time about 15 minutes plus or minus...
Airhead Phil and Air Marshall John cheered me on...
We see Airhead Phil at the Last Chance Rendevous each year. He winters in Quartsite form Idaho each winter.
The sidecar makes right side engine work a bit more of a challange.
We pulled out at 2:30 pm and were in the rain immediately...didn't last long.
Just outside Bonner MT. sign read ; "watch for Big Horn Sheep"...sure enough there were three watching for us....the third one was closer and out of the photo.
The BMW still didn't run as it should coming home.
I pulled apart the Bing 40mm carbs today, disassembled and replaced all gaskets, o-rings, etc. Found each carb had a bad choke housing gasket. It has been a miserably cold starting bike....this repair should definately help. I had two over haul kits and never got around to rebuilding the carbs. One of the old rubber carb diaphrams was thin and like a "blob'...I am surprised it hadn't failed.
The engine has a couple of oil leaks so will probably attend to them. Also want to revisit the ignition system and look for problems there. I should install the original air filter system also. The original intake pulls air through the top of the engine...that additional air draw might help cool the engine more.(?) To install the original intake system I need to restore the crankcase vent plumbing to original form. The previous owner had replumbed the system and vented it to the atmosphere, rather than into the intake system.
The right side valves have required more adjustments than normal. The heads were re-done in Texas so I hope they didn't screw something up.
So maybe I'll bite the bullet and remove the sidecar to perform all these adjustments.
BELOW: A short video along the Flathead River...
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