Parts found a little at a time....

I've been scouring the internet / ebay for needed cheapo parts. Since this is a "Rat Bike" project I won't go over board with high dollar new parts, except in the mechanical department. Function will take presidence over asthetics. Found the light assembly below for $39.00. I will use the signals and the tail light lens. The Front signals on the bike are original 1971 alloy units with the yellow side marker reflectors. The proper rear signals would be similar with red side marker reflectors. Original units are pretty tough to find as they were a 1971 model year only signal. When found they bring big bucks. I might install black plastic units in the front and sell the alloy units.

These well worn BMW "roundels" came up on ebay for $45.00 so I sprung for them for the Toaster Tank. New reproductions would have run around $140.00 for everything. The seller of the R60 said he might have the Toaster Panels but so far he hasn't produced anything for me.

Since the R60 might be delegated for side car hauling for a short time I thought I'd better find a friction damper assembly since it was missing. $23.00 bought this one.

The lower keeper clip was missing but I had one laying around.

I removed the Krauser saddle bags and rack from the R65 to see if they'd fit....and they do. They sit a little further back than original bags would but that's OK. I mounted them on the bike while sitting on the trailer so I'll need to readjust them when the bike is sitting on the ground. I think the angle is off a little.(?)

I'll need to be acquiring tires for the bike at some point, and my R100S tug is about ready for tires also. I see some Toaster Panels selling on EBay but am not sure how serious I want to get about them. They'll likely go for around $200.00.

When we get to Yuma AZ. I'll get really serious about getting the bike in running order.

I have found a very low mile 1978 R60/7 locally which has been disassembled. $800.00 will bring it home so I might take that one on too. It is a Euro. Spec. machine with only 7000 Kilometers on the clock. Appears to be pretty good. I'm waiting for some better photos so I'll post some when I get them.

R60 comes to life.

The other night I was snooping around on EBay and saw this seat at $.99 with a few seconds to go....like a fool I bid $1.04. Low and behold I won the seat for that amount....without noticing that the shipping was $50.00. Crap! Darn impulse buying! More on the seat later....

Weekend before last I took some time to sort out the R60 a little bit. Removed the fuel tank and seat and decided to give a shot at starting it up. I knew the the wiring had been modified to fit the "Puch" headlamp so opened it up to check it out. The 1971 BMW's don't have any fuses in the electrical system so burning up wiring is common. I temporarily tapped in a 30 amp fuse to the main power source. I have no key so I figured out how to simply "hot wire" the ignition switch. I had an old weak battery so charged it up while I checked for open wires which were unconnected. Wanted to make sure nothing would short out upon bringing the electrical system back to life.

I looked things over and taped up a couple of unconnected light wires. Under the fuel tank , the dual coil system lives to power the dual plugged heads. This is a pretty expensive upgrade which a previous owner spent quite a few bucks on.

I hooked up the old battery I had which had charged to 80%....enough for this point. I made sure the crankcase was full of oil and rigged up a temporary fuel supply, in this case a large syringe body. I energized the electrical system and had no apparent shorts anywhere....I touched the electric start button and the engine turned. I pulled the carb tops and lubed the throttle slides and made sure they were free. So I went ahead and filled the syringe with a few CC's of gasoline and fully expected the carbs to leak but to my amazement, no leaks.

So here we go.....set the choke, hit the starter and the engine started up after a few seconds. She belched out a bunch of smoke from the oil I had squirted in the cylinders a few days earlier. After a few seconds I opened the chokes and the engine turned to a nice smooth idle. The throttle response was a little slow but it was running and sounded real good.

I ran it a few minutes and filled the syringe again to run it a few more. The engine sounds strong so I am happy that the thing will run!

A fellow rider on a motorcycle web site had offered me a free rear fender so I gladly accepted. I also had found a reasonably priced front fender on EBay about the same time so had fenders coming my way. They showed up today so I went after the installation when I got home from work. I had the proper mounting plates and bolts from other bikes I had parted out in the past so the installation went without a hitch. By chance both fenders are black so that is good.

The old girl is starting to look like a bike again. Neither fender is perfect but they look pretty good when mounted.

The seat was missing the hinges and luckily the $51.04 , $1.04 seat had both hinges in place. The allen screws were stripped so I had to drill out all of them, luckily I had old saved replacement screws in my bolt stash. New hinges run about $48.00 each so with the salvaged hinges I don't feel so bad about the crappy seat miss-purchase. I removed the backrest and after looking the seat over, discarded it in the dumpster. I placed the seat on the bike and the riding position was terrible due to the forward position....way to close to the fuel tank. I don't have room to haul around a seat I'll never use so good riddance.

Now I need to hunt down a tail light lense and a pair of rear turn signals. I'll be changing all fluids and filter, flushing the fuel tank and mounting some tires before she is ready for the road. I think it will be a nice low budget rider when it is done. Don't have any "toaster" panels or BMW roundels for the tank but maybe I'll hunt some down at some point. "Toaster" panels are terribly expensive so maybe someone will come along and swap me a touring tank for the bare toaster tank.