Agua Caliente / Palm Springs Via BMW sidehack

Time for another sidecar trip...we decided to do a "Hot Springs" Tour beginning with Agua Caliente in the Anza Borrego State Park. We returned from a business trip Thursday night so packed up early Friday morning and hit the road. I had received a "Heel Shifter" for the R100S transmission so I installed that prior to leaving. The heel shifter simplifies shifting a lot and I had been looking for one for a couple of years. Finally found one on EBay.
Loaded and ready....

We decided to run the interstate all the way to the Park so made pretty good time. Stopped in El Centro CA. for lunch. Upon leaving the restaurant I see a small oil pool on the parking lot. Damned shifter seal is now leaking after installing the "new" shifter. We found an auto parts store and picked up a quart of gear lube in case the transmission gets too low.

Got to Agua Caliente county Park and set up our new "condo" tent. After New Years I decided I wanted a little more room. Our new sleeping pads are pretty large and our Eureka Tent just is too crowded for both of us plus all our gear. The new tent is great and we can stand up in the center section. Plenty of room for both of us, our gear and chairs too!

The tent is a cheapo Chinese tent but for the price, we like it. Don't think it would fair too well in a downpour but we try to avoid camping in the rain anyway. We had a few drinks and took a nice long soak in the Hot Springs.

At about 9:00 PM a group of Boy Scouts came into the campground, right across from us and made a hell of a racket until all hours. The Park Ranger finally shut them up by 11:00 PM.

We really like the new tent!

We arose by 7:00 AM for coffee. Tore the site down and were on the road by 9:00 AM. Decided to head over the mountains to the Palm Springs area. About 30 minutes out we met a pair of Jeeps going the opposite direction. One of the Jeeps kicked up a small rock and it hit me in the face, breaking my glasses. The rock somehow missed my windshield, my partially closed face shield and got me.

The old stage route passes through the valley.

Perfectly beautiful day for a sidecar trip!

Historical Marker for the old stage route:

My broken glasses....I looked them over and decided to continue wearing them...did not see any loose glass. A big mistake as about 1/2 hour later something went into my left eye. A small particle of glass? I don't know but it make the rest of the trip a bit miserable for me with something in my eye.

The Shelter Valley Area was nice and green.

Stopped for a minute...couldn't find any gas as the power company was doing some sort of maintenance and all the small towns were without power...therefore no gas available...Tank was running a little low but we were just fine. The bike gets around 25 mpg with the sidecar so range is limited to around 175-200 miles.

Fantastic views and roads. Quite a bit of weekend traffic though.

Stopped for a lunch break and this Ferrari pulled in...pretty nice!

up over the mountains to Desert Hot Springs. Windy road and a lot of traffic.

Desert is always beautiful. Neat rock formations.

Stopped at a vista point on top of the mountain...a little snow in the back ground. Darian tried to call a friend of ours in Palm Springs but had no luck hooking up.

Bike was still oozing some gear lube from the transmission but not enough to be concerned.

With the condition of something in my eye my excitement about camping another night kind of waned...we were heading to Bashfords Hot Springs on the east side of the Salton Sea. I was pretty miserable trying to drive with one eye bothering me.

The trip home was only a 150 miles so I decided to forgo another night of camping and head home.

Date Grove on the west side of the Salton Sea.

The great Salton Sea:

We raced the sun back to Yuma...arriving home before dark.

A beautiful sunset to complete the day.

Niche Cycle Supply BMW R75/5 Cigar mufflers ...New Condo

Purchased a pair of BMW R75/5 Cigar Style mufflers from Niche Cycle Supply and mounted them last week. They are a near perfect replica of the stock Zeuna mufflers. They appear to be a slightly smaller outside diameter on the main body than the Zeuna's. The sound is a bit louder than the Zeuna mufflers.

Similar stainless steel mufflers are pushing over $500.00 a pair so I think these are a good alternative to the wallet busting Staintune mufflers. They are made by Emgo, which markets a lot of lower end motorcycle aftermarket items. For the price of $148.00 I think they are a pretty good value. We'll see how long before they start rusting. I don't frequent wet environments very often so I think they'll last quite a while for my use.

After attending our last camping rally we decided we wanted to buy a larger tent. The Therma Rest Neo-air sleeping pads I bought take up much more room than our old pads. We decided to go the "cheap" route so I ordered a Cheepo Chinese made 6- man tent. We set it up upon arrival today and it looks like it will work for what we need. Probably not very good for high wind conditions or pouring rain but hopefully it will suffice. We set it up during a pretty good wind and it stayed put just fine. I'll definitely replace the useless wire stakes with some real ones.

Tent is a pretty odd shape...kind of a star shape. The small extensions each have doorways so there are 3 entrances if you want to use them. Has 2 window/doors and 2 large rear windows, plus the main door. All openings are screened. Pretty light fabric and I have my doubts about heavy rain not entering. Center height is around 6' so it's high enough to stand in the main area.
My experience with these types of cheap tents hasn't been very good but if we can get a few seasons out of it I'll be happy. I was considering a 6 man Eureka! dome tent but the reviews I read were pretty poor. We'll use this one up while I investigate a higher quality tent for the future.

I removed the Zeuna stock BMW/6 mufflers and replaced them with the stock Zeuna /5 Cigar mufflers I removed from the /5. They are very quiet. They have some minor rust underneath, a few dings but still have a lot of miles left on them. I had to reverse the Bates Saddle Bag mounts as the /5 Zeuna mufflers are a little shorter than the /6 mufflers. I'll keep the /6 stock mufflers for backups.

Airhead Beemers Club Last Chance Rondezvous 2010

I believe this years camp out in the desert was the 15th. year it has been held. We missed the first year and last year but have attended every other year. The Rally is held every New Year at San Diego's County Park at Agua Caliente Springs. Indoor/ outdoor hot spring pools are in the park.

We planned on heading out by noon Friday but a battery issue gave us a late start. I recently charged the sidecar battery but it suddenly konked out on the sidecar rig so had to swap it out with a battery from my other bike.

The County has upgraded areas of the park since the last time we were here in 2008. A new pavilion , fire pit and seat walls have been added in the group area.

This years gathering was not for the faint of heart as the night time temperatures were down to 28 degrees with highs in the lower 50's. Luckily the days were sunny and an abundance of firewood was brought in. Our hosts, Kelly Pixton and Kevin Kempton (with help from all the Kempton Family and others) kept us all well fed throughout the weekend with more food than anyone could eat.

Darian seated with our friends Murray & Denise. Murray is a Wyoming native. Growing up a couple hundred miles from my old stomping grounds.

Nice view of the new pavilion, fire pit and mountains. I attended the annual Moonlight Trail Hike which is a night time 2+ mile hike around the mountain in the back ground. 13 of us braved the cold & darkness to do the night time hike on Friday night. Others prefer to do it in the day light when it is a bit safer. No guts no glory?

Our humble camping site. A number of the attendees drive hundreds of miles here so some decided to arrive in 4 wheeled machines rather than 2 wheeled machines. We elected to drive over with the side car rig. Warm camping gear was a must. We kept nice and warm despite the 20 degree temperatures. The sidecar allows us to bring a lot of gear. (whether we needed it or not)

This KTM astounded me with it's wonderful starting / electrical system. The owner must have cranked on it for 45 minutes before he finally gave up trying to get it started. The battery still seemed to have a lot of juice.

This custom modified Uni-Go trailer was great. Aircraft quality construction and made a great table too. I watched the build on a Blog and saw it in person for the first time. This bike had a lot of great / trick modifications done to it. The trailer had a heavy duty damper to keep things in check. much more functional than a stock Uni-Go Trailer.

A stock Uni-Go trailer.....

This stock 1973 long wheel base R75/5 showed up. That is how my other bike started life.

A shot just as the sun dropped behind the mountains at 4:00 pm or so...this years camp out was a great success. Got to see quite a few old friends and made some new friends too. People came and went throughout the weekend. Some came in Thursday and left before we arrived late Friday. Appeared to be around 50 people in attendance this year. Some years have brought in 80 - 100 people. I'm sure the cold weather definitely kept some folks closer to home.

We're already looking forward to next year! Hopefully it will be a little warmer. We had one or two years with a bit of rain, a couple of years with a lot of wind and this year was probably the coldest in my memory. Thankfully we had no wind to speak of this year. That would have really been cold.

Stebel Nautilus Air Horn for BMW

Worked all afternoon getting the air horn wired up. mounted the unit on the sidecar frame in the front. Pre wired the unit to the stock horn switch and ...nothing. disassembled the switch, cleaned the contacts and spent 45 minutes reassembling the thing. A tiny little circlip is easy to remove but a bugger to reset. Damned thing still didn't work. Time for a new switch assembly it appears. I went over to Radio shack and purchased a pair of push button switches for $4.00. Decided to jury rig in a switch until I acquire a new BMW switch.
Fabricated a switch mount out of old junk I had laying around. Somewhat of a "hokey" mount but it functions and will do for now.
Horn is LOUD. 139 Decibels according to the paperwork. Uses a relay system and was pretty easy to mount. My non working switch added a couple hours to the installation.

I didn't have a spare key for the R100S ignition so ordered a key blank from Hucky's BMW Parts. Then I couldn't find a lock / key place that would cut it for me. I've seen some lock smiths who weren't exactly rocket scientists so how hard could it be? I gathered up a couple different small files and made an impression of my good key in a piece of epoxy. Then just slowly / carefully started filing on the key as close as I could to the original....and low and behold I had a working spare key.

Last Chance Rondezvous / BMW Service / Stebel Air Horn

We took a quick trip up to Montana for a family visit and an early Christmas. Flew up and drove my wife's car back down.
Yesterday was a day of Motor home maintenance and the rest of the week is designated for motorcycle maintenance and repairs.
Today I changed the oil & filter. Also changed out all the gear lubes. Transmission , final drive, and drive shaft reservoir. Pulled the valve covers and checked the valve clearances. Found both exhaust valves just a little tight.

Also reset the points as they were a little tight. The cam rubbing block has worn a bit since I replaced the points a few months ago. Tomorrow I'll re-sync the carbs with the Twin - Max Synchronizer. I purchased a Stebel Air Horn a few days back and it arrived today. The stock BMW horn is feeble at best. The Stebel cranks our over 100 decibels so it should grab attention when needed.

I fabricated a mount out of old BMW clamps I had laying around. Am mounting it to the sidecar frame up in the front. Got it mounted today and tomorrow I'll need to wire things up. I'll post a photo of the finished product when it is done. I ordered a pair of after market /5 cigar mufflers tonight. Under $150.00...the high end stainless ones go for around $500.00. I'm not sure which bike they'll go on, but might mount them on the sidehack tug.(?) They are very quiet mufflers. I have an original pair of them on the /5 now and sure like the low sound they emit.

We are attending the BMW Airheads Club Annual Last Chance Rendezvous this weekend. Starts on Friday for New Years Eve and continues until Sunday. Weather forecasts are for clear, but cold weather. Lows at 29 - 32 degrees. Highs in the upper 40's and low 50's. We'll take plenty of warm clothes for camping out for sure! Purchased a pair of (too costly) Therma Rest air mattresses and tried them out at Bashfords a couple of weeks ago. I think they'll help a lot in the warmth / comfort department.
I'll post photos and description of the Last Chance gathering next week.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

Niland California via Sidehack

We decided to make a quick overnight camping trip over to Niland CA. and Bashfords Mineral Spa. Packed up the hack and left Yuma around 11:00 AM Sat. I had purchased an expensive pair of sleeping pads (Thermarest-NeoAir) and was dying to try them out in the rocks of the famous Bashfords "Outback". We pulled out of home at a pleasant 78 degrees and headed out over the Colorado River into Ca.

The pyramid below is known to be "The Center of the Earth" is these parts. Not sure what it is all about but it is a cool building.

Some of the Mountains along Ogilby Road near Black Rock CA. an old mining town.

We always stop for a break at Glamis CA. and always see some bad ass sand rigs. This is an old school rig with a killer 1920 Model T Air Horn.

That brass air horn would look good on a sidecar.

The sand is plentiful here. lots of folks playing about in the dunes.

A great ride through here

Great contrast where the dunes end and the bleak desert begins.

We pulled into Bahfords Spa to find the office now a vacant lot. Found that the office/residence burned down last summer.
Our camping spot in the Outback. Had a great sunset.

The new NeoAir sleeping pads were awesome! Even in the rocky ass camping area.

Sunday morning dawned at 70 degrees and not a breath of wind.

Decided to make a run over to Slab City to check it out as Darian had never seen the place.

Here we have one of the concrete bunker guard houses. There are a couple of them still about.

The stage and party spot for Slab City. Complete with old aircraft seats.

Lots of "collectors" around these parts.

The derelict train station in Niland: Cool architecture

We made a straight run to home from Niland, with a stop for breakfast and a stop at Glamis.

Yuma AZ /. BMW / Housekeeping

Finally got settled here in Yuma. Got here for one night , then headed to Texas to complete a job. Back to Yuma before Thanksgiving. Just in time as Montana is getting clobbered with snow storms.

Pulled weeds for 1/2 a day around the lot. Then dove into a "housekeeping" mission. I have way more BMW Parts than I have room for so decided to clear things out. The 1974 R75/6 below was nearly stripped of small parts. I pulled the transmission & final drive to keep as spares.

Dug into my boxes / bins and piled up everything I didn't want to mess with. A lot of these parts are good EBay items but most are large and a hassle to box / ship. Had a spare engine, a couple of final drives, Old Bates Saddle Bags & mounts, fairing etc. etc. Put the whole works on Craigslist last night and had it all sold by 9:00AM this morning for $400.00. A good deal for both of us. The new owner will be here tomorrow AM to load up the works.

Removed the filter pods from the R100S as I decided to refit the stock intake assembly. Ordered a new pair of intake tubes but could not make them fit...too long. Had a couple pairs of old ones and one set was usable without a lot of hassle fitting up. The crankcase vent was vented externally so had to re plumb the vent into the right carb. Ended up using some tubing / 90's to plumb things together.

Back together:

The /6 choke cable actuator wasn't compatible with the R100CS carbs on the bike so I chose to make up some individual choke controls for each carb. Used bicycle spokes and other assorted parts to make it all work. No more binding , etc. now. Pulled the choke assemblies apart and replaced the choke shaft o-rings.

Drug out the /5 and have been running it here and there for transportation. Bike runs nice after synching the carbs with the Twin Max Synchronizer.

Got this all back together and have started it at cool temperatures the last couple days. Hopefully have the "cold start" problem fixed now.(?)

Square Butte Loop

A few weeks ago I had some free time so took a little loop up around Square Butte to Geraldine.
A beautiful day for a ride. Just below where the photo below was taken the paved road turns to gravel for a short distance. Known as "Arrow Creek Hill" this area has numerous land slides. The night before an elderly gentleman lost control of his car and hit a big bus full of High School students head on. There was a fatality in the car. The bus passengers faired better. in fact the bus was behind me a few hundred yards when I took this photo. Looks like they drove the bus there.

Went over to Geraldine then over to Fort Benton. took a little break along the Missouri River.

Rather than destroy this bridge they turned it into a foot bridge.

"Sheps" master died and was hauled away on a train. Shep spent many years waiting at the depot for his return. He finally got clobbered by a train, ending his vigil.

Approaching Highwood area. Little Belt Mountains in the distance.

Jupiter Sidecar Carpeting / Interior Panels

I ordered some automotive gray trunk type carpeting for the sidecar and it finally arrived last week. The weather was great yesterday so decided to proceed with the carpet installation in the hack. I carefully measured out the sections and was able to fit the entire front (exposed) area of the hack with only 3 pieces. Under the seat I simply ran a 3' x 18" piece on the floor area, back to the rear of the "trunk".
I used a 3M spray adhesive to glue the carpet in. This automotive carpet is real light and conformed well to the radius's in the hack.

When I had the sidecar interior done I had some storage pockets made into the flaps which hang down below the arm rests. These are mainly used for map storage although my wife often stores her currant book there too. The hood slider rods often fouled into the upholstered pockets when closing the hood. I purchased some light weight black fiber board material at a craft shop and built a panel which isolates the rods from getting hung up on anything. The panels give the interior a much better finished appearance. The panels will not wear a long time as they are a backed Styrofoam type material. At only $4.99 each that is not an issue. One $4.99 panel was enough for two interior panels.

When all was done I had enough carpet left over to completely redo the sidecar floor and enough fiber board to make two more interior panels. The carpet is quite light so I only expect it to last a couple of years.
The carpet should dry quickly when wet as it is such a light weight material. (J.C. Whitney $29.99 for a 54" X 10' piece)

I'm bidding on a /2 steel front fender on EBay. I would like to replace the fiberglass /6 fender now in use. I'm not sure how the fender would fit since I'm running a 19" front tire and the Earls front was originally set up for an 18" tire. If I can pick it up for under $90.00 I'll try to install it. I have a /2 US fender on the R75/5 which also was intended for a 18" tire....My 19" tire has sufficient clearance, although not much