ACHTUNG!!!

[MaxPete]

1983 BMW R100RS "Gretel" UPDATE
Well, the great sh!tty winter of 2020-21 has finally eased in southwestern Ontario and so I have emerged from my basement dungeon and been out on my bikes a little recently.

I am totally jammed with work so I asked a local independent repair shop to install the new brake rotors on Gretel to replace the badly grooved OEM rotors she had when I bought her last year. New OEM rotors cost upwards of $435 USD EACH - and there are three of these things on the big bimmer. To me in Canada that would be about $2000 CDN just for the frickin' brake rotors....Ach du lieber Augustine - those Germans sure are proud of their OEM parts - that is a whole lotta dough for three dumb lumps of stainless steel and a bit of lathe work!

Anyhow, I went with a set of EBC aftermarket rotors and EBC pads plus I had a set of braided SS hoses installed to stiffen things up. All of the parts came from Bob's BMW in Boston MA and were shipped via my pal who has an office over in Michigan. The cost was "only" about 50% of the cost of the OE parts plus Bob's had a 15% off coupon deal, so I scored OK on this one. The EBC rotors are full floaters (better than the BMW fixed originals) and they have a good reputation in the BMW enthusiast forum. The new brakes work really well - very good feel and lots of power, so I am happy.

I have also found and bought an extra set of keys to the nice BMW/Krauser panniers that came on the bike (cost = about $30 USD) and so I can now tour without worrying about loosing the keys and having to drill out the danged locks. It is amazing how many hours of searching and calling around it took to find the keys - but once I found the right person...he said "oh yeah, I've got those numbers", and sure enough, he did.

Happy, happy joy-joy on the bimmer front now - except I now have to go back down into my dungeon for Easter weekend......

Next-up - I am installing a new set of mirrors on Gretel so that I can see past my shoulders.

Pete

 

[Jim]

Good brakes is always.... good.

 

[MaxPete]

Good brakes is always.... good.

Yeah...I've tried good brakes and I've tried bad brakes....good brakes are better.

hehehehe

 

[arcticXS]

Yeah...I've tried good brakes and I've tried bad brakes....good brakes are better.

hehehehe

Lucky for you that you got a later model R100 with Brembo calipers and a handlebar mounted MC. The earlier (ATE?)single piston calipers and cable actuated MC used on R90 and early R100 models are not exactly what you would call good.....

 

[MaxPete]

Lucky for you that you got a later model R100 with Brembo calipers and a handlebar mounted MC. The earlier (ATE?)single piston calipers and cable actuated MC used on R90 and early R100 models are not exactly what you would call good.....

Yes - as you say, the brake lever pulled a Bowden cable that actuated the master cylinder which was located UNDER the fuel tank.

Sort of like a diesel powered picnic table....OK, but...why? Sort of a dumb set-up.

 

[Mailman]

Lucky for you that you got a later model R100 with Brembo calipers and a handlebar mounted MC. The earlier (ATE?)single piston calipers and cable actuated MC used on R90 and early R100 models are not exactly what you would call good.....

Yes - as you say, the brake lever pulled a Bowden cable that actuated the master cylinder which was located UNDER the fuel tank. Sort of a dumb set-up.

Yup! That was the set up I had on my ‘77 R100/7 , single front caliper and the cable operated M/C under the gas tank. It was the most wooden feeling brakes with a mushy lever that I has ever graced a motorcycle. But I still loved that bike! So smooth and so fast. And Pete, you are so right about how expensive parts are , I bought just about all of my parts from Bob’s BMW, I feel like I financed his kids education.

 

[fredintoon]

Yes - as you say, the brake lever pulled a Bowden cable that actuated the master cylinder which was located UNDER the fuel tank.
Sort of like a diesel powered picnic table....OK, but...why? Sort of a dumb set-up.

Hi Pete,
Yeah, my R90 was like that; but why?
1) Because BMW had a warehouse full of cable style front brake levers to use up.
&/or
2) Because BMW's aesthetisist had escaped his cage again.

 

[Downeaster]

In the Navy, we had a term for the use of apparently unnecessary, redundant or obviously cobbled up assemblies: The Brother-In-Law Effect. Which is to say, the manufacturer's BiL made those widgets and he had to find a way to include them in the design.

 

[fredintoon]

Yes - as you say, the brake lever pulled a Bowden cable that actuated the master cylinder which was located UNDER the fuel tank.
Sort of like a diesel powered picnic table....OK, but...why? Sort of a dumb set-up.

Hi Pete,
not dumb but sneaky, checked your handlebar diameter yet?
It ain't 7/8" (22.2mm) like every other non-Harley bike, oh no.
It's 22mm. Just small enough that should you want to add a 7/8" handlebar-mounted accessory
it needs to be shimmed in place or you pay 3X the price for a BMW-specific unit,

 

[GLJ]

Hi Pete,
not dumb but sneaky, checked your handlebar diameter yet?
It ain't 7/8" (22.2mm) like every other non-Harley bike, oh no.
It's 22mm. Just small enough that should you want to add a 7/8" handlebar-mounted accessory
it needs to be shimmed in place or you pay 3X the price for a BMW-specific unit,

Fred shhhh.
He's finding out BMrs are very good at what they do, they just don't do it cheaply.
The bars on my Triumph are attached to the top tree with "P-Clamps". Each clamp has 2 spacers between the bar and clamp. Need 3 hands to keep everything in place when assembling. What the f@ck were they thinking. Wouldn't it have been cheaper and stronger to make the clamp the right size to fit the bars? Or were they using up excess clamps?

 

[fredintoon]

Fred shhhh.
He's finding out BMrs are very good at what they do, they just don't do it cheaply.
The bars on my Triumph are attached to the top tree with "P-Clamps". Each clamp has 2 spacers between the bar and clamp. Need 3 hands to keep everything in place when assembling. What the f@ck were they thinking. Wouldn't it have been cheaper and stronger to make the clamp the right size to fit the bars? Or were they using up excess clamps?
View attachment 188348

Hi GLJ,
I suspect that the bars in the photo are replacements and that the original bars had a large diameter center section.

 

[MaxPete]

Yeah - crafty Germans. I suspect it’s revenge for their last two losses.
It’s OK - I can make shims.
P

 

[GLJ]

Hi GLJ,
I suspect that the bars in the photo are replacements and that the original bars had a large diameter center section.

You are right not original bars, they are replica bars. Original bars had them. Per the parts manual.

 

[fredintoon]

You are right not original bars, they are replica bars. Original bars had them. Per the parts manual.
View attachment 188355 View attachment 188354View attachment 188356

Hi GLJ
back a LONG time ago Triumph did have 1" bars. They musta had a whole bunch of item36 to go with them, eh?

 

[Paul Sutton]

Just trying to be positive - Could the use of shims on the Triumph be hiding a "Trick of the Trade"? Could it be the shim effectively increases the clamping surface area? Maybe an option to allow for 1" bars and less vibration at the hand grips? Hell I don't know....

 

[Grimly]

Yeah - crafty Germans. I suspect it’s revenge for their last two losses.
It’s OK - I can make shims.
P

I doubt if you can get one there, but when it came to replacing the battery in my R80 / 100 I found I had the choice of paying for a BMW-specific battery at £80 or fitting the battery that was listed for a Reliant three-wheeler at £25. Guess which won?
Or... finding the most expensive carb cable clamp in the world in a N.London BMW dealer. I walked out in disgust and made my own.

 

[Jim]

Yeah - crafty Germans. I suspect it’s revenge for their last two losses.
It’s OK - I can make shims.
P

This whole discussion on handlebar shims sounded vaguely familiar. Finally remembered where....

His handlebars had started slipping. Not badly, he said, just a little when you shoved hard on them. I warned him not to use his
adjustable wrench on the tightening nuts. It was likely to damage the chrome and start small rust spots. He agreed to use my metric
sockets and box-ends.
When he brought his motorcycle over I got my wrenches out but then noticed that no amount of tightening would stop the slippage,
because the ends of the collars were pinched shut.
"You’re going to have to shim those out," I said.
"What’s shim?"
"It’s a thin, flat strip of metal. You just slip it around the handlebar under the collar there and it will open up the collar to where you
can tighten it again. You use shims like that to make adjustments in all kinds of machines."
"Oh," he said. He was getting interested. "Good. Where do you buy them?"
"I’ve got some right here," I said gleefully, holding up a can of beer in my hand.
He didn’t understand for a moment. Then he said, "What, the can?"
"Sure," I said, "best shim stock in the world."
I thought this was pretty clever myself. Save him a trip to God knows where to get shim stock. Save him time. Save him money.
But to my surprise he didn’t see the cleverness of this at all. In fact he got noticeably haughty about the whole thing. Pretty soon he
was dodging and filling with all kinds of excuses and, before I realized what his real attitude was, we had decided not to fix the
handlebars after all.
As far as I know those handlebars are still loose. And I believe now that he was actually offended at the time. I had had the nerve to
propose repair of his new eighteen-hundred dollar BMW, the pride of a half-century of German mechanical finesse, with a piece of old
beer can!
Ach, du lieber!
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

 

[Downeaster]

^^^ Hah! I know people with that attitude. Much like the John Deere guy that will NOT use anything that didn't come from Mother Deere's Retail Ripoff Store. No amount of documentation will convince them that Valvoline in a Valvoline can (or whatever) is as good as Valvoline in a John Deere can.

Sigh...

Of course, I'm a complete godless heathen. NONE of my Toyotas have ever had a drop of "Toyota" oil in them once the 2 years of "free" oil changes run out. Amazingly, they still run...

 

[Raymond]

Hell, I even ran a Hardly Ableson on non H-D oil. Despite promises (threats?) from the dealership that it would lock up solid if I didn't use the correct, specially developed, these engines aren't like yer Japanese rubbish, lubricant.

 

[Downeaster]

Hell, I even ran a Hardly Ableson on non H-D oil. Despite promises (threats?) from the dealership that it would lock up solid if I didn't use the correct, specially developed, these engines aren't like yer Japanese rubbish, lubricant.

Ooooo, you DARE-devil you! You like living on the edge, don't you.