Design for design’s sake.

The BMW GS line (GS is German for what we now call ‘dual purpose’) is not only one of the most famous and long-lived motorcycle designs, it also saved BMW from abandoning motorcycle manufacture when introduced in 1980. The idea was to craft a bike as capable on tarmac as it was on an unpaved forest road and the line continues to this day with aggregate production exceeding half a million. That’s a lot for a bike.

My 1992 R100GSPD. Awful aftermarket Parabellum windshield fitted.
The ‘Bumblebee’ color scheme is the one you want.

And the idea took off. It was something new after a long run of high quality but largely identical motorcycles from BMW, more known for their use by police forces worldwide than for exciting exploits off road. BMW pushed the idea by entering one in the Paris-Dakar rally which it handily won and the GSPD variant was born, with a gargantuan 9.25 gallon plastic gas tank. The airhead motor – meaning the trusty, horizontally opposed, air cooled twin – had grown to 1000ccs from the original’s 800, and was putting out a decent 60 horses or so, more than adequate for anything encountered in the real world.

So knowing that I needed a summer project in the furnace-like heat of southern Arizona, and also knowing that my garage would be air conditioned and the very lap of wrenching luxury before the heat arrived, I snapped up a lightly used GSPD from a fellow member of the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America. A decent lot, generally of trustworthy mien. The owner of many years was giving up riding at age 82 and was happy to pass it down to this sprightly 69 year old piker, along with more accessories and spares than you could shake a stick at. Thank you, Chuck in San Diego. I would tell you the cost but it’s not nice seeing grown men (or even women) weep, but when all the extras are disposed of it was pretty close to free. Such is luck. I’ll probably sell it in a year or so. I prefer the older machines.

The immediate and obvious things that had to be done was to send off the speedometer/odometer to Rick Borth at Overseas Speedometer to have the mileage adjusted to the correct 40.9k. BMW hit a bad spell in the ’90s with failing odometers and the certificate of speedometer change which came with the bike testified to its having been replaced with a new instrument in 1994, meaning that the reading on the replacement instrument was wrong, a fact calculated to drive any rational rider up the wall. Rick reset the mileage to the correct reading and generally looked the instrument over, fixing anything else which ailed it. Not least of the adjustments made was to correct the under-reading of speed, a common failing of that era’s Airheads. The speedometer was reading 15% low. Now it’s correct, calibrated using a known speed trap in Scottsdale which keeps the police in doughnuts.

Second, the bike came with both Jesse metal panniers and stock BMW plastic ones. The Jesses are just the ticket if you want to ride across some hell hole like Kazakhstan, though quite why any sane person would want to do that defeats me. They are also known to be nuclear war proof. Suffice it to say that they were in mint condition and after removal and replacement with the stock bags – shown above – the Jesses are for sale for a very tidy sum, for they are no longer available from the manufacturer, and very rarely to be found in any condition, let alone mint.

Third, the shockingly bad aftermarket Parabellum windshield had to go, especially as the bike also came with the factory original, twice as robust and thrice as competent. The Parabellum is so poorly engineered that no matter how you adjust it, you can be sure that the sides will strike the tank as the handlebars are canted over. The maker even admits to this on its web site. Hullo! And it was when refitting the stock shield that I realized just how much thought had gone into the design of the mounting hardware.

With the stock windshield. Odometer recalibrated.

I had removed the fairing sides when installing LED warning lights and gauge lighting, so the first step was to install the sides using the stock compound bolts which are center drilled and tapped for attachment of the windshield. Needless to say these are of unequal length, the longer of each pair going in the top attachment point. Now BMW had decided that the tilt of the stock shield should be easily adjusted, so they came up with a pivot hole and slot opening design, seen here:

The pivoting mechanism for the stock windshield.

So what, you ask? A couple of Allen bolts and spacers, no big deal. Wrong! The spacers, both inner and outer, are canted to adjust to the angle of the windshield. They also differ, the lower having a small spigot to allow the outer spacer to engage just so in the correct orientation, with the inner female threaded spacer having a square surround to properly align with the outer part, also being canted. The upper is also complex, this time with a wider spigot and castings on both the inner and outer parts and when you install the whole thing correctly you can adjust the angle of the windshield – clickety-click – by loosening both Allen bolts and having at it. Fear not, the interlocking mechanisms will see to it that nothing falls apart or becomes misaligned. So there you have great design, if insanely complex. And some smart German engineer poured his heart into the math and production dictates of these seemingly innocuous parts so that they would work just so and continue to function properly for 100,000 miles or more. And that, I suppose, is why my motorcycle of choice is the BMW Airhead.

Other fixes? You can see the alloy puck. the previous owner had attached to the foot of the sidestand in the first image, above. This reduces the lean angle with the machine on the sidestand where the heavy, large fuel tank makes the bike want to tip over. Sadly, as with all Airheads since the mid-1980s, BMW makes it extremely difficult to deploy the sidestand from the saddle as it cannot be seen. So I removed the puck, drilled a transverse hole and epoxied a steel rod in the hole as an extension for the left foot, thus:

Puck deployment extension – the whole thing painted a jolly yellow to match the color scheme.

There’s lots left to do. As with all Airheads drive to the rear hub is by shaft, no chains here, and the dual universal joints fitted to the shaft – dictated by the anti-torque design of the rear suspension – are known weak points, frequently failing without warning at 40,000 miles. My machine is at 40,900 …. Removal and inspection is no big deal and the aftermarket Airhead community is so robust that much improved designs with proper Zerk grease fitting can be had for peace of mind – and piece of wallet. Then there’s the panoply of odds and sods to be attended to which is normal for a bike of this age, but nothing to lose sleep over.

And I will be doing that work here:

Inside the air conditioned garage. It’s a toasty 100F outside.

An egregious marketing error repeated.

In the 1980s Toyota and Nissan decided that the last bastion of the car market – Germany’s luxury brands – was ready to be conquered. Both spent immense amounts of money developing and perfecting their 5 seater sedans with new V8 engines, a first for the Japanese. And both came out with magnificent vehicles of which a BMW engineer remarked “What are they trying to do? Kill us?”. And indeed the Japanese sedans, marketed under premium names, Lexus for the Toyota maker with the LS400 and Infinity’s Q45 for Nissan’s offering, were superior to the German high end offerings in every way. Performance was equal or better, the interiors were severe just like the Germans’ but, crucially, the Japanese vehicles were reliable, which could not be said for Mercedes’s S Class or BMW’s 7 series. They were also $10-20,000 cheaper.

Yet of these two great machines the more modestly spec’d LS400 wiped the salesroom floor with Infinity, and has maintained that lead since 1989 by a large margin. The cause was the now famous ‘Fields of Wheat’ advertising campaign waged by Infinity and its disastrous US marketing advisers. To emphasize the zen perfection of their car they showed waving fields of wheat with a pretentious voiceover, but omitted to show the vehicle. The LS 400 sold by the dozen as its prosaic ads actually deigned to show the rather staid looking vehicle. The Q45 was disregarded. No one knew what it looked like.

Now let’s jump forward 30 years and we see a variation of this marketing disaster rolled out by none other than Harley Davidson, one of the savviest marketers out there. After all when you saturate the US and much of the rest of the world where roads exists with antiquated, poorly engineered and premium priced motorcycles you must be doing something right and Harley has been doing that for a very long time. But some marketing whiz at HD decided that the time was ripe to introduce an electric Hog and here it is in all its glory:

Probably worth $5,000 or so.

What brought this to my attention was a recent reality TV show named ‘Wrong Way Up’ where two famous long distance riders decided to ride their electric Harleys from the southernmost point of South America to Los Angeles. Those riders – Ewan McGregor of Star Wars fame and Charley Boorman whose dad is a famous Hollywood director – are as likable as they get. Grown men who never outlived their boyhoods, they are fun to watch and are great motorcyclists. So they decided to ride their electric bikes, supported by a large staff driving Rivian electric trucks, seemingly amazed that in cold temperatures the Hog had a range of maybe 70 miles, provided you could even find a charging point with sufficient current to ‘fill up the tank’.

Now it is true there are many unfortunate souls reading this journal who have never thrown a leg over a motorcycle saddle and regard powered two wheels as the work of the devil. Their loss. But even these poor folk know that the one thing above all which Harley sells is noise. So much so that the company tried – and failed – to patent the noise of the Harley’s exhaust a few years ago, a noise which results from the uneven firing intervals of the two cylinders in the gas bikes. This approach to ‘engineering’ also ensures the bike vibrates as if infected with St. Vitus’s Dance. Next time you pull up to one idling at a red light check it out for yourself. A silent Harley is anathema to its white trash buyers and, boy, is the electric Harley silent or what? It does not rumble. It whines. All those jokes about aficionados of other brands riding washing machines will come back to haunt Harley as they look down the barrel of the worst marketing idea since that Infinity Q45 of yore. Comical. Then check the price ….

As for the LS400, mine is a 2000, last of breed before the engines started growing. At 140,000 miles it is like new and it’s some testament to its reliability if I disclose that failure of a stop bulb a couple of years ago saw me angered. But temperate mien returned quickly when I reminded myself that repairs on the predecessor Mercedes S Class were pretty much a monthly occurrence. Switch gear, gearboxes, motor mounts, disastrous air conditioning, awful radio, you name it. All failed regularly.

Got $30,000? Buy a nice BMW classic airhead and bank the $23,000 left over.

Japan rules.

BMW airheads first saw the addition of electric starters in 1970, and still came fitted with kick starters as a back-up. These were deleted for the 1975 year but the original owner of my 1975 BMW R90/6 had one fitted at the factory before importing the machine. It’s pretty useless on a cold motor, but works OK with a warm one if the whole macho scene is your thing.

To say that the massive Bosch starter in my bike is an enthusiastic participant when it comes to getting sparks and explosions going would be an overstatement. It always struggled a bit getting over the compression hump with a cold engine and things deteriorated further in recent months, so much so that I would use the kicker to position the motor just past compression to give the ailing German starter a running start at things, so to speak. But clearly, a rebuild was indicated, reverting to a properly tuned but still weak willed Bosch original, for some $250.

Now engineers are always looking for something better though I do rather struggle with the idea of installing non-OEM parts in my classic machine. I corresponded with a riding friend explaining that there is a Japanese alternative but I felt rather uncomfortable mixing races, if you know what I mean. No problem with Japanese bikes; in fact they are the most reliable and well made machines out there. “Well”, he replied somewhat caustically, “they seem to have got on just fine in the last World War, so I wouldn’t worry about it”. OK!

Why Japanese? Well the Bosch starter in my bike is 1970’s technology – probably more like 1950’s, truth be told. And aftermarket places have been modifying a Nippondenso/Toyota starter with the right Bendix (the geared teeth which the solenoid advances into the flywheel when the starter button is depressed) along with the correct nose cone for aforesaid Bendix, which allow the whole thing to fit just so in the innards of the bike.

The Bosch unit was discontinued many years ago, replaced with a French Valeo which used to shed its magnets destroying the starter. That problem was fixed and manufacture moved to Poland, a nation not renowned for its engineering prowess, and a new one can be had for $300 with the correct 8-tooth Bendix. BMW later reduced gearing – acknowledgment of the marginal power of the Bosch – to 9 teeth but that would also dictate changing the flywheel, which is overkill for a little more turning force.

Over the years the Nippondenso variously used a Toyota truck starter, a forklift starter and a small car starter, and it’s the latter I decided to pony up $350 for after reading of some 20 years’ good experience with the Japanese part from any number of Airhead riders. Toyota trucks and cars routinely run the distance to the moon and back several times, so there’s reason to be confident here. I estimate that the Bosch starter had some 2,500 starts under its belt.

The Nippondenso is 1995 technology, this model being from a 1995-97 Toyota Corolla 1.6 liter four banger. If it can spin a four cylinder engine, I reckoned it should make mincemeat of the twin in my bike. Weight dropped significantly:

A porker at nearly 10 lbs.

Modern materials see a big drop in weight.

The lighter weight means that the alignment bracket on the Bosch starter can be dispensed with.

1995-97 1.6 liter Toyota Corollas come with these.

Installation is a breeze. After disconnecting both battery terminals the starter cover comes off in two minutes – two Allen bolts – the two starter retaining bolts are removed (wobbly extensions come in useful in the tight confines here), three electrical connections are disconnected and the new starter is installed. The Nippondenso used threaded eyelets and uses the stock 13mm metric bolts to hold it in place. Being a belt and suspenders type I also installed the washers and nuts which are used with the original.

Installed, a perfect fit.

All sorts of claims are made for the lower power draw and the superior cranking power of the Nippondenso. The only data I can find suggest that the 120 amp draw of the Bosch falls to 80 amps with the Nippondenso. In the absence of further data I can only report empirical findings. Simply stated, the compression hump hesitation is notable for its absence, and the new starter spins a cold motor faster than the former Third Lady can say “Leave the Money on the Dresser”.

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