Friday, December 11, 2020

Always something to do

After a few days out of the shop, today presented itself with favorable weather. Earlier in the week I was able to make a bit of room in the garage to take the extra boxes of  vanagon parts collecting in the basement.  With temps in the 50's, this setup a few hours to get a shuffle going after pushing out a a couple bikes.  Within an hour all was done. The boxes were stacked on the shelf and all to do was push bikes back in.  The last bike to go in was the old  BMW R50. This gets the place of honor being the winter ride and it was the last machine ridden a week or two ago. On that ride I notice that the right float bowl top was pretty damp. Either the gasket or the screws to the bowl top were loose.

Usually, if I know that I won't get back into riding the 50, I'll sop out what is left of gas in the bowl. Even turning off the petcock a block or two from home does not remove all the fuel; there still is a touch of gas in the bottom of the bowl. So when looking at the wetness, I figured right off that either the screws were loose or the gasket was damaged. Boy was I wrong. After pulling the top I could feel a faint rattle sensation in the top. With a little more investigation, the culprit turned out to be the spigot had loosened in the casting. Time to find a used top!

Welp, while the 47' Velo was wasn't progressing any at the moment and I was on the subject of BMW repairs; I figured to get back into a final drive reseal project. I had bought the drive from a good friend in the spring full well knowing it needed a reseal. When I left the job the last step was to pull the inner seal. At that point it got pulled apart at the beginning of September and sat waiting for parts which did arrive. Always something else to do.  So armed with a sense of progressing forward, I finally pulled the last seal out. One more for the record books...

No comments: