BMW R80 cafe..with vid page 6!

[cyclone]

Hi, Do the tonners,

my first post on here,been lurkin here for a while though so here goes.....

picked up a bmw r80 monolever of '89 vintage that had sat outside under a dirty tarpaulin in a garden for over 3 years...hmmmm

what i didn't say was i'm from a tiny place you may have heard of?...England, and the last 3 or 4 years it has been very wet indeed with rain, rain and more rain...especially in summertime..bummer :-\

so i gets the bmw, with 5 psi in the tyres, home the one mile uphill by pushin' it with my bud Ads and a bit of help from my collie tied to the fork leg husky stylee. I had to push on the absurdly high standard bars which gave me shoulder ache and made me sweat!!...a lot..sorry, no pics of these shennanigans...
it was dark when we got back so the bike got dumped in the flower bed whilst we went down the pub to drink to its resurrection...boy did i get wrecked that night...

in the light of the new morning i stuck my inspection cap on...

negative points,

no side panels
rusty subframe and swingarm
alloy corrosion
bald tyres
shot silencers
not started for 3 years +
14700 on clock

plus points,

no side panels
complete apart from side panels
nice colour
single sided swingarm
i have spare harley pea shooter silencers in shed
14700 on clock

my mission statement...( used to be ,my aim, when i was at school..lol )

DO NOT CUT THE SUBFRAME...
clean it up and paint everything black apart from tank and front mudguard
a project worthy of big arse on dtt...so sort of cafe but with drag bars..
do not cut the subframe..did i say that?
a non standard look
be able to revert back to standard
make a neat seat
cafe racer style rear cowling...with BMW roundel!
be able to see subframe along its full length..cos i aint cut it, see...
drink beer and rock out whilst achieving my aim.... ;D

i guess you want to see a pic then?...

 

[jkluesner]

Re: BMW R80 mono

Looking forward to this build!

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

me too...jk...

stripped it down to see what was not needed....

and added some drag bars and clear indies i had laying around..

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

then tried some other stuff i had laying around..

some bar ends for that wiiide look

cone air filter on pipe going through a blanking plate im going to make up

gsx750 mudguard might come in handy...but not as low as in pic

and the aforementioned harley pea shooter pipe mocked up

think i will brace subframe as a means of bolting on a home made cafe seat

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

so to work with the blanking plate.....

i have a sheet of 0.8 guage steel laying around from when i built a trailer out of a vw scirocco so will be using bits of that up when needed..

cut out the shape but had to weld two halves rather than bend one piece...

cut a hole in it and painted it black...started painting subframe and other bits to tidy things up.....

cos of the probable mileage on the bike, 114700, and things like very small metal particles when dropping the shaft drive oil im considering this as stage 1...get it tidy, cafe'd and mot'd then ride it loads...if all good i will do a stage 2 later on down the line...i.e complete strip down and send things off for powder coating etc..

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

ive just noticed the alloy corrosion on the carb tops in this pic.....they have since been cleaned and polished and are all shiny shiny now...

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

the rear cowling caused me a big headache...looked at loads of pics on the net of cafe rear ends....humps, cut up petrol tanks, expensive cafe racer shop bought cowlings, steel or ally homemade jobbies etc etc...

most good but not exactly what i wanted...

i wanted to have the original rack and bmw roundel on my cowling for starters so the only answer was to cut up the original i had ( carefully ) with angle grinder and dremel and see what happened...

the original rack looks like its worth its weight in gold for carrying my one man tent to bike rallies or my sarnies to work... 8)

so cut it to shape and bought an offcut of some plastic sheet for 3 quid to get the look i wanted..

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

used superglue/araldite type stuff to attach the base to cowling and gave it a quick blast of satin matt black

then took a pic with rack added...i like it, so it's a go'er

in the pic the silencers aint hung but the look is coming along.

needs new tyres so didnt care about overspray on them and ive started to play with my 0.8 guage for my seat base....

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

and as you can see the gsx750es 16 inch red front mudguard has joined the game in a fresh colour on an 18 inch rear wheel....

oh and the harley silencers seem to fit on the r80 pipework nicely...the silencers are a bit rough and need hangers rewelded on to them but together with the rear hump lend to the cafe look nicely i think...

to get the rack to bolt up i had to weld a couple of supports on to the back of the subframe...used an old gsx750 torque arm for this...don't have a close up pic yet....but it all bolts up securely and the supports dont look an eye sore.


cheers for looking...

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

and guess what?


i haven't cut the subframe......

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

as luck would have it i bumped into a previous owner who had the bike about 5 or 6 years ago...

it used to be dull white so got resprayed Aston Martin slate grey.
it has been around Spa race track on a jolly....cool
he rode it around Europe and slept "on it" in a laybay one night...maybe i should be keeping the comfortable and versatile seat ?..but no...
it had an altercation with a bus and come off better..maybe...
which explains the clocks..actual mileage is between 50 and 60k

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

here is a better quality pic of the back end that shows support brackets hanging down...
silencers not hung properly yet but it's taking shape..

 

[JustinLonghorn]

Re: BMW R80 mono

I can dig it man, keep it up.

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

Changed the fork oil on the airhead and it looked like this...yuk!

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

took the steering head bearings out to give them a clean and grease whilst changing the fork oil...

head nut is 36mm and the fork cap nuts are 41mm so i dug out a spanner from my cyclist tool box...

its 30/32 one end and 36/40 the other...so had to file it out to 41mm..no drama...

found a 36mm socket for 3 quid at a boot sale for when i torqued the head nut back up to 107nm, so result!

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

greased the swingarm bearing while i was at it...

BMW specialist wants a fiver for a grease gun attachment to do the job...

BMW dealer would probably want my kidney!

so i looked in my diy tool box and found an unused silicone sealer nozzle...it screwed on to the grease gun and fitted into the bearing orifice...cool

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

being sat in a garden for 3 years plus i guessed the petrol taps might need looking at...hmmmmmmm

i'll just post the pic...........

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

yep that mess was the contents of one of the taps and the tube had emulsified itself together as well hence being chopped back a lot...
double hmmm

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

being a fan of minimalism i chucked the chunky plastic dashboard and made all i needed...an ignition holder..

and for t'other end a number plate hanger..

 

[cyclone]

Re: BMW R80 mono

that last pic shows the rack hangers made out of brake torque arm quite well..

so here is where we are now but showing a half done seat....

will do a write up on the seat when it's done

but suffice to say i nicked all the design and execution from someone on here..can't remember who though..thanx though whoever it was, always said you were a decent fine chap... ;D