BMW R65 Restoration - Part 3 - Forks & Swingarm

Greetings friends,

This is a continuation of my series of posts documenting the restoration of my BMW R65. For the previous post, click here.

When we last left off, I had removed the front wheel and was finding a solution for the damaged forks. I took the wheel to The Wheel Master, having heard that if there was anyone who could fix it, it'd be him. To make a long story short, the dent in the rim was too great, resulting in severe cracking when he tried to bang it out..... so that meant I had to hit eBay for a replacement. I looked for an exact copy, since the distinctive "snowflake" pattern of these wheels is quite unique and I wanted to keep them matching. For the forks, I just bought a reasonably priced replacement which simply bolted right on. Not much choice here, since the existing forks were just too bent up to be useful. However, removing the old forks turned out to be a bit of a chore! Here's what went down..

Handlebars off, top yoke ready to remove.

I first tried loosening the yoke clamps to pull out the fork tubes, but they must have been jammed in place because they simply wouldn't budge. I decided I had to remove the bottom yoke and forks in one piece. First off, the handlebars had to come off, followed by the top yoke. Once the yoke was removed, I could pull out the bearings and remove the entire lower fork assembly. Let's have a look at them:

Now that's a lot of damage!*

With the forks off, I removed the bearings and thoroughly cleaned them with engine de-greaser. The old grease was profoundly oxidized and no longer provided any lubricating properties, so naturally it had to go. The old forks were pretty useless at this point and since they were stuck in the lower yoke, I just cut the yoke off and saved the forks in case I needed any spare parts down the road.

Beautifully clean bearing!

Since a lot of effort was saved by buying new forks, I was able to move directly ahead to installing them after I painted the frame. I used Green Grease at the recommendation of my mechanic; the water resistance that it provides is ideal in this application. Though I don't plan to take the bike out in the rain, I still want to make sure that all bearings are waterproof.

Greased up, the bearings went into the steering column followed by the forks. Surprisingly, it was all very easy to install and works like a charm! The forks themselves have some gunk on them and will need to be cleaned more later on, but for now they're totally functional.

Moving on to the swingarm, there's actually not a whole lot I had to do. I removed the wheel (since it needed a new tire) and removed it from the final drive assembly simply to replace the gasket connecting the two. The swingarm attaches to the frame using two pivot bolts, and these are held in place with large nuts. The shock absorbers then attach the swingarm to the subframe, comprising the rear suspension. 

The whole rear suspension/swingarm disassembly process.

Sort of a poor picture, but this somewhat illustrates 

how the swingarm attaches to the main frame.

This all came together pretty effortlessly, so aside from both wheels still needing new tires, the front and rear suspension are both complete!

Thanks for reading,

Juju

Plague Doctor Mask

Greetings friends,

Well, we're in the midst of a global pandemic... The coronavirus has halted the economy, reached 3 million cases worldwide, and exposed which world leaders are capable of handling this type of outbreak, and which aren't...

I thought it would be wonderfully fitting to share an old project of mine, made in the fall of 2018. This was my first dive into the world of leathercrafting, and it was loads of fun to make. This will probably be a relatively short post since the majority of the project involved stitching, which let's face it is not riveting... 😜 Lets dive in!

I found the plans for this mask on Etsy. There were many choices available, but since I was looking to create the most traditional looking mask that I could, this one looked the best to me. For the sake of authenticity, I also opted to use undyed leather in the hopes that over time, a patina would develop as the mask is worn and a more weathered appearance would result. I used some dark thread as an accent for the light leather.

Working from the pattern, I cut out all the pieces required for the mask. I used a surgical-grade scalpel for cutting which created nice clean edges on all the pieces. Once everything was cut out, I punched holes along all edges that would become seams. The following pictures lay show the progression of stitching seams together one after another. Each piece builds on the one before, and the whole mask comes together rather nicely.

This piece becomes the bottom of the "beak." The holes 

punched on the sides of the seam are vents for breathing.

The two halves of the face of the mask were each stitched to their respective side 

on the bottom piece, then folded over and stitched along the top to close the beak.

The forehead piece was stitched to the top of the beak first, then connected at the sides. 

Here it's easy to see the rivet holes on the sides of the mask where the straps would attach.

Sadly, I forgot to closely document the attachment of the straps, but 

behind the head is a belt buckle that holds everything together.

I was very pleased with my handiwork, especially given my inexperience in leathercrafting. This certainly motivated me to do more leather projects, some of which have already been shown on the blog and others which will be posted later on. I ultimately would love to work on a complete plague doctor costume, but that would surely take some time!

Thanks for reading,

Juju

BMW R65 Restoration - Part 2 - Painting the Frame

Greetings friends,

This is a continuation of my series of posts documenting the restoration of my BMW R65. For the previous (first) post, click here.

Where I left off, I had begun disassembling the forks and was looking to get the front rim fixed. This portion of the restoration will be covered in a separate post. For now, I'll focus on the disassembly and re-painting of the frame and subframe.

To start, I removed the forks, subframe, swingarm, and rear wheel. The forks were pretty severely bent, but I was able to remove them in one piece. I later had to cut off the lower yoke with a cutting wheel to separate the forks, which I'll keep for spare parts later on. The swingarm and back wheel were super easy to remove, albeit messy!

The electronics were a bit more difficult to remove, requiring me to drill out some screws to detach certain components. Many of the small screws had rusted and there was simply no better way to remove them. After that, the main frame was free of all non-metal components.

To begin the paint stripping process, I used Airline brand paint remover. First blasting through an aerosol can of the stuff followed by a can of liquid stripper, it did a decent job of loosening the paint. To remove the rest and to blast off the rust, I took an angle grinder with wire-wheel attachment and went to town. This ended up being very effective and before long the frame was basically entirely down to bare metal!

The primer and paint I used for the frame and subframe were fantastic. Both sprayed on incredibly smoothly and were easy to use. There really weren't any challenges associated with painting the frame, so there's very little to say! I would highly recommend this combo for anyone wanting to paint automotive parts, especially the high-durability roll bar paint.

One coat of primer, and a smooth coat of paint. Couldn't have been easier! 

Though I suppose a lot went into getting the frame prepped...

The black paint needs several days to fully cure, so after attaching the subframe, I just let it sit. However, I couldn't resist setting the gas tank onto it for a final pic!

Thanks for reading,

Juju