The R80 has been on the bubble since I picked it up last year. When I bought it I thought it might be a candidate for a resto-mod and re-sale but I never put that in motion. I've decided the R80 is one of the three motorcycles I'm going to keep in the fleet. Its a /7 (say SLASH SEVEN) but a 1978 instead of a 1977. In spite of not being of my signature year it is a /7, it is fully-faired - I have the lowers but they need to be installed - and it shows around 40,000 miles on the odometer which still appears to work. As with so may BMWs of this vintage, it has fallen out of reliable running condition. There is nothing singularly wrong with the machine but is is behind on all categories of maintenance and would be well served by udpating a few systems.
When I bought it the machine ran well but by the time I unloaded if from the trailer it was only running on one cylinder. I thought about what might be going on, thought about starting with a carburetor rebuild, and then noticed that the fuel was pretty dirty. I dumped some fuel system cleaner in, let it sit for a bit, and then the machine started up and ran on both cylinders. The petcocks were clunky and the fuel line was brittle (and not the right kind for an Airhead!) so I figured I'd start by cleaning up fuel delivery. Parts ordered, parts arrived, and then I moved to the new house. Now that I'm sort of settled I throught a motorcycle work day would be just the thing to make The Atomic Ranch feel more like home. A couple of the guys joined me, we took a break for lunch at The Courthouse Exhange, and wrapped it all up around 5:00 pm. I still need a couple of things to declare victory (overflow tubing and some fresh, non-ethanol fuel!) but today was a day well spent.
This machine needs more TLC but then don't we all?
