Part Four - StrandedThere I was, at Cape Breton Highlands National Park near the northern tip of Nova Scotia, dead tired from a 12 hour, 600 mile ride, a thousand miles from home, riding a bike that was making a hellacious racket. It was getting dark so I just rode the damn thing, noise and all, to the free campsite the park rangers had given us when someone else had paid for it then abandoned it. "It's your lucky day!" They had said. Yeah right.  The next morning
Bob and I tore into the motor to find out what was making the racket. The engine
on an R60/2 looks pretty simple; most of its vital moving parts hang out to the
sides where things are easy to reach. The Teutonic engineering of the R60/2
ensures that repairs are utter simplicity; if you have the proper tools and the
engine is on the factory approved work stand. On anything German engineered
there are always one or two vital parts you can't remove unless you have the
special tool designed for the job. On the R60/2 one of those parts is the
threaded ring which holds the exhaust pipe to the cylinder head.
 Fortunately I had
the pin spanner to loosen the exhaust pipe nut, and every other tool needed,
except a torque wrench -- which is why my bike was overloaded. Even with the pin
spanner the exhaust nut is a real bear because the heat tends to fuse the steel
nut to the aluminum threads. Great care is needed to avoid stripping those
theads and the removal process was very long and tedious. Once the exhaust pipe
was loosened it took only about 2 minutes to remove the four head bolts, the
rocker arm assembly, and the right cylinder head, and discover the source of the
gawd awful clatter; the steel exhaust valve seat had separated from the aluminum
cylinder head when I had stopped the engine. No problem. Just call the local BMW
dealer right?
Actually to my surprise there were six BMW motorcycle dealers within 300 miles of the park, and all of them were listed in the local yellow pages. I guess when you live in the boonies your fingers walk pretty far. An hour, and pocket full of change, later I had discovered that none of the six had a right hand cylinder head for a seven year-old /2 engine. Fortunately I knew someone who did. I called our friend Ed in Takoma Park, MD. Ed is an amazing guy. He repairs Beemers and watches, is a bonded locksmith, and does some of the nicest tooled leatherwork and cabinet making I've seen. He does none of this for a living, and all of his skills are self-taught via correspondence courses. Ed has about half a dozen /2s in various states of assembly, including that gordacious (one of Ed's trademark expressions) white R69/2 with the Luftmeister side hack which inspired me to buy a Beemer. Ed happened to have an engine identical to mine sitting on the floor of his garage, so he removed the right cylinder head, complete with spark plug because I was unable to tell him whether mine had short or long reach plugs. This was 1975, long before DHL and FedEx offer door-to-door, anywhere delivery, so Ed boxed up the head and the gaskets, rode out to the airport, and air shipped it to Stanley Nova Scotia, the nearest airport, 120 miles away from us. Bob headed off to Stanley the next day to pick it up and I wondered what the heck I was going to do to amuse myself. Little did I know then, the next few days would be the highlight of the trip for myself and Bob. Next chapter: [ The Song of the Whales ] [ Title Page] |
