I’m talking about the bikes, not the riders- We’re beyond hope!

Yup, that’s my R100GS, fresh out of long term rehab. Ridden about 8 miles since release from the facility, been through all the gears up to 65 MPH and seems to be a fine and upstanding airhead again.

It ain’t always been this way for this wayward airhead- here’s the rap sheet:

Just out of sight of the dealership- ran out of gas, salesman said he filled it but must have been fooled by the stupid flapper valve in the tank.

200 miles- ignition trigger unit intermittently fails, after it happened on a busy freeway with no shoulder It was no longer funny.

34,000 miles- transmission goes, rear bearing IIRC. BMW takes two months to supply $800 worth of repair parts.

34,010 miles- barely get it back from the dealer and the alternator fails.

40,000 miles- diode board fails.

45,000 miles- transmission fails again, thanks to the (in)famous missing circlip. Replace with used ’82 or so tranny.

50,000 miles- replace leaking pushrod tube seals.

57,000 miles- paralever fails (clunk, Clunk, CLUNK, CLUNK!)

58,000 miles- first cylinder stud pulls.

60,000 miles- previously helicoilded stud fails again and two more were pulling out.

Not recorded in this list of felony level failures were near daily petty mechanical maladies… Suffice to say I was amazed when it made it to the East Coast and back without need to dig out the tools. This wayward airhead’s life of mechanical crimes is reflected in the but 60,000 miles it’s covered in two decades- I think it’s spent half it’s life waiting for parts or for me to have time to fix it.

Rehab was intensive- I fitted every single cylinder stud hole with HPD inserts and inspected the now circlipped transmission too, as well as installing Tom Cutter’s bronze rear paralever pivot bushings. Helicoiled a few oil pan bolts too and fixed a few other minor defects.

So my GS is but a couple days out of treatment- I checked to make sure the valve train’s getting oiled and changed the oil and filter to make sure there’s no swarf left to ruin all that hard work in rehab. But this GS is still in recovery- for now he’s getting 30 meetings with me in the shop (and hopefully rides) in 30 days. No open road for this airhead yet- gotta keep him close to home in case there’s any (mechanical) slip(up)s. I’m attending to other minor mechanical maladies too- put the hand guards back on today and will be ordering up a new coil to replace the crack-o-matic out of the junk box, the GS’s coil having been stolen for the LS.

So if the weather and mechanical gremlins hold off, before winter sets in this mechanical miscreant will be on the straight and narrow, and ready to assault the curves next spring!