Blue, blue, what to do…

Now that I am basically done with Red, I have begun considering what to do with Blue. Blue is a 1991 R100 RT. It has only around 15,000 miles and spent the better part of two decades in a basement. I found Blue while hunting for a potential parts bike so I would have something to cannibalize for Red if needed. I am still lookin for some semi-basket case bike to use for parts harvesting since Blue is definitely not that.

While I was working on Red, which started as an RT, I began to consider how much an RT would be nice to have. Red will be a great daily bike and perhaps even a limited overnighter with some proper planning. It won’t be a strong contender for a long, cross-country trip though. Blue is in excellent mechanical condition and I have gone through it a little to replace all he obvious old rubber to make it road worthy. Even though it has low miles, it does show some signs of needing more attention. There is a bit of a leak allowing a small drip of gearbox oil onto the collector occasionally, which is not much of a surprise considering how long it sat without circulating lubricants.

It also is clearly a hodgepodge of parts from at least three different bikes. The earlier owner hit a deer which ruined the original fairing and damaged the seat cowl. What’s there is a fairing from a slightly earlier RT in gray. I like the blend of blue and gray, but am a little irritated that the seat cowl is a different blue scheme. The tank and battery covers have excellent paint, but it is less vibrant than the cowl. It also has sticker pinstripes compared to the hand painted stripes on the fairing. The fairing is in good condition, but has clearly had more UV exposure than the rest of the bike. All in all, I think some paint is definitely in the plan.

I’ll want to redo all the seals, which means a pretty complete teardown is going to be done. This is where I get into the “if you give a mouse a cookie” problem. Since I am taking it that far apart, it becomes easy to justify considering a more complete rebuild. Even if I know much of the bike doesn’t need it. For example, I’ll have the gearbox out and it would be nice to add the taller 5th gear and ensure the output shaft has the circlip, which may not be there on a 91 model. No sense in replacing the 5th gear if I am not going to redo the bearings as well.

Since the swing arm will be off, it may as well get a full treatment instead of simply redoing the bearings. With the body off for paint, I may as well add a stiffer top brace and perhaps upgrade the electrics. I am pretty sure I don’t need to tear Into the engine, but it would be good to verify the condition of the timing bits (especially the plastic ones) so I’ll have the alternator and ignition out for that. At that point, It’s a small thing to add a big bore kit from Siebenrock to get more out of the better 5th gear. And since all this could be taken off, I can update to a modern wiring system while I am at it.

You get the idea. I will want a glass of milk. This is the epitome of scope creep and a few hundred dollar update easily becomes several thousand dollars of improvements. The good thing is, I will be able to decide on these as I go through the bike, so not much is essential.

For now, I am pondering the paint. I could just revitalize the standard BMW colors and make them consistent with the gray and blue mix, which I find quite appealing. Or, I could get a little creative and update them to something more modern.