Steve's
project began as a result of net-surfing, e-bay in particular, to find the perfect ride. It is there that he found this low
mileage machine (only 4810 original miles) and submitted the winning
bid that let him take this baby home (original tools and manuals included).
It pays to keep your eyes open for a good deal.
Once he got his acquisition garaged and ready to wrench, Koch noted,
"The project was really more a matter of resurrection than
restoration." He tells us that he's the third owner of this
dream machine, and it's also clear that owners 1 and 2 didn't have the
pride or passion normally associated with owning a ride of this
distinction. In fact, owner number 2 simply picked it up as part of
an estate sale and just had no interest in keeping it. Though Steve
doesn't question his good fortune, he does note that it was a bike that
had mainly lived its life in storage, not always in the best of
hands. "It had suffered from serious neglect," says Koch,
"and had not been ridden in years."
A quick appraisal showed Steve that his new best friend was in need of
tires, rear shocks, petcocks, mufflers, rubber (pegs, grips, boots, etc.),
cables, handlebars (euro low bars) and replacement of most of the hardware,
including nuts
and bolts and other fasteners, which he would replace entirely. Of
course, to do that he bought the R75/5 long wheel base bolt kit from theboltguy.com.
He
observed that the original brakes were in pretty good shape (I mean, how
many times do you even want to stop in the first 4810 miles on a
bike like this?) so he decided to stick with the original assembly.
Steve
rebuilt the front fork and replaced the springs with new stiffer
progressive ones. Both wheels were stripped of their spokes and the
hubs bead-blasted with new bearings installed. Rims were polished
and rebuilt with all new stainless steel spokes. The bearings in the
steering head were checked (and they were, fortunately, still tight).
The tank was
like-new beautiful on the outside, but inside it was a quagmire of rust and
age-related flaking of the original factory coating. It
demanded restoration. But all things considered, Steve reports that 90%
of the paint on this bike is still original paint
Even
the cover and foam padding of the original seat were in great shape (hard to
believe, but true). And because of the simplicity of the electrical
system on a bike of this vintage, restoration on that system required very
little attention.
"I didn't even have to crack the case," says
Steve. So he finished the project by rebuilding the carbs and then
gave his "resurrected" air-head boxer a complete tune-up. Then, of
course, he hit the road.
If you're looking for the owner of this
"new" machine, we expect you'll find him cruisin'
down a California highway right about now.
