The Assembly

February 17, 2016 • 1 Comment

The Life and Times of Leiser Blitz, a 1977 BMW R100RS (Part#3)

(previous Part#2) The Crossroads

- The Assembly -

So it begins - after almost 2 months of tearing this bike apart and seeing various parts being shipped off (powder coater, head work, final drive), it was nice to see items return to the garage and to visually get an idea of how nice this will look. Of course RJ, Lew and I did quite a bit of work on other parts (Transmission, bearings, forks, fender, side covers, etc).
Finally the frame came back the powder coater and RJ literally couldn't wait to show it to me and the special touches he added (added some strenght near foot pegs where things are prone to crack, filled in the battery cover subframe gap that could be visually more appealing, added strenght to the center stand, since we are using the Briel Oil Cooler. - WOW - this looks fantastic! iel oil cooler).
RJ took painstaking efforts to save the original SN plate (riveted to frame), then attached it back, and even grinding down the screws to make them look like rivets. Absolutely amazing what this guy will do, attention to detail is like none other I have seen.

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As a side note: R77 #260, also indicates the place of manufacturer on his serial number plate. The owner of #260 also confirmed that his is a big pipe bike, i.e. 40mm exhaust. Below is a picture of his SN tag:

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The frame turned out very nice! We all are very pleased, Todd did a great job on all of the parts we asked him to do for us.

Todd McDannell, owner of Wicked Rides Powdercoating, 130 Bigham Rd., Gettysburg, PA

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RJ added some neat add'l centerstand bracing, since with us using the Briel Oil Cooler, we are missing one add'l centerstand cross bar

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RJ had his welder add one small tab to each side of the subframe, that will fill in the gap that generally exists between battery cover and subframe. Very nice touch, great presence of mind, the attention to detail is remarkable.

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So, with the frame and RJ's custom work looking so nice, it forced us to really step it up, the "base" of the build looks so nice, it would be a shame not to carry that through the remainder of the build.
RJ started to freshen up the engine block a bit, and WOW does it look nice! He used Krylon Dull Aluminum
We continued the build in somewhat subzero conditions, hard to bolt shlt on when hands are mostly in pockets!

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Lew and RJ would have fun inviting various mystery guests for breakfast and then to come over and see our progress. Meet my good buddy Dave Good, he and the previous owner used to ride together, in fact Dave took the "It was a CAT" picture and is visible in the rear view mirror of that shot. Goodie has 2 beautiful R100CS's, often he and I reserved the right to ride home together from Fingers and exploring some of the higher speeds our bikes' are capable of.

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Despite running 2 kerosene heaters, it still was bitterly cold in the garage on more than one occasion. At least that also kept the beer cold.

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And just like that, we half 1/2 of a rolling chassis!
I need to make a special mention here referring the the "DNA" of the Lower Yoke - This part is from Mark Thrift's bike, which later also belonged to David Lichtenwalner (Alphabet) and even later was on RJ's bike. So there is a bit of DCR (Dutch Country Riders) history rolling around!

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In this photo one can begin to see that advantage of RJ's center stand bracing, with the Briel oil cooler and the deep oil pan (neither of them installed yet), there would be no clearance with the stock center stand.

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