Save The 30 Year Old BMW!!

[jamie]

This in my Father in laws 1979 BMW R650. As you can see from the pics this is one coveted and well looked after bike, covered when not in use and meticulously maintained. The only problem is that it looks like the big end has gone, leaving the bike undriveable and to make matters worse the local BMW garage has predictably priced themselves out of a repair.

I'm not personally into bikes and dont have any contacts but would hate to see this bike sold for scrap, it deserves to be repaired. If anyone has any ideas, a spare engine, a good contact, knowledge of bikes of this vintage or a reasonably priced repair service I'd be delighted to hear from you!!!

Many thanks

[tree]

theres a fella up at xpress factors thats into his classic bikes, restorations etc... he may be able to put you on the right track.

[jamie]

Cheers Tree, is that Express Factors at Spring Valley? I may well send him an email. Any names?

[Road Runner]

Try Dave at Evomoto. I've seen some of his restorations over the years and WOW!

[poshboy]

guy at peter dawson tyres has a turbo hyabusa he made himself but has been fixing bikes most of his life from what he told me, might be worth a call

[jamie]

Thanks for the replies folks, I'll keep you all up to date.

[WIDELOAD]

Your best bet for boxer spares is Motorworks at Huddersfield...more s/h spares than you can shake a stick at...

BTW...the local branch of the BMW bike club meet third tuesday of the month at the Creek Inn at Peel...we don't bite...much

[jamie]

Thanks Wideload, thats very kind. Funnily enough, I found a local guy who is selling a 'spares or repair' R65 of the same year with an engine in great shape.

Trouble is......when I approached my Father in Law on the subject he just wasn't up for restoring it, even at low cost! I guess it hit him really hard when the big end went, left him stranded off Castletown! He didn't seem to want to talk about it. I do understand to a degree, I suppose when your confidence is shaken in a vehicle, your always going to wonder when the same thing will happen again, even when repaired!

Either way, he still has the bike wrapped up and safe from the weather and is looking for something else to catch his eye.

I still have the contact for the other guy who has the spares and would let him know if there was someone interested. Therefore if someone is after a nice, relatively cheap restoration project my Father in Law will let the bike go for quite little. Good, fully running examples go for between £1,000 and £1,200 on Ebay and I'd guess that if someone were prepared to take my Father in Law's bike and transplant the engine from my contact with the spares they could have a very nice classy 70s BMW at a fraction of the above price.

If anyone is interested please PM me.