It is built for highway use. The seat is one of the best.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I still have one other vintage two-wheeler - a 1961 Sears Allstate made in Austria by Daimler-Puch. It's a motorbike-size 50cc moped, with a manual-clutch and two-speed, twist-grip, cable-shifter. Not having a garage here, for the past 18 years, it's been in my rec-room!

Meanwhile, currently there's one 'older restoration' black '66 R27 listed for sale on the 'net' in California, for $9500.
I decided on something a bit more practical. For $29 on Ebay, I bought a copy of 'Classic BMW Motorcycle - The Gold Portfolio'.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

Those were not considered a 'good' AirHead BMW , the R65LS was .

In any case I'd think making it run and cleaning it up would make it an easy sell, unless you mistake "old" for '!! RARE !! VALUABLE !!' and so on .

Beemers, any of them, are great little putt putters, under 750CC you'd best be in no hurry but they'll get you where you need to go eventually .

That seat is easy to upgrade to make it an all day saddle .

Were I not 3,000 miles away I'd at the very least come take a look and might be able to help you with it .

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

They're cheap & fun. First things first, if it has a CV carb throw it in the recycling and get a flat slide on ASAP


That being said, I love my 82' KZ440. Dead simple & has decent torque for a small bike.

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$60 OM617 Blank Exhaust Flanges
$110 OM606 Blank Exhaust Flanges
No merc at the moment

Put putters? We ran 75 on our trip to canada. How fast you wanna go? The manual said top speed, 103 mph upright, 109 crouched. Leave it to the Germans to be that specific.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Imagine what a horse-fly on the cheek feels like at 103!
It seemed like my R27 had plenty of torque, at least up to about 30 - 40 mph - as fast as I was willing to push it on that side street.
When I was younger and crazier, I got a friend's brothers Suzuki 250 up to about 60 on a long straight dirt road behind his parent's farm. (No helmet!)
It started to get real squirrely, so I backed off. I never tried that again!
Had I fixed up that R27 and braved the highway, I wonder what cruising and top speed would've been. Maybe this BMW Classic Portfolio book I'm getting off Ebay will tell me.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

I imagine it would cruise at 55 to 60.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I still have an antique mini bike out in the garage I had forgotten about. It topped out pretty good for what it is. I have no ideal really but felt like about fifty miles per hour. The fork tubes have internal springs at least but solid rear end of course.

Got it at a yard sale years ago. Has only a rear drum brake that does not work well at all. I had it apart and the rear axle roller bearings are in pretty bad shape. Yet the drum and brake linings looked decent.

This bearing issue may be contributing to the brake issue somehow. I mean the bearings are really really loose. Like they have had a diet of sand.

Just off the shelf bearings so I should get them done. The originals either did not have dirt seals or they disentigrated. I actually thought it was pretty speedy for what looks like a five horsepower Briggs and Stratton engine. With a centrifical clutch. It could even be just a three horsepower.

This mini bike is pretty old. As is the rider. If I get the back brake functional. It is quiet enough for people to use around our beach area. I had considered mounting a disk brake setup if that brake will not work out. I kept telling myself it had to have worked at one time. There is just no room back there to adapt it to a disk brake. I even considered some setup that applied pressure to the circumference of the rear tire. Rear braking is not that strong yet almost none is really noticeable. The tires are wide enough even jaunts along the beach sand when the tide is out are possible. Yet probably Illegal.

It was an all cash transaction for thirty dollars that seems to start first pull every time. I may or may not own the cheapest two wheel motorized vehicle of any member on site. Still knowing you fellows out there. Allows uncertainty in my mind about that. I think it may date back to the 1950s but that is just a guess. No manufactures name although it was obvious it is factory built or was a kit. That is an early Briggs and Stratton engine aboard.

I forgot about the Doodle-Bug scooter I inherited from my Dad, and that I used to ride as a teenager. He bought it from a Western Auto store near the Texas airbase he was stationed at in 1947.
It's basically a minibike, though with old-school industrial construction and features typical of the 1940s, including a cast-iron geared kick-start pedal, a round one gallon gas tank strapped behind the seat with a fuel shut-off and glass sediment bowl, an external-shoe cast-iron rear drum brake, 7" split steel wheel-rims bolted to cast iron hubs with thick bronze bushings on polished hardened steel axles, and an oil-filled 'fluid-drive' mounted to the crankshaft of a 2 hp industrial ball-bearing, cast iron Briggs & Stratton engine, with an up-draft float carburetor and oil-bath air-cleaner.
One of these turns up on Ebay now and then. Unfortunately, back in the day, my Dad removed and discarded the 2 factory decorative steel covers that mounted below the seat and wrapped around the engine. I still have the original owner's manuals with pictures and parts diagrams of everything.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

My ride, circa 1972:



Suzuki MT-50J, a.k.a. the TrailHopper. 3 horsepower 50cc 2-stroke with oil injection. Three-speed semi-auto transmission, which helped me leave conventional minibikes with their centrifugal clutchs in the dust....The seat was removable, and the handlebars folded in, so you could stow it in the trunk of a car.

...and '79 was the first year it was offered in the US . I'm not under any illusions: this bike was my fathers and I'm his only son who rides, I didn't want to see it go. But...I'm a father (of 4) and I do not have the time to give any airhead the attention it deserves. PLUS, any airhead can usually be fixed by spending more time than money - this was appealing to me until I realized that my children need that money and time more.

(instead of 'Extreme makeover Home edition', why dont we have 'Extreme makeover, Dad's motorcycle edition' ? - I'd watch that every day )

Parts and support are out there, and my 12y/o son expressed some interest in riding it someday. I'll only let him if he helped adjust the valves with me
I had considered saving up $1000-1500 and throwing at a local shop with airhead experience - have them get the suspension up to snuff and then I can mess with the engine (timing ? valve clearances ? carb balance ?). It starts, runs and rides, but the tires are 10+ years old and I'm pretty sure one cylinder is working harder than the other.

-John

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2009 Kia Sedona
2009 Honda Odyssey EX-L
12006 Jetta Pumpe Duse
(insert Mercedes here)

Husband, Father, sometimes friend =)

Pretty cool stuff here now .

Yes, the mini bikes rear wheel bearings should be the very first thing you tackle because "rear wheel steering" is a real thing and dangerous too .

I'm not surprised an old cast iron Briggs engine can make it go foolishly fast .

This is to - day's ride :



A 1970 Honda CT90k2 'Trail 90' I've had for a decade or more, I recently went through it in order to sell it on and now it runs As-New again so instead I'll up fix and sell off this much harder to find (possibly 'rare') bike :

Hm, no photo in the lap top, it's a 1969 Honda CL90, when I parked it in 2017 it was running perfectly and had new seat cover, tires, blah blah blah ~ I dumped over $1,500 worth of parts into the damn thing after paying $600 for it and then bringing the title and tags into my name and current .

I'm sure it'll sell at a dead loss but I had fun with it whilst recovering from my surgery...

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Back around 1969, where I was growing up, a kid who lived next door had a red Trail-90. They moved shortly after, so I didn't have a chance to find out much about it. Does Honda still make a a version of that engine? I've sure seem lots of the Chinese knock-offs on scooters, dirt-bikes and go-carts.

As for that cast-iron Briggs, I think it topped out around 30 mph. But that sure seemed foolishly fast on a tiny minibike, with 7-inch rims. At least it had a real brake - not one of those tire-scraper plates the cheapest '70s minibikes used as one. I think it was last ridden in 1980.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

That red 1969 was the one year only much vaunted CT90K1b, I have three of them, two look o.K., the third is a parts bike I hope to make run and sell off .

Yes, they still make them both as Postal Delivery bikes ("Posties') in Australia and the "Hunter"for every where else except North America, currently 110CC engine size .

The Chinese copies are all over the map quality wise, there are at least two licensed copies made there that match Honda patterns .

I've nver had a Mini Bike, rode a few though .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Am I the only guy here who rode a Triumph?