December 21st, I load up the GS and drive to Watertown NY which is 5.5 hours each way and leave the bike with my friend BB8. He and I did the Translabrador together in 2018 and he had the tools and space to babysit my bike for a few months. I could keep the bike on a lift and he’d do some powder coating for me and it’d give me an excuse to spend a few weekends over Winter with my friend.
We tore the bike down to the frame + motor and everything else was set aside. We pulled the shocks, performed most of the 24,000 mile maintenance and took stock of BMW parts like bolts and cracked plastics we wanted to replace. Over 4 months, I placed about $550 in parts orders from BMW to restore things that were on their last leg. Some replacements were done because I wanted to as the BMW probably didn’t need that many replacement parts. I broke the rear level sensor removing the shock so that alone was $150.
After the bike was fully torn down, we called it a weekend and I packed up my suspension, mailed that to Ted Porter’s Beemer Shop and I mailed my Sargent seat to Jacksonville Florida to have the heat pad element replaced under warranty and ordered Cardinal Powdercoat for BB8 to get to work in the 3 months break
Here are a few photos from that first visit: