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WIS Airheads, Spring/Summer stuff |
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Written by Jeff Trapp
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Saturday, 13 June 2009 |
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Hey Airheads, I've been slightly lax in keeping in touch so good time to
touch bases on a few items.
Had a few events this past winter that were well attended. John Tokarz
organized a Airheads at the Harley Museum event back in Jan. Wish I could
have made it but sounds like it was a good time. Thanks John.
Our winter tech day at Rich Ryans in Hartland was great fun and well
attended. We did pushrod seals and a rear main seal on one of Rich's /5's.
I had a couple of folks get back to me already that they went home and did
similar jobs on their bikes. That's sort of the idea of the winter tech
day. To demostrate that many of these airhead maintenance projects are well
within the grasp of most of us and seeing them done helps develope the
confidence to tackle them. Many thanks to Rich who was a wonderful host and
to the folks that brought food and helped out. Not too soon to think about
where to have it next year and what projects you'd like to see demonstrated.
Just a couple of weekends ago Kevin Knuth had a tech day at his home in
Wauwatosa. It was a milestone of sorts also as we actually got some real
work done. John Lewis did a pushrod seal job on his /5. Mark Hoesly was
having some fuel starvation issues on his bumblebee gs and John Tokarz tore
into that and seemed to solve that problem. Another good time and thanks
much Kevin.
Mark Hoesly is going to host a campout, picnic and ride at his place in Mt
Horeb on August 8th. You can come on Friday if you like, lots of room to
camp and sounds like Mark will start a fire. Lee Potratz is going to lead a
group ride on Sat. I or Mark will fill you in on other details. Marks
phone is 608-424-3709 and address is W4007 Kammes Drive Belleville WI. Let
Mark or me know what your plans are. Sounds like a great time.
The Wildcat Mtn campout is Oct. 2-4 this year. I missed out on the site we
had last year so we are in the smaller one in the woods. It is limited to
25 people. So first come first served there. If more folks want to attend
they can reserve a regular campsite and come back and visit. Camping is the
same $10 as in the past. Your spot is reserved when you have paid.
That's all I can think of at the moment. I've posted a few new photos to
the website and will update other items in the next day or two.
Thanks guys and have a fun and safe summer. Jeff T |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 13 June 2009 )
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Airheads at Harley Museum |
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Written by John Tokarz
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Tuesday, 25 November 2008 |
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Break the winter blahs with your fellow club members on Saturday January 17, 2009 as we take in the history at the new Harley-Davidson Museum near downtown Milwaukee. Enjoy a day at the museum with dinner afterwards at an excellent Mexican restaurant very close to the museum. Group rates at the museum start at 15 or more persons, so I will be looking for an RSVP by January 10, so I can make further arrangements at the museum and the restaurant. Let's start the day at 11:00 AM at the museum and then then tentatively head over to the restaurant at 3:00 PM for dinner, drinks and some conversation. As far as I'm concerned spouses, friends and kids are welcome to join us. Hope to see you! The museum The restaurant John Tokarz
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262-385-1487 |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 25 November 2008 )
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Airhead Riding Season 2008 off to great start. |
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Written by Jeff Trapp
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Sunday, 18 May 2008 |
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Our Wisconsin Airhead riding season got off to wonderful start here in May. Last weekend May 10 saw David Paulus host a tech day in Wauwatosa. The day say 12-14 airheads, doing the usual yakking, wrenching and eating. One intrepid fellow and I apoligize for forgetting his name was putting some 40mm bings on his r100rt. Not sure if he got done or needed a ride home. We did get some better front braking on Rich Ryans toaster /5. Turns out they were just badly glazed. Kevin Knuth's r100 needed some carb syncing also so David gave us a demostration of his expertise. I had a good time and certainly enjoyed the day and thank David for his hospitality. This morning, May 18 say a dozen folks meet on the old beltline in Madison for a airheads breakfast. Lee Potratz organized the morning. The owner of the restaurant is a friend and has a beemer and offered us his banquet room and free coffee. I think everyone enjoyed the breakfast and the chilly ride over. Thanks Lee |
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 18 May 2008 )
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Wisconsin Airheads Winter Tech Day 2008 |
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Written by Jeff T
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Thursday, 14 February 2008 |
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The Wisconsin Airheads had their first ever Winter Tech day on Feb. 9. The premise is to demonstrate a couple of jobs that we all will need to do sometime or other yet are intimidating if you haven't seen it done. The two chosen were spline lubes and pushrod seal replacement. Michael McSherry graciously offered use of his wonderful shop. This shop is a wonderful museum of a lifelong love of motorcycles. You could spend hours looking at photos, posters, signs, and other memorabilia not to mention the bikes and
parts. Attendance was limited to 15 due to the size of the shop and these folks had to swear to not using kids, soccer or weather as an excuse to not show up. They did pretty well in that department. One prominent airhead from south of the Wisconsin border did use work as an excuse at the last minute. That 4 letter word will probably be included in next years attendance requirements. This is a record snowfall year for Southern Wisconsin so was astonished when Milwaukee Airhead Andrew Hargarten showed up on his sidehack. The hack is a oilhead gs1100. At least he showed enough sense to not expose his airhead to the salt and grime. Wis. Airmarshal Jeff Trapp did a spline lube on C. R, Krieger's recent Acquisition, a 1978 motosport rs. After stuggling with rusty battery box mounts and removal of the usual mouse nest and dead mice, that job went smoothly. It seems that one of the perceived difficulties of this job is pulling the swingarm pivots so you can pull the swingarm, tranny and wheel back as a unit to get at the splines. Everyone seemed to appreciate that it isn't a big deal at all and the complete project is easily done in less than 2 hours. For pushrod replacement demo, John Tokarz brought the engine out of his r100r. He made a stand for the bare engine so everything was especially visible. John makes a special effort to show how keeping track of things like rocker arm orientation etc. makes this job relatively easy and doesn't have to take more than a hour or hour and half per side even for the first timer. We've also found the simple green and some green scotchbrite pads make pretty quick work of decoking the heads and piston crowns. Despite the motorcycle mechanic theme, as usual, a highpoint for the day was lunch. Mark Hoesly made a big pot of venison chili. It was wonderful! I've never seen mushrooms in chili before but now think it's a perfect match. There was lots of other god food and drink offerings brought by the rest of the crew so no one left thirsty or hungry. I'm guessing this will become a annual event for Wisconsin. It served nicely to break up the long motocycleless winter and hopefully will encourage airheads to dive into their bikes like never before. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 12 March 2008 )
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Written by Jeff Trapp
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Tuesday, 16 October 2007 |
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It's the same old song, bigger and better than ever. The 2007 Wildcat Mtn campout had super weather, almost too hot, 27 folks attending over the weekend and a beautiful fun ride on Sat. This year saw folks coming from all over Wis. and from Illinois and Minnesota. There was a new route for Sat.'s ride that went north to avoid the gravel from repairs of the Aug. floods in the Gay's Mills and Soldiers Grove regions. It was good fun and if you haven't attended a campout yet you should. The people, the bikes, Wildcat Mtn and the roads make it pretty special. The campout has reached a point where it probably is worth getting a group campsite. We tried it the first year and there weren't enough folks. It would make it easier as far as reservations etc. go. I also will be emphasizing that it is a Wisconsin Airhead club event. Classic BMW airhead motorcycles are the glue that started this event and what we all have in common and I don't think it would be wise to stray too far from that idea. This will probably be the last update I make to this site. I want to move it to a url that allows me to post photos etc. I'll post it here and on the Wis. airheads email list when I get it going again. It likely will be at the old URL I used to use. It's free. Jeff Trapp Wisconsin Airmarshal |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 14 February 2008 )
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Written by Jeff Trapp
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Saturday, 04 August 2007 |
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I wondered if anyone was paying attention. I guess a few, I've been negligent in keeping this site updated. The airheads are having some webmaster problems in general and the photo gallery on this site is goofed up and I haven't had any liuck getting the webmaster to respond to my appeals for help. So the heck with him/ We just wrapped up a fun and successful tech day at my home. I'm amazed how airheads I haven't met yet seem to come out of the woods. Half the folks here today were new faces. Good folks and good fun. Once again got a few things accomplished, some valve adjust and carb sycn lessons to folks looking to lean, some fluid changes and tire changes, including one from hell on Peter H's bike. After a couple of punctured tubes, lots of verbal encouragement and a little blood it finally got changed. Thanks for coming all. Also lately wrapped a very successful Airhead Central for the BMWMOA National Rally that was held in West Bend WI. The Wisconsin Airheads did themselves pround. Airhead Central was a very popular gathering spot of the tribe. Even had sightseers stopping by to take photos of our comfortable hangout. Oak liked the chair we reserved for him so much he took it home with him. Thanks to all the people who helped out, bringing gear, finding furniture, helping set up and clean up. Couldn't have happened without you. A couple of fun events are still coming up. Rockerbox is Aug. 11. Always a fun event. Then it's not too early to make a reservation for the Wildcat Mtn Campout, Oct 5-6-7 for Wildcat Mtn STate park if you plan to attend. They let us put 3-4 folks per site so contact me or your buddies to fill up. Catch you later, Jeff T |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 23 August 2007 )
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Written by Randy Boris
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Monday, 08 May 2006 |
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It started out on Saturday, May 6th with sunshine, blue skies, and 32 degrees at 7:15am when I arrived at Anschutz Motorsports to open the shop, clear out the shop area for the day's event, due to start at 8. After going to Kwik Trip to get my first cup of coffee and some donuts, the first bike arrived after 9, my friend and fellow Airhead Jeff Gehler, who has helped me in so many other adventures. Time for more coffee. A short while later we hear an Airhead, this time a non-Airhead, but there is always hope. Brian Flanagan, a guy I know from work, brought his R100T with complaints about his front forks being soft. Previous discussions caused him to bring along some progressive springs and fork seals. We were soon joined by Dave Elliott, who owns an Oilhead, but wants either a /6 or /7, and showed up to learn. Little did he know he was going to get his hands dirty. The old learn-by-doing trick! So we began by helping Brian disassemble his front end, with him doing most of the work. Again, learn-by-doing! Shortly we discovered another non-Airhead Airhead arrive, Jeff Burish, a neighbor of mine, on his R75/6. I'd first met him last summer when I saw him riding down the street, so I followed him to his house to find out who was riding another Airhead. During last summer I showed him how to do a routine tune-up in his driveway(valves, points, timing, carb adjust and balance). Today he wanted to check out the rear drive splines. Jeff Gehler took charge of this aspect, along with a few other inspections and imparting of general Airhead lore on the care and feeding of these beasts. Also dropping in, and I am sorry I didn't get his last name, was a gentleman named Phil on a R100RT, but another non-Airhead. He'd seen the two bikes "out front" and came in to investigate. You know, just check things out. It began to get hungry out, so I fired up the grill and proceeded to carburize some animal protein in tubular form, namely brat's and Italian sausage. It does help if the person doing the cooking pays some attention to that task. So they were a leetle bit crunchy, they still had good flavor. Kinda. Following lunch we did get the two bikes back together. Brian was impressed how well his bike handled, especially since we did add oil to the forks. Did I mention that there was hardly any when we disassembled them? A much nicer ride! We were pretty much finished by 2pm, so called it a day. As a followup to this event, I wandered over to a local cigar shop. The purpose of this was the Kentucky Derby, as the owner has a "thing" for horses. The promotion was buy a cigar, and draw a horse. Seeing as there were only six of us there, and 20 horses, we all ended up with numerous horses. Joe, the owner, also served up mint juleps. The prizes for the day were: WIN - 2 Makers Mark cigars, PLACE - 1 Makers Mark cigar, and SHOW - a small Makers Mark cigar. My horses finished 8, 9, and 10. But what a great way to finish a most excellent day. I would like to thank Mark Anschutz, my "boss" and friend, for allowing us the use of the shop for the day, and graciously providing the food. We offered , and he declined. But he is inclined to do this again next year. Overall I think Jeff and I did a fair job of observing the Canons, and we'll be trying to recruit these riders into the fold. Thanks Randy for your time and effort. I'm sorry I couldn't make it this time but will next time for sure. Jeff Trapp Wis Airmarshal |
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