If anyone had told me that my next bike, after ten years on smoke belching two strokes, was to be an overweight, underpowered BMW I'd have said they were as mad as the man who designed the switchgear. The bike came to me via a friend in the trade who had received a phone call from a middleaged chap who was giving up two wheels in favour of four. It was of the fabled never seen rain variety and over 150 miles away in Northamptonshire. Phones tinkled in two counties and a time was arranged to view.
On the appointed day we set off and after a short detour to the wrong village, a 1981 R45 was discovered in all its redness on the punter's driveway. I'm no expert in this hazardous game but when something's right it stands out a mile. Try as we might for the £600 asking price we couldn't find anything to gripe about except the seven previous owners. After an embarrassing try at haggling (akin to robbing the church poor box, or so it felt) I left with a Haynes manual, helmet, gloves and bike for the journey back to Stoke in glorious sunshine.
It was a whole new ballgame, the horror stories that people spread about these steeds are hardly fair. Jap bikes spoil us all but in a relatively short time can turn twice as nasty as any BMW, but if you take the time to become acquainted and ride smoothly all is well.
The odometer showed 20,345 miles and the only rough spot in the rev range was at exactly 70mph or 5250rpm. 5mph either side and the whole plot smoothed out. I've read of other bikes being afflicted in a similar way, so I didn't worry too much. The biggest problem was the lack of feeling in my buttocks and the ever growing pain in my shoulders. This was remedied by the purchase of a set of high bars from a secondhand BMW spares dealer in Huddersfield. I also needed a longer clutch cable which drove the cost up to £30. The master cylinder hose then failed to reach its intended location but a Kawasaki item was persuaded on and still operates the front brake in a spongy kind of way. Next, came a service kit (£28.20 minus oils) plus some fork seals and gaiters. Total cost £51. This did wonders for everything except my popularity with her indoors but that's biking for you.
The bike's lack of power doesn't matter to me, my main requirement is to get the forty miles to work and back again each day in one piece at reasonable cost. Output in the mid thirty horsepower league and a dry weight of 452lb is never going to scorch tyres but it suits me fine. The shaft drive's a revelation after a life wasted looking after chains. Although going down the box too fast in the wet can lock the back wheel.
The first problems were all centred around the front master cylinder. Whilst out on a ride in the Peak District, the pressure in the cylinder built up until both front calipers were locked on to the discs like hungry Rotweilers. The only way I could get home without distorting both discs was to loosen the top of the cylinder. Subsequent investigation revealed that a sludgy brown residue had built up on the inside, the pistons rusty and beyond help. New ones cost £23 plus a faulty brake light switch at £6. The brake problem was down to a lack of frequent (yearly) fluid changes, an area of maintenance that is too often forgotten.
Fuel consumption worked out at around forty to the gallon which wasn't too inspiring, considering the mild state of tune. Town riding reduced it to the low thirties! An article in the BMW club journal suggested that the engine ran far too rich on standard settings and a quick juggle with different size jets and new needles would see 60mpg for the modest outlay of £5.
I sent off immediately for the parts and a few days later had a bill for £22 - and I thought it was only Columbia that had high inflation. The mods have improved fuel economy, although the improved performance also claimed hasn't turned up.
The next couple of thousand miles passed without worry, which is just what you need during the onset of winter, but the gremlins were lurking in the background waiting to pounce when I least expected. It didn't take me that long to adapt to the BMW experience, the R45 so mild that it was difficult to get into trouble on. Certainly, its lack of power's useful to anyone who's on the verge of being banned as it wasn't much use for speeds in excess of 80mph. Handling was good just so long as it wasn't subjected to any sudden violence when it'd shake about all over the place in protest.
After a while there was a succession of failed light bulbs that had me mystified for a while. After washing and starting the bike one day I heard something arcing. Upon looking under the tank I saw a two inch spark leaping from the body of the dual output coil to the frame. Not nice and expensive looking. The chap at the breaker told me just what I didn't want to hear before Christmas, the R45 coils are prone to cracking and the best way out was to fit two R80 coils but this was going to cost £33 instead of £8. Great!
The coils duly arrived and I set about fitting them, full of confidence only to be scuppered by the near impossible challenge of putting two units where before there had only been one. Deep prayer and brute force succeeded in the end but somehow during the process of working this miracle the throttle cable had frayed, leaving the left-hand slide stuck wide open.
As I was working in my mate's garage some miles from civilisation, a new one didn't readily fall to hand, a cable of unknown parentage and vintage was bodged on for the 15 mile trip home. All was well until I reached the city and started to overtake an ambulance when I realised I was gathering speed at an alarming rate. A quick stab at the killswitch had me resting in a side street taking some heart pills.
The whole throttle cable comes in three sections with a splitter box - an amazing £32.19. Whoever said that BMW's were cheap to run? The back Metz was by then going bald, leading to some queasiness in the handling. Had it been capable of the ton it might well have caused some speed wobbles. As it was, I never felt completely out of control even on worn out tyres. Thus I had few qualms about fitting a worn Conti that had spent a long time hiding in a friend's garage. Even this dubious rubber failed to turn the friendly, easy going nature of the R45 into something that came close to being vile or vicious.
Above all else, there was the mild, relaxing beat of its OHV boxer engine that seemed to wear even the most crazed rider down into a saner, more tranquil state of mind. So much so, that despite all the minor problems in only four months and five thousand miles, the bike still ranks high in my estimation, although I can see how the past seven owners could've been quickly pissed off with an excess of minor problems and the lack of high speed performance.
The demise of the coil was accompanied by erratic starting. Itself a common problem on the bigger boxers in cold weather when the large (and expensive) battery is barely able to cope. The R45 does not seem to have the same short-lived bores and pistons of the 650cc version with which it shares so many other components (the engines can be swapped if you become desperate for more power). Finish and build quality seems to be up to the standard set by the rest of the BMW range.
Total cost so far is around £850, which includes quite a few non-essential luxuries like stainless steel bolts and heated handlebar grips but it says something about the bike that I'm willing to spend money on it rather than just run it into ground. Unlike my previous bike, a Suzuki X5 200 that cost me £100 and was kept on a budget tighter than a gnat's chuff - I can rat-bike it with the best of them when necessary.
The BMW is a whole new experience, it has somehow got a grip on me and unless I find a nice R80 will stay in my back yard for some time to come. All the tales about prehistoric gearboxes and shaft rise are grossly exaggerated. All in all, a good buy with the potential to go around the clock with only minor niggles; a cheap way to go around in a modicum of style.
Mark Hough
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Once I'd obscured all the markings that indicated I was riding a mere 450cc of boxer twin, I soon became rather happy with my new bike. I'd paid a pitiful amount for a two year old, 5000 mile machine and immediately decided it was ideal fodder for a 6000 mile tour.
There were a couple of immediate problems. Loaded up with an excess of camping gear the handling turned out rather weird. It felt like a camel with broken legs going around corners, needing constant handlebar input to stop it running off the road. Also, doing more than 80mph induced the kind of weaves and wobbles that recalled stories of Kawasaki's nasty old triple strokers.
I wasn't sure if this was down to the excess mass on the carrier, the mismatched tyres or the soggy rear suspension. Yes, I know that this is a BMW but that did not seem to excuse a back end that had no damping and precious little springing. After the first campsite was attained I tried the BMW without the luggage. Better at lower speeds but still as vicious as an old Triumph Speed Twin through the bends. More air in the tyres damped out some of the nastiness but it was ridiculously easy to run the boxer right off the road in sharp bends.
Of course, the relatively low mass and minimal power output of the motor meant it was difficult to get into serious trouble. On a good day it was possible to do 100mph but much beyond 90mph was accompanied by a most un-BMW like flurry of vibration. At low revs the engine also shook in the frame like a tired out Commando but more than 1500 revs smoothed it out.
I soon found that 75 to 85mph cruising was a breeze apart from the chassis wobbling, but 65 to 75mph was accompanied by enough vibration to make a Triumph owner most proud. All the stranger that an old R80 I once owned was smoother even though it had more than 60,000 miles on the clock!
Halfway through the trip I found that the rear tyre was down to the carcass. The disturbing handling became vicious and evil after that. It was only by putting my boot down a few times that I escaped from the dreaded gravel rash. I headed for the nearest tyre dealer poste haste.
A new set of Conti's put a huge hole in my petrol money. For the first few hundred miles I thought it was money wasted as the BMW felt like it was sliding on ice. Once the tyres were scrubbed in, though, the transformation in handling had me grinning from ear to ear. Gunning the machine through bends like there was no tomorrow even the soft shocks and excessive mass did not appear to intrude too harshly.
What could still catch me out was the gearbox. This had not seemed too bad, at first, with none of the normal Teutonic horrors, but once 8000 miles were up it became very crunchy. I often threw the box into a false neutral and occasionally managed to lock up the back wheel on downchanges in bends.
Occasionally, the box would lock up, leaving me stranded in one gear. Depending on the gear, this could be bearable or very disturbing. This was undoubtedly the cause of the clutch slip that developed by the time I got home. A new clutch plate was fitted and the locked gear syndrome did a runner.
One of the delights of the tour was the superb nature of the riding position. BMW have developed this over decades of experimentation. The R45 was comfortable for hundreds of miles at a time. Most bikes gave me a bad backside and even spine after as little as a 100 miles......I've yet to find anything that betters the R45, whether riding in town or cruising on fast roads.
This despite the horrid suspension. Bits from breakers allowed me to upgrade to a much tauter specification. This removed the last of the vagueness in the handling but did not affect the aforementioned comfort. The bars need a bit of effort in the bends but apart from that I could not fault the modified chassis. I dare say that the excessive power of most middleweights applied to the Beemer would cause me to reach a different conclusion.
All this comfort was important because the R45 has both an exceptional range and fuel economy. Most boxer twins, these days, have appalling economy, in the 40 to 45mpg range. The smallest Boxer managed to better 60mpg most of the time, giving a range of well over 200 miles. Ordinary unleaded petrol did not agree with the engine, though.
The winter was looming, giving me the choice of buying a cheap hack or using the BMW.....the bike had developed such a secure feel by then that I had few qualms about riding over rain drenched roads. A 50 mile commute a day soon added another 6000 miles to the clock until the rain stopped.
The chrome and alloy needed frequent attention but the paint survived fully intact. The front disc seized up twice and the silencers showed signs of rusting through, an annoyingly chronic BMW weak spot. Before the silencers fell off I brought a set of stainless steel exhausts, thinking that in the long term it would pay off. The R45, despite its lack of outright speed had impressed me sufficiently to want to keep it in my hands for a decade or so.
So come the good weather some high mileages were put in. Great Fun. But spoilt by some electrical malfunctions, eventually tracked down to wires that were melting. The voltage regulator was sending 30 volts through the system. The original battery ended up a rather funny shape by the time I'd tracked down the problem.
Subsequent batteries refused to last more than six months despite most of the black boxes being replaced. The lights and horn, by the way, were up to car standards and a very pleasant surprise after some of the dross I've experienced. Even unlit roads could be cruised down at 70mph and the horn was loud enough to move recalcitrant car drivers out of my path.
With about 27000 miles done, the locking gearbox syndrome returned with a vengeance. I ended up with the box permanently locked up in third and another wrecked clutch by the time I got around to tearing out the gearbox. I feared the huge expense of ruined gears or bent selectors but the fault turned out to be merely a broken selector spring. The dealer had quoted me more than the machine was worth to do the repair so I was in a merry mood once I'd worked out how to reassemble the motor. Although easy enough to work on, a lot of jobs required a special BMW tool or a deal of ingenuity to make up a suitable replacement.
Anyway, back on the road I was rewarded with a smooth box but a distinct lack of power above 6000 revs. As I hadn't touched the cylinders I wondered what the hell was going down. All was revealed by the time 31000 miles were done. Huge clouds of smoke out of my pristine silencers heralded the demise of the rings. The cylinders were easy enough to pull off with a few taps from my trusty sledge-hammer.
The bores were slightly scored and the rings so well melted into the pistons that they could only be removed by destroying both. Given BMW prices, it was cheaper to pick up a used set of rings and pistons than buy new stuff. I was tempted to put R65 items on the engine as the bottom ends are virtually identical but the bits were about twice as expensive due to their much greater demand.
I also noticed that the valves were a bit dubious but decided that my money wouldn't stretch to a top end job as well. Performance never attained the heights of a low mileage bike and the thought of yet another dose of cash further down the road had me casting around for a replacement.
Ended up with a good trade-in on a new K75S. The R45 was an enjoyable bike to ride, if speed was not your main requirement, but lacked the usual BMW robustness. Easy servicing and cheap running costs were other good points. I might be tempted by a cheap, low mileage one if I was in need of a hack.
Terry