[BMWR502]

Having now heard it run, I determined it was worth my time/money to attempt to bring her back to her former glory. That weekend I got it torn down to just the engine/front frame/forks. I was astonished to find that not only was the clutch disc bone dry, but the input shaft and clutch hub were not trashed. In just 31k miles, the previous owner somehow managed to wear the friction disc material down so far that it nearly wore the heads off the clutch hub attach rivets (I have a funny feeling alcohol and an attempted burnout may have played a role in this). Unfortunately, the dreaded trans input shaft fretting was worse than I was comfortable with, even with a clutch hub spacer installed.



So the bike sat in that condition for the better part of a year while I slowly acquired all the parts I knew I’d need, and of course… some unnecessary ones. After noticing tiny teeth marks on the trans vent, I assumed mice had chewed through the wiring harness, which was the reason there were splice repairs all throughout. Not wanting to deal with fixing someone else’s botched repairs or electrical issues during reassembly, I sourced a used main harness from a fellow Pelican. I scored a 31k mile (total coincidence) trans on eBay with mint input shaft splines. Got the complete extended hub clutch kit from BBY (since Cele001 quit selling his hub spacer). And placed a “Brake My Wallet” order at Max BMW for all the OEM parts that were either trashed or missing.