1978 bmw r100s sitting for five years

Hey dudes and dudettes. I recently came across a 1978 r100s and am wondering what the value of this bike is. First off it has sat for 5 years in a garage. 44k on the clock. it needs all new wear items, basically all of the rubber is rotting. The shocks need to be rebuilt. carbs suprisingly look clean. all electronics look good. the sad part, I did a compression test and i have 155 on the left and 75 on the right. I have done my fair share of german rebuilds so I feel confident in my own abilities but im concerned about parts. In my experience any thing labeled BMW adds 40% to the price tag and then Im just worried about sourcing parts. Any sort of help or smart ass comments would be cool........

You'll find the parts. But unless you get that bike for about nuthin', it would probably be cheaper to get a runner. I guess it kinda' depends on how bad you figure that poor motorcycle needs you.

How much do you think you'd have to pay to own the bike?

Check Hans Lowe's website for parts and prices, etc:

http://bmwhucky.com/

MAX BMW has parts and an online parts fiche:

http://www.maxbmwmotorcycles.com/fiche/PartsFiche.aspx

Ted Porter has parts and service:

http://www.beemershop.com/

It's do-able but not impossible.

It doesn't sound too bad up front. The price you have to pay for the bike is important but maybe it's helpful if I tell you that in general owning a vintage motorcycle, BMW just being one of the better examples, is a money loosing proposition. You will spend 5 or 6 thousand dollars to ride a 3 thousand dollar motocycle.

What color is she?

If you give a few pictures we might do better on assigning value.

don't tell my wife that.

on the flipside of this, you spend the extra 3 grand to have a classic you can ride the shit out of and still get parts for at many of the local dealers. try getting parts for a 30 yr old suzuki from the dealer.

you pay for em, but everything is avalable

It's really hard to say what it's worth from your description. Not enough data.

The low compression might just be from a bit of carbon between a valve and its seat.

That particular bike, if in good shape is fairly desirable, so don't write it off as worthless.

These bikes can be expensive if you don't work on them yourself. Since I do, I've found them to be very economical. Once in decent shape (not perfect, just good strong runners) they'll cross the country no problem! If kept up and maintained, they last a long long time.

When a bike's been sitting for a long time it's possible for water to settle in the transmission and rust the bearings. Mice like to build nests in the air filter. And chew up the wiring as well. Tanks rust out. Tires get old and rotted.

So it all depends how far down it's gone and the asking price.

So here's the whole story. The guy who owns the bike has a hand full of different bikes that he doesn't/cant ride (one of them being a 1974 ducati 750 which is just heartbreaking to see it sit) and he has asked me to borrow it for a couple years and just keep it ridden. Well as the title of the post says it has been sitting for five years and needs all of the usual stuff. I let him know all of this and have started the conversion with him about me buying off of him. I have wanted one of these for a while and the fact that is it an s model makes it even sweeter. I do all of my own work so no mechanic needed. I have never owned a BMW bike (used to have 1974 2002 model) so i am new to the unique design. Another thing to mention is that I redid the compression test and they were both at 160 so there is nothing to worry about there. If I could get this thing for $500-$1000 is that reasonable or too much? Here is the list so far as I see it. tires, wheel bearings Brake pads lines, shocks rebuilt, new handle bar mounted mc, head bearing look see, cleaning electrical contacts, gaskets and seals almost everywhere, paint, and new single tail section. I think that is a good start. Thanks for all of the input so far. If it would let me I would post some pictures. The color to me right now is that orangy red with a painted picture of the bike on the tank. Those links are great for parts. I think it is safe to say that I have already gotten attached to her in my garage next to the klr, and i would love to have a project for this winter.

That price range: very extremely worth it based off what we know right now.

Not that there can't be catastrophically worse things wrong with it we DON'T know, of course.

What tail section are you after? The 3/4 seat ones are becoming silly priced, but they can be bought after market from flat racer in the uk reasonably priced.

A 1978 r100s with 44K on the clock for $500 to $1000? Yes, that is in the "ideal" range for a project bike. Your worklist is sounding good too. The advice you're getting above is spot on. By comparison, I bought my 1975 R75/6 with 44K on the clock for $1100. It too had been sitting for a long while. The tranny bearings had rusted and I had Tom Cutter rebuild the transmission ($500 at the time). New fork boots, all new rubber bits, tires, battery, new cables, new fluids etc etc and I ended up putting another $2500 into the bike or thereabouts. My /6 now has 101K miles on the clock. I've put rebuilt heads in and had a ring job in that time. Did much of my own work. I ride the bike on a 3K mile trip every year for the past seven years. These are great, reliable machines. If you can get in at the price point you're talking about, this is pretty much a no-lose proposition.

IF COMPLETE and missing no major parts.....I will step out on a limb......Providing paint original and still good.
That bike is worth at least $2,500.

We need more information......IF it runs, even MORE!

Wait.....what?:huh I gotta see this!!!!! You have to get a photo sharing website like smugmug or flickr, photobucket. Put you pics there the paste the url addy here---->

Here's a link.http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=919

https://iriebelle.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/bmw-r100s/25755710_QrfZTd#!i=2130225002&k=39P3tC5
Last night I was looking at the front end and noticed that the top triple is bent. I guess the parts list is growing

What HWG said. You have to have a picture account that will host the photo and you link your post here to the photo.

I gave 2k for mine, all original from the original owner. wasn't running but only needed a battery, tires, and a front master rebuild. It had 19k on it, all the manuals, spare parts, tools. I couldn't be happier with it.

so i tried the smug mug thing. the account is iriebelle see if it works. when i posted the admin was waiing for approval. I was looking at the triple treee today and noticed that it is bent, so add another part to the list. does anybody know how to pull the caliper on this bike? there is one bolt below the caliper but it is really tight. am i missing something?

A triple tree that is noticeably bent is pretty bad. If you can see the bend it may not be rideable. The entire forks will have to be straightened and tubes checked for parallelness. The triple tree doesn't get bent all by itself with out other damage being done.

Ate caliper removal. Take bracket holding hard brake line off. Remove plug on bottom of fork leg with spring inside that holds eccentric bolt in place. The large eccentric bolt up inside the caliper mounting pad is not threaded in it is held in place by the stiff short spring. It is threaded so you can screw one of the fender brace bolts that was attaching the brake line bracket to the fork into the center and pull the eccentric out.

On reassembly the whole thing is cleaned and greased. The eccentric has to be preset for proper contact area of the brake pads and efficient braking.

So did you buy the bike or are you just starting to disassemble the one you don't own yet? In any case, the big hex cap nut at the bottom of the slider can be awfully tight. I forget if the big hex wrench that comes with the bike's tool kit is big enough to use with a crisp rap with your BFH. If not, do you have a box end wrench to fit? To remove the caliper, you'll need to remove that cap nut. Once you have that cap off, there's an eccentric pin inside holding the caliper on. To remove that pin: see the allen bolt acting as a pinch bolt for your front axle? Remove the allen/pinch bolt from the axle. You can now use that allen bolt to insert it into the threads of the eccentric pin to work that pin out. Caliper can be now be removed. Clean that eccentric pin and apply "brake grease" (NAPA) before replacing that pin. You'll be using that pin to adjust the alignment of your pads to the brake rotor. There's a Clymer and a Haynes manual for these bikes. If you buy the bike, find one of these manuals.

As much as i want to just take her down to the frame and have a winter project, i have only been poking and observing because yes the bike is not mine. I dont think the owner realizes what five years and what looks like front end damage does to a 34 year old machine. Thank you so much for letting me in on the brake calipers, I couldn't find this type anywhere that I was looking. The adjustment on the calipers is apparently off because he replaced the disc and looking at them only half of the disc is showing any wear. Looking at this long list of what it will take to be just operational would normally have me running in the other direction but for some reason I cant help myself its too purty to let go. Thanks again for reading this thread and helping me out. hopefully that smugmug thingy works out.