Here's an interesting souvenir from BMWs past - a war time stock certificate for 1,000 Marks (seen here at about 1/2 its actual size). It's now handsomely framed in my study.

The Hoske tank on my R68 needed a bit of work, so I sent it out to Ross Thompson to get repaired. The bottom of the tool box was rusted paper thin, and had to be replaced. The tank was also cracked & improperly repaired up above the front mounts (very typical of Hoske tanks, and something you should always check for). Ross corrected all these things, along with working out all the small dings it had picked up over the years. It came back looking great!

The tank gets a trial fit on my 1952 ISDT R68. The rear fender has just come back from being repaired. The bike is almost ready to come apart for paint. The skid pan can be seen resting on the floor, just below the bike.

Seen here is a prototype of the ISDT exhaust systems that I thought about producing at one time - that is until BMW Mobile Traditions came out with an absolutely gorgeous reproduction of their own. Their pipe is made by the same Italian firm that produces the exhaust for the current generation R bikes.

A period photo of a new R69 and its proud owner. 1957 was the first year for the new rounded air filter, and the last year for the flat license plate bracket - so this must be a 1957 model. Simply gorgeous.

This is a good comparison of the early verse late battery tray on the 1955-69 twins. The smaller tray was used on the very early twins (1955-57), and it used the same type of tall battery as the 1950-55 plunger twins & singles. The lower tray is the size that was used until the end of production in 1969. While the tray size stayed the same until the end of production, on the very late bikes the tray mounting bracket was simplified, so the tray won't have the staggered holes. The only other battery tray variation that you might run into would be for police use, and it looks like a double-wide version of the later battery tray.

Thanks to a tip from my buddy Phil Rose, I found a real nice set of Krauser 4-valve heads, ready to install. There was also an NOS 336 cam in the parts stash, which was on my wish list as well. These items are all destined for my 1977 R100RS.

Many of you have been wondering what I've been doing for the last few months, because I have not been posting a lot of new photos... well, this is what has been keeping me away from my computer and in the garage late each night. Here's a shot of my 1950 BMW 750 racing bike, just restored and loaded up for the trip to the 1999 BMW owners club national rally. The bike was very well received at the show.

For 1951, BMW redesigned their twin engine cases to the style that was to remain in production until 1969 with only minor improvements. Very early cases DO have some slight detail differences though. Here is a shot of an early 1951 R67 engine case. The most notable difference is the location of the the engine serial number. The arrow points to the oval cast into the left (kickstarter) side of the case, and the serial number was stamped here.  Another visual difference are the dots ('.') between each letter of the BMW name cast into the side.

 

Sometime in the 1951 model year, BMW modified the case casting slightly, moving the location of the serial number to the now familiar area just above the push rod tubes - but still on the left (kickstarter) side of the case. Gone were the dots ('.') between the BMW letters. This case is my 1952 R68.