Thanks to Jay Leno.
Monthly Archives: March 2013
Clocks
I snapped this at the local vintage motorcycle shop.
Family History – NYPD – First motorcycle cops
Sometime over the past 15 years a bunch of photos surfaced of my mom’s side of the family. One that got copied and is in each of our homes is of my Great Grandfather, Bertram G. Hope.
Bertram Hope was one of the first motorcycle policemen in the New York City area riding what appears to be a harley davidson.
My uncle did some investigating in the world wide web and found out that he was in a motorcycle wreck in 1919.
Nassau County Review – Motorcycle Officer
Crashes Into Auto Bertram. G. Hope, one of the oldest motorcycle’ offlcers in Nassau County, in l^int of service, was badly bruised Sunday afternoon, when he crashed broadside into an automobile, while riding along the Merrick Road as listed in the Maryland car accident homepage. A large car suddenly crossed the road at Ocean Avenue and Hope was unable to clear it in time. He swung the same way the car was going, and his leg was caught between the two machines and badly bruised. He was taken to his home at Merrick and has been confined for several days, but no permanent injuries are anticipaled. The motorcycle was badly wrecked. More Help was given to him legally to get well soon.
Bertram’s wife passed away when she gave birth to my Grandfather, Russel Hope, who was the last of 11 children. Bertram passed away in 1932 (Brain Aneurysm) when my grandfather, Russ Hope was only 7. My mom thinks he was shot by gangsters based on my grandfather’s last memory of him. But that is not the ‘official’ cause of death. My grandfather and his closest sister in age ended up in an orphanage for a few years until one of his siblings got them out and raised them.
Another shot of my Great Grandfather and his buddies:
The Nassau County Review, April 25th, 1919
Thanks to Ken Hope for digging this article up.
Juice running through her veins
Finally. After about 20 years since this bike was last titled. And 2 years of restoration time. It is showing signs of life.
More photos and updates have been added to the post: /5 Speedometer Wiring
90 years in 90 seconds – BMW motorcycles
I’d take any bike in any of the locations featured in this BMW commercial.
The older the better. I’m not so jazzed on the newer F bikes and such. But they all sure look fun!
/5 BMW Speedometer Wiring
Hopefully the following wiring photos can be of help to somebody.
I hope to add to this post once I am done.
Click on the photos for larger versions.
On my last /5 build, I adapted a /6 relay board to my /5. I cut off the terminals i did not need due to the simplicity (and less features) of a /5 vs /6. I also liked the idea of having the fuses easily accessible. Everything works great however in hind sight, I maybe went too far (did I complicate a simple /5 wiring scheme by adding the /6 board?) and perhaps I left the fuses too exposed where they could get knocked out. But I have over 3000k on the bike right now and no issues.
The gold resistors on the bottom of the headlight bucket are for the LED turn signals. Resistors are necessary to adapt the low current draw of the LED’s so the relays still work.
The large black box at the bottom is a /6 /7 and R100S style turn signal relay.
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Here is my naked speedometer. I highly recommend painting the inside of the headlight bucket a bright color. It really helps for seeing inside there.
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Here is the speedometer wired. It is hard to see some of the actual terminals/connections but this should be a nice short-cut for somebody who doesn’t want to read the wiring diagram.
Please note: My Red/Yellow wire going to the instrument lighting is also a gray/black wire in most wiring diagrams.
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UPDATEUPDATEUPDATE
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In hind sight, my /6 relay board wasn’t such a bad idea. I scoured electrical stores, auto stores and the internet for terminal relays and fuse blocks that would work for inside the headlight bucket.
I never really found the perfect solution. I was looking for a nice, compact 2 fuse relay. I also looked for a junction box that suited all the necessary connections.
I ended up using the terminal connector that came with the Rocky Point headlight key conversion (white junction on the right side of the photo).
I also used a CINCH 6 position terminal for wiring up the turn signals, brake light and other connections.
I decided to abandon the typical inline ceramic fuse holders that BMW supplies. The ceramic fuses aren’t readily available at your local auto parts store so I have planned to seek the help of experts from https://telluridetireandauto.com/. And I have also opted for something common like the rubber covered fuse holders carry a typical ATC fuses. BMW specifies an 8 AMP fuse. I went with a 7.5 and a 10 (because that is what i have in my garage). The 10 will be fine. The 7.5 vs 8 shouldn’t make a difference.
The Clymer manual did a great job for most of the wiring.
The other diagrams helped A LOT though. One diagram specified which wires connect to which pin on the turn signal flasher.
One thing that none of the diagrams specify is which terminal numbers on the relays connect to which wire. Yea, a bunch of wires plug into the starter relay, but which wires go to each pin/terminal?
Luckily I took a BUNCH of notes when I tore the bike apart. And luckily the old connections were correct.
Here are my resources:
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Here is the headlight bucket as tidy as can be (for now).
Another iphone quality photo of the headlight:
After some battery charging, and some testing, and pulling my hair out only to realize that the Rocky Point switch was labeled incorrectly (blue and yellow wires were mixed up and mislabeled). we are good to go!
I popped the headlight on and the bike is showing signs of life again!
UPDATE UPDATE – – – –
Here are the photos of the second silver bike’s headlight wiring. It looks somewhat messy in the photo but take my word for it, it ended up being tidy. I used a cut down /6 relay board and mounted it inside the headlight bucket. 
