Recently my 19i89 R100RT had to sit out in a 2 hour long frog strangler rain in the parking lot while I was at our W. Pa. Retreads rally. When coming home (an 85 mile ride), I discovered the odometer, instead of reading 33,427 miles, with the final 7 changing every mile, at home finally read 34275, with the final number, changing every 10th of a mile as though the odometer was now reading, not 10s of thousands of miles, but was reading mere thousands of miles with the final figure reading tenths. The trip meter had stopped and remained at 14.7 miles-the distance I'd ridden after getting gas before that rain. Now the trip meter appears to be working again (I reset it several times to 0 to see if that would get it to work again), but the odometer keeps acting as though it's recording thousands and tenths, instead of tens of thousands... i.e. 1111.1 instead of 11111. Any ideas of what is wrong? How to fix this to return the odometer to proper operation? Or does anyone know where the speedo/tach assembly can be sent to get the speedo repaired?
Thanks for any information you can provide!!
Hi 14703,
Had a non working Odometer on a R90/6 that was purchased a while ago. Because it was to be a project anyway, decided to take a stab at the repair.
Upon disassembly the problem was obvious. The two Spirally cut nylon gears whose purpose is to simply change the angle of the rotational path as the Speedometer Cable enters the Speedometer were stripped.
Had a real good relationship with Capitol Cycle and they put me in touch with the person who they used to repair speedometers for them. His name was Irv Simon, who I was going to pass on to you. In checking his name and business online discovered he had passed away.
Continued to see if more info on Speedometers was available and voila; www.odometergears.com Check out their website, they sell odometer gearsets and also have info on rebuilding odometers.
Hope this helps...Regards John 8775
Many thanks, Fellows! I'll check out the places you mentioned! Much appreciated!!!
When checking into my speedo repair, I was told that odometer issues were the hardest to correct. After studying the assembly I understood why. Let me encourage you NOT to attempt this repair yourself. Save your sanity and use one of the suggested specialists listed above.
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
Many thanks for all the helpful information. I decided to let someone else work on the Speedo once I got it free of its casing (also with thanks to the member who put up an entire set of pictures as to how to do this, what screws to remove, etc. After poking around and googling "BMW R100RT Speedometer Repair" I came up with both the $300 place in California (the one my dealer was later this fall going to send the speedo to with that price quoted as well), and another Speedometer Repair place that isn't as yet advertised in our monthly Airmail. I contacted these folks who are in Austin Texas. They sent me a quote that said the repair would run between $125 and $250....a nice savings over the California place. On further contact, I found that I could have the Speedometer back about 2 weeks after sending it off to them. So I took the plunge and did so. I got it back within the 2 weeks promised, put it back onto the bike, and just gave it a nice spin. The Speedometer works perfectly! And the price of the repair, including shipping costs back to me: $150. I highly recommend "Overseas Speedometer" in Austin Texas for such repairs...the price is right, and the repairs are well done.
For anyone needed BMW airhead speedometer repairs, their URL is:
http://www.speedometer.com/page/services.html
They repair all sorts of Speedometers, motorcycle, automobile, and what have you. I know they did a good job for me, and I recommended to the owner that he advertise in our 'Airmail' monthly newsletter. Don't know whether he will, but they did a great job. 🙂
Best to all,
Ralph
Thanks for the information about your speedos! I think Overseas Speedometer is really the way to go if a speedometer needs repair. What was really neat too, after I got my now operable again speedometer back for half the $300 the California place would have charged, a few days later I got a phone call from Rick Borth, the owner of Overseas, both to thank me for my business and to be sure the Speedometer had arrived safely. I thought that was pretty nice of him! And the speedo has been nicely behaving itself ever since I got it back. IMHO Overseas Speedometer is the way to go for speedometer problems. They may even work on Tachometers too, but I have no idea whether or not that's true, but it would seem to me the innerds of Tachs would be in some ways rather similar to Speedometers.
Ralph,
Good tip. I just requested a quote.
Torpedo, ...Glad you found the information helpful. Hope all works out for you!
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