Back in the day when Oak was in charge of the Air Tech section of Airmail, he would answer questions by providing guidance for fixing our airhead motorcycles. For simple things most of us could perform at home, he'd advise of the needed parts, and tell us what tools to use in what order to make the repair. Then he'd make a note to himself, and that post would appear in his Air Tech Index, so other Airheads could find it when they ran into the same problem. It was a simple system that ensured that someone that knew what they were doing kept on eye on the discussion to ensure that only proper and safe techniques were published and referenced.

Oak's been gone for quite a while now, and until recently, B. Jan has been doing his best to fill Airmail with Oak's material that hadn't been published yet. But now the edict has come down from on high that the paper and e version of Airmail have to be the same. Oak left explicit terms under which he would allow his material to be used, and he expressly stated that none of it was to be made available electronically, in Airmail or anywhere else. So those same powers that be also declared that Oak's material could no longer appear in Airmail, because the electronic version would violate Oak's terms of use.

That left the editor of Airmail with the problem of how to fill up the space formerly occupied by Oak's column. The answer for the past two issues of Airmail has been to print a how-two type article written by one of the members, and formatted/reviewed by the editor. And that raises the issue that most of us airheads that wrench on our own bikes have no formal training in how BMW intended repairs to their Type 247 engined motorcycles to be repaired. So we look to those that do have that training to guide us in our work, and that expertise is no longer present in Airmail. And just because one airhead member did something to their motorcycle and somehow managed to get away with it is no guarantee either they or anyone else that follows their lead will survive the experience unscathed.

The March 2023 edition of Airmail is an example, a bad example. The author describes how he replaced the splined hub on his /5 by pounding out the rivets and installing bolts in their place. And just to be extra safe, he used Nyloc self locking nuts to ensure it didn't come apart all by itself. I'm not formally trained, but I've used Nyloc nuts before. And I know that the bolt threads need to extend all the way through the nylon locking collar to provide the locking capability. Close examination of the author's photo of the installed nuts shows that they don't extend beyond the nylon locking collar. It isn't even apparent in the photo if the ends of the bolts even reach the collar at all. The other problem is that nylon, like most plastics, softens as it warms. And the nylon locking collar would also soften as the rear hub heats up during normal use, which would also degrade the locking capability the author is depending on to keep the new splined hub in place on his wheel.

It just so happens that Tom Cutter, a widely respected individual with many years of formal training by BMW, recently described how he replaces worn hub splines on BMW wheels. BMW used steel rivets to secure the hub and wheel together, and Tom does the same to avoid the problems with nuts and bolts coming loose in use. The procedure Tom describes includes heating the rivets to red heat and them peening them using specially shaped punches, not something the average airhead would be able to do in their garage. Tom also cautions that the best way of having this repair made is to farm it out to someone that has the right knowledge and equipment to do the job right.

Now to the point of this note. The Airheads Beemer Club currently has no formal method in place to verify the technical correctness of any of the tech articles being published in Airmail, and the same can be said of any of the material in the Tech Articles section of the Airheads website. You might find waivers and cautionary notes here and there that say something about "for informational purposes only", and anyone that uses the information does so at their own risk. But that doesn't solve the basic problem that readers now have no assurance that what they're reading will fix their problem in a way that is correct and safe.

A few years ago I approached several of the better known BMW repair shops and asked if any of them would like to participate on a supervisory committee that would review technical content on both the Airmail and on the airheads website. To a person, all of them said they were way too busy working on bikes to devote the time needed to perform such a function. Some of them also said that by providing such guidance, they'd be giving away trade secretes that would cost them some of their business. Still others were afraid that the text of a reviewed article would be inappropriately revised during the publication process, and that the resulting bad information would reflect badly on anyone that participated in the review process. And that could result in ugly lawsuits. So at this point, I really don't have a solution to this problem, other than to reinforce the idea that people should take what they read with a rather large grain of salt, and before they try any of the techniques depicted in the magazine or on the website, they think twice about what would happen should the repair go bad, or where they might choose to have someone with the proper training and tools do the work instead.

That said, if anyone reading these words does have factory training and experience, and would be willing to serve on an oversight committee, I'd like to discuss the idea of forming such a committee with you. Such a capability would be unique among the many sources of airhead knowledge available today, and would be a tremendous asset to the members of the Airheads Beemer Club.