The Tasteful Modification Thread

[Discendo Discimus]

I've done a few mods on my '83 BMW R100.
Tasteful might be subjective but I like it.

GSXR 750 forks and brakes
Motogadget M-unit blue control unit (gives me an alarm, tracker and tidies up the wiring massively)
Walzwerk rear subframe and seat
Clip on conversion
Old English White paint
Front mudguard going on this weekend.

[black-k1]

Discendo Discimus said:

I've done a few mods on my '83 BMW R100.
Tasteful might be subjective but I like it.

GSXR 750 forks and brakes
Motogadget M-unit blue control unit (gives me an alarm, tracker and tidies up the wiring massively)
Walzwerk rear subframe and seat
Clip on conversion
Old English White paint
Front mudguard going on this weekend.

I don't doubt the work that's gone into the conversion and I expect it's improved the bikes road manners but I'd rather a 1983 R100 looked like it did when it came out of the factory. Still, the more people that do this to these lovely old BMWs, the more valuable my standard one becomes!

[Discendo Discimus]

black-k1 said:

I don't doubt the work that's gone into the conversion and I expect it's improved the bikes road manners but I'd rather a 1983 R100 looked like it did when it came out of the factory. Still, the more people that do this to these lovely old BMWs, the more valuable my standard one becomes!

I must admit, I really enjoyed riding the standard bike for a while, but when I lost my Dad to a classic car accident it put me off riding for a while. I decided to rebuild the bike into what we see here. I've always kept bikes standard in the past and upgraded bits here and there, but I thought I'd scratch the itch and it gave me some therapy time in the workshop for 2 years.
It stops on a penny, turns in nicely but I wouldn't say it's comfortable or practical - it's just a bit of fun really. Strangely enough I thought the same about values, expecting to make a huge loss on this when it comes to sell - but I had it valued recently at £8K - £9K and have a few interested parties should I decide to sell. I paid £1500 for it in 2019 so I haven't done too badly really!

[Pat H]

black-k1 said:

Discendo Discimus said:

I've done a few mods on my '83 BMW R100.
Tasteful might be subjective but I like it.

GSXR 750 forks and brakes
Motogadget M-unit blue control unit (gives me an alarm, tracker and tidies up the wiring massively)
Walzwerk rear subframe and seat
Clip on conversion
Old English White paint
Front mudguard going on this weekend.

I don't doubt the work that's gone into the conversion and I expect it's improved the bikes road manners but I'd rather a 1983 R100 looked like it did when it came out of the factory. Still, the more people that do this to these lovely old BMWs, the more valuable my standard one becomes!

It's great fun mucking about with bikes and putting your own stamp on them, though I must confess also to preferring the original look.

My R100 has had quite a few modifications, but they are mostly hidden from view.

One thing I would change about mine are the forks. Mine have got thicker oil and uprated springs and they are still crap.

I don't know how easy it is to replace them with the forks from an R100 Mono, which are somewhat better, but would more or less look standard.

[Discendo Discimus]

Pat H said:

It's great fun mucking about with bikes and putting your own stamp on them, though I must confess also to preferring the original look.

My R100 has had quite a few modifications, but they are mostly hidden from view.

One thing I would change about mine are the forks. Mine have got thicker oil and uprated springs and they are still crap.

I don't know how easy it is to replace them with the forks from an R100 Mono, which are somewhat better, but would more or less look standard.

I imagine the forks from a later R100 are a straight swap, the only thing you might have to change is the steering bearings. The stem length shouldn't be an issue as the forks are from a bike that shares the same frame (the front bit at least).
You'd need to compare the diameter of the current stem vs the mono and if they're different - order some new bearings from somewhere such as All Balls and they should slot straight in.

[BigFatNinja]

Discendo Discimus said:

I've done a few mods on my '83 BMW R100.
Tasteful might be subjective but I like it.

GSXR 750 forks and brakes
Motogadget M-unit blue control unit (gives me an alarm, tracker and tidies up the wiring massively)
Walzwerk rear subframe and seat
Clip on conversion
Old English White paint
Front mudguard going on this weekend.

Ignore the BMW police that looks amazing

Build thread ?

[Discendo Discimus]

BigFatNinja said:

Ignore the BMW police that looks amazing

Build thread ?

Thank you, that's very kind.
I don't have one unfortunately, but if you use Instagram I uploaded a few pics to there @Holdawayt1

[Pat H]

Discendo Discimus said:

Pat H said:

It's great fun mucking about with bikes and putting your own stamp on them, though I must confess also to preferring the original look.

My R100 has had quite a few modifications, but they are mostly hidden from view.

One thing I would change about mine are the forks. Mine have got thicker oil and uprated springs and they are still crap.

I don't know how easy it is to replace them with the forks from an R100 Mono, which are somewhat better, but would more or less look standard.

I imagine the forks from a later R100 are a straight swap, the only thing you might have to change is the steering bearings. The stem length shouldn't be an issue as the forks are from a bike that shares the same frame (the front bit at least).
You'd need to compare the diameter of the current stem vs the mono and if they're different - order some new bearings from somewhere such as All Balls and they should slot straight in.

I suspect you're right. That way I could go up from the 36mm early stanchions to the 38.5mm Monolever forks, which are a definite improvement.

But that creates another problem. Can my 1981 snowflake rim be made to fit the Monolever forks...

[Discendo Discimus]

Pat H said:

I suspect you're right. That way I could go up from the 36mm early stanchions to the 38.5mm Monolever forks, which are a definite improvement.

But that creates another problem. Can my 1981 snowflake rim be made to fit the Monolever forks...

Easily done with some custom adapters and a friendly machine shop.
I have the original snowflake wheels on the GSXR forks and discs.

[Pat H]

Discendo Discimus said:

Pat H said:

I suspect you're right. That way I could go up from the 36mm early stanchions to the 38.5mm Monolever forks, which are a definite improvement.

But that creates another problem. Can my 1981 snowflake rim be made to fit the Monolever forks...

Easily done with some custom adapters and a friendly machine shop.
I have the original snowflake wheels on the GSXR forks and discs.

That's rather nice.

[BigFatNinja]

Discendo Discimus said:

Thank you, that's very kind.
I don't have one unfortunately, but if you use Instagram I uploaded a few pics to there @Holdawayt1

Cheers I’m having a look through now very inspiring

Lovely Mk 2 also

Edited by BigFatNinja on Wednesday 13th July 12:46

[Jake899]

Discendo Discimus said:

I've done a few mods on my '83 BMW R100.
Tasteful might be subjective but I like it.

GSXR 750 forks and brakes
Motogadget M-unit blue control unit (gives me an alarm, tracker and tidies up the wiring massively)
Walzwerk rear subframe and seat
Clip on conversion
Old English White paint
Front mudguard going on this weekend.

Beautiful build, and well done on getting something you made yourself in to some decent shows, you must and should be very proud. My RS was a shed when I started so I didn't feel any guilt making it my own. Originals are still around so maybe we should buy and maintain a stock boxer too. Any excuse for another bike! I thought long and hard about doing the UD fork conversion but I wanted a period look so just modded the stock forks. I bet yours rides and stops a lot better than mine though!

[fred bloggs]

moanthebairns said:

Perhaps better illustrated with the original calipers, which were always fking st.

Was gonna say pointless upgrade, then I remembered the 6 pots. You did a good thing.

[fred bloggs]

A bonniville I modded a few years ago. It was more than one mod







And one not so tastefully modified

[Krikkit]

black-k1 said:

Discendo Discimus said:

I've done a few mods on my '83 BMW R100.
Tasteful might be subjective but I like it.

GSXR 750 forks and brakes
Motogadget M-unit blue control unit (gives me an alarm, tracker and tidies up the wiring massively)
Walzwerk rear subframe and seat
Clip on conversion
Old English White paint
Front mudguard going on this weekend.

I don't doubt the work that's gone into the conversion and I expect it's improved the bikes road manners but I'd rather a 1983 R100 looked like it did when it came out of the factory. Still, the more people that do this to these lovely old BMWs, the more valuable my standard one becomes!

While there's still originals about I don't think anyone should feel guilty about modifying anything really.

Discendo Discimus said:

Motogadget M-unit blue control unit (gives me an alarm, tracker and tidies up the wiring massively)

This looks like a really interesting bit of kit, lots of cool features (even without hte alarm/tracker etc)

[moanthebairns]

fred bloggs said:

moanthebairns said:

Perhaps better illustrated with the original calipers, which were always fking st.

Was gonna say pointless upgrade, then I remembered the 6 pots. You did a good thing.

Yeah the 6 pots were verging on dangerous, now it's a joy.

It'd be interesting to see what a decent pair of 4 pot axial calipers would have felt like in comparison. It'd cost a lot less, but then these are machined calipers not forged so that's something to consider I keep telling myself.....

[rodericb]

moanthebairns said:

Yeah the 6 pots were verging on dangerous, now it's a joy.

It'd be interesting to see what a decent pair of 4 pot axial calipers would have felt like in comparison. It'd cost a lot less, but then these are machined calipers not forged so that's something to consider I keep telling myself.....

A reasonably popular way to go is the four pot Nissin. Regarding the six pot tok's I rebuilt mine and have Braking wave rotors and Braking pads (and braided lines) and the it seems pretty decent. There's a bit less initial bite than a modern radial MC/caliper system but a reasonable squeeze on the lever will either overwhelm the rubber or gravity. The greater bite of modern systems has the safety net of ABS whereas the old system has a sort-of ABS built in.... The first six pots were on the YZF750, back in 1993 I think, and they were deemed to be too "grabby" by the press....

I think the crappiness of the six pot toks comes not from any inherent design issues but from sticky pistons (assuming that OE or similar pads are used), which usually comes about through lack of maintenance but a weird thing I think I've seem is that it's like the seals can vary in size very very slightly or something which can make some pistons slightly less "slidey" than the rest. One sticky piston will impact the performance of the whole braking system, even if it's one piston out of twelve (as opposed to one out of eight, four or two) as there's still one pad for each bank of pistons most of the time. Then there's the obvious thing with the material in the rotors and pads but that's the same for any braking system.... So there's a lot of variables to consider but every one of them doesn't need to be changed/optimized/upgraded to get a good performing braking system.

[Drawweight]

moanthebairns said:

fred bloggs said:

moanthebairns said:

Perhaps better illustrated with the original calipers, which were always fking st.

Was gonna say pointless upgrade, then I remembered the 6 pots. You did a good thing.

Yeah the 6 pots were verging on dangerous, now it's a joy.

It'd be interesting to see what a decent pair of 4 pot axial calipers would have felt like in comparison. It'd cost a lot less, but then these are machined calipers not forged so that's something to consider I keep telling myself.....

Yet I remember when I had my ZZR 1100 the 6 pot conversion was the way to go at the time with the top hat spacers.

I did mine and it made a vast difference.

So either the master cylinder/slave cylinder ratio was better than on the GSXR or the original ZZR brakes were really really st.

[Discendo Discimus]

Krikkit said:

This looks like a really interesting bit of kit, lots of cool features (even without hte alarm/tracker etc)

It's an absolute game changer for anyone who's put off by wiring.
You have inputs and outputs. All of your switches send a signal to an input on the controller and that then sends a signal to the output.
There's also an app which logs your rides, service intervals and sends warnings related to battery voltage levels etc. There's a test function which allows you to select "headlight" for example on your phone and it will switch that function on the bike. Handy for double checking your wiring. Top bit of kit!

[SAS Tom]

I’ll put this one to the audience, tasteful or not?

This isn’t finished, I’ve got some clear tape on the way and I’m going to tint it yellow like an old endurance racer. Only a small mod but I think it’ll look good.