Good morning all. I'm a first time BMW owner and I had to get one that is 30 years old from a salvage yard. I have had motorcycles before, 2 HD's and a Suzuki. I haven't ridden in 18 years since my daughter was born. So the little punk went and bought a Honda CBR250R and did not tell me until  it showed up at the house. Well, several arguments later I agreed to help her fix it up and paint it. So then about a month later I'm at the motorcycle salvage yard looking for a mirror and I see this ugly brown BWM that I just fell in love with. It has 126,000 miles but i don't care. So I ended up bringing it home as a winter project and went OCD working on it. I took the fairing off. Painted it grey and did allot of body work. I ended up replacing the fuel pump, filter and injectors and got it running. 

I have moderate mechanical experience and I am not afraid to try anything mechanical, but I am just not sure on what else I should be digging into to make sure it is running solid. I had to fix the seat lock and seat, Put a Yamaha headlight on it with Kawasaki turn signals. Moved the fuse box back under the seat as the old one was trash. Complete corrosion as the cover had been missing. I lubed the shaft splines. flushed the radiator, flushed and changed the oil. Replaced the plugs and tires. I still need to fix some of the circuitry in the instrument cluster as 2 traces are broken and I am going to re-coat the inside of the tank this winter. I didn't even know they made kits for that. I have already found allot of good information on this forum for issues so decided to join.

Any advise would be appreciated and thanks in advance.

good to hear Ron

welcome aboard

WelKome to the Knuthaus Ron

Find your questions ans we'll find your answers. Well, we might ask questions too  like: did you replace all the rubber parts around the throttle bodies?

Thanks Guys. I did not replace the rubber parts around the throttle bodies. They appeared to be in pretty good condition. One thing I am fairly certain of is that the bike was well maintained. A visual inspection showed no cracks or signs of deterioration, but is there something else I should be looking for? 1 mistake I did make was not using OEM parts in the fuel system and I don't know if that is going to come back to haunt me. I had the bike for a quick 7 mile jaunt and it rode well but smoked pretty good for the first 3 and I have yet to take it out and put it through it's paces. I hear talk about adjusting valves and syncing the throttle bodies and have no idea how or if that needs done.

Welcome Ron!  Don't worry about the non-BMW parts.  Hardly anyone replaces their fuel pump with the stupidly priced BMW part. 

Smoking is common with these bikes, I had a K100RS that sat for a couple of years before I got it.  The rings were stuck and it used a lot of oil.  A bottle of Marvel Mystery Oil in the crankcase and a couple thousand miles later it decreased to less than a quart in 1200 miles.

Would it be worth while to get one of those Clymer manuals?

Get a Clymer and a Haynes. Quite often one shows something that the other doesn't.