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In April 2003 my wife surprised me with the statement that she wanted to get a motorcycle-driver's license. So I started to look for a bike she could drive in the future. Two things the bike must have she told me: - An electric starter (she had seen me struggling to start the BK350 too often..) and turn signals. I started looking for small BMW's like R45, R65 and R80 models. But most of the bikes we found needed a lot of work or had a price far to high.
In June I saw the ad of this Chang Jiang on the Internet. I loved the look of the bike immediately. It had an electric starter, 12V, turn signals plus the seller lived in Hamburg. When I showed the ad to my wife she looked at me like I was out of my mind. How on earth should she be able to handle such a heavy motorcycle?? I told her due to the very low seat, this sidecar rig was easier to drive than my R100RT (which she had already ridden). So we agreed to have a look at it. My wife finally bought the bike including the sidecar, which we had to pick up at a warehouse near our home. I know it was a bit crazy, but I wanted to ride the bike home.
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So on a Friday evening after work my wife dropped me off at the place where we should pick up the bike and I mounted the bike and tried to ride it.
The engine was running very smooth, but there was no power coming from the engine. I managed to get to a filling station and filled the tank. But no significant change in the behavior of the engine. After 10 minutes being an obstruction, I stopped at a bus station and tried to figure out what was wrong. I took out the spark plugs, the right one was white and very hot, the left one coal black and cold. OK so there was no spark at the left plug. After a while i found that the cable was not properly fitted to the ignition coil. But what to do with a soaking wet spark plug? I decided to put it into the right cylinder to heat it up and dry it this way. My idea seemed to work. Another five minutes later the engine was running again, and on both cylinders! And there was the amazing torque of the 750 and 28HP beneath my legs.
But the joy did not last for long - at the third traffic light the engine died off. I pushed the bike out of the way and started to search for the reason. I soon found that there was no gas coming out of the petcock. OK, so maybe some dirt is blocking it. I opened the filler cap to see if there is anything floating around in the tank, but i couldn't see anything. I switched the petcock to open again and the petrol flew like it should. I flooded the carbs and everything was fine again. Unfortunately only for 600 meters then the engine died again. I pulled the gas tube from the carb.. no gas was coming out. I took a strong breath and blew into the tube, and ... jeeerrg there came the petrol. After a very strong blow I managed to drive home without any other unscheduled stops.
At home I found out very quickly what was wrong. The brand new filler cap the seller gave me before I left his place had no breather holes. So after a while there would be a vacuum inside the tank and the gas couldn't flow out. Believe me I will never fall for that again!
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During the next days we soon learned, that the finish and accuracy of the bike didn't match the BMW standard from 1938.
So I decided to polish it up a bit before letting my wife go on the road. The hardest job was to get the brakes to do their job properly. The electrical installation was horrible. But this was not the fault of the Chinese manufacturer, a German BMW Service center messed up the whole cabling in order to use the bike as a solo one. If i ever find the technician who did this he better watch out! I removed the cylinders and tried to smooth out the rough edges by grinding the hell out of them. Even though the engine had only run 2500 km the exhaust valves needed to be replaced. If you do something, do it right - so i had all four valves and seats renewed. I also changed the piston rings to German ones. I polished and adjusted the carbs, and put some insulating gaskets between them and the cylinders.
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The next things where more cosmetic than important. I did not like the shape of the front fender, and so I rounded it up a little bit. I attached two old ammunition boxes to each side of the luggage rack, and finally put a double lining to the fenders and boxes. That 'design' was much more to my liking!
Having it all back together again, the engine ran really smooth and nice. Unfortunately only for 200KM then the left piston got stuck because of oil starvation. The reason was simple and annoying, the left cylinder gasket (and only the left) has a little hole at the bottom to let oil through to the inside of the cylinder. I took care of not blocking this hole which the liquid gasket I used in addition to the paper one. But what I did not check, and never expected, was that the hole in the gasket was in the wrong place. Not much maybe 3 or 4 mm but enough to block any oil flow to the cylinder. The cylinder survived, the piston did not.
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The engine runs quite well since then, and except for some small maintenance, I had no trouble with it. Since October 2004 we have had the sidecar attached. It took me quite a few days to get used to driving with a sidecar, but now I really enjoy it. My wife has tried it a few times so far, and her comment was very promising: it is more work, but it is more fun too!
In 2005 I bought a lot of parts from Gerald (Long River Motors Beijing) directly from China. He sold me some high quality vintage Chinese CJ parts. And from looking at the parts used on our bike and the ones he sent me, there are substantial differences between Chinese and Chinese parts! In the purchase were some new modern carburetors (similar to Mikunis). Using these carbs, the engine runs much smoother and reacts faster to throttle changes. Starting the engine again after a fast ride is no longer a problem. One kick and the engine comes to life.
I just looked out the window, and the weather seems to be fine, so I will tell Isabel that I have to adjust something on her bike and have to go for a test-ride....
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