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1987 K75C w/ Pichler Fairing
I made the mistake of browsing Craig's List one day looking at K75s around the country. I stumbled acroos this one in Middle-of-nowhere, Idaho and it piqued my interest. Given the location I figured that the seller would have a hard time selling so I emailed him a lowball (but still reasonable) offer and offered to fly to Idaho to pick it up and ride it home. He accepted and we made arragnements for me to pick it up for the ride home. I took the long way home to Seattle via The Tetons, Yellowstone, Beartooth Pass and Lolo Pass. It was a great 1,400+ mile three day ride. Here's my ride report. Once I got it home, I gave a full Level II service which included changing all of the filters and fluids and while I was lubing the transmission input splines I also pulled the clutch apart to verify that it was of adequate thickness. I also did a bunch of useful mods to it. After I had it all ready to go I took it for a day ride to Mt. Rainier and back and got an amazing 57.5 MPG. |
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Modifications |
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Here's a summary list of the numerous modifications done to this bike, some by prior owners and many by me. Detailed descriptions of each follow this list. |
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Body and Cosmetics
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Lighting
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Instruments and Controls |
Electrical
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Suspension
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Miscellaneous
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Body and Cosmetics |
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Pichler Fairing w/ Custom Paint Job Originally a K75C, at some point in it's life the C fairing was replaced by an aftermarket Pichler fairing from Germany and given a custom paint job. In addition to making this a unique K75 and having Ferrari style rear view mirrors, this fairing provides good protection. I've ridden it without a helmet (in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho where it's legal) and in also in a pretty hearty rainstorm and it provided good protection in both situations. The windscreen is in excellent condtion. And check out the Ferrari style mirrors:
The bike does have some extremely minor cosmetic flaws like a few tiny paint nicks here and there but overall is in VERY good condition and you'd never guess that it's an 80,000 mile motorcycle. |
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Additional Tinted Windscreen The bike currently has a clear windscreen installed but comes with a tinted windscreen as well. |
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Polished Valve and Crank Case Covers At some point in it's life, a previous owner had the valve and crank case covers polished.
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"Chrome" Ceramic Coated Exhaust K75 headers have a habit of turning blue and ugly once they leave the showroom floor. The headers on this bike have a new chrome-like ceramic coating on them. Since they are coated inside and out the coating supposedly smoothes out the flow and adds a little horsepower but I'm not too sure about it and had them coated for cosmetic reasons.
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"Chrome" Ceramic Coated Peg Plates I also had the peg plates coated in chrome-like ceramic coating.
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LineX Coated Tank Knee Pads BMW no longer sells the original K75 knee pads. Instead they want owners to use the K100 knee pads. I had a set of the original K75 knee pads coated in LineX truck bed liner and installed them on the tank.
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Tail Rack for BMW 22 Liter Top Case I replaced the rear tail rack which can hold a 22 liter top case with a much newer one.
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Rear Fender Extender I added a rear fender extender. These do a great job of keeping the mud/dirt off of the back of your jacket in wet weather. |
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Corbin Leather Seat The bike has a leather Corbin Dual Tour seat. I think this is the most comfortalbe seat for K bikes. It shows it's age a little bit but has no major blems and, being leather, has many miles left in it.
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Lighting |
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Headlight Relays In order to increase the voltage at the headlight and prolong the life of the headlight switch I added headlight relays and beefed up the headlight wiring to a thicker gauge. |
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PIAA Ultra White Headlight Bulb Since the aftermarket fairing has a Hella headlight, it provide better lighting at night than a stock K75 would have. In addition, I installed an PIAA UltraWhite H4 headlight bulb. |
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Fork Mounted Fog/Driving Lights In order to make the bike MUCH more visible in traffic I mounted some very orange and very bright 70 watt fog lamps on the forks. They are hooked into a BMW dash switch so that they can be run with the low headlight beam during the day or the high headlight beam during the night.
I also have a set of white driving light assemblies that can be swapped into the same housings in a matter of minutes for rural nighttime riding. |
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LED Turn Signals - Kisan SignalMinder In order to run SMD LED turn signals bulbs, I replaced the stock flasher relay with a Kisan SignalMinder. More details on the SignalMinder can be found at this link: https://www.kisantech.com/index.php?cat_id=4 |
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LED Side Reflectors Running/Turn Lights I added some LED backlighting to the front and rear side reflectors. They are wired to be always on but flash off when the turn signals are activated so they serve as both side running lights and turn signals. I don't have a night picture of them but here's what they look like on my K1100RS:
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Upgraded Brake Lighting To improve visibility of the bike from the rear I filled out the sides of the tail light lens with LEDs that serve as additional running lights and "wag" eight times when the either brake is initially applied. |
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Instruments and Controls |
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Real Cruise Control w/ BMW Switches Probably the best modification to this bike is that I added a new real cruise control unit. On top off that it is controlled by BMW OEM switches on the dash board and clutch perch.
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Instrument Cluster LEDs All of the indicator lamps and backlighting in the instrument cluster has been upgraded to LEDs. The result is greatly improved backlighting at night and since they're LEDs the bulbs will last forever and never go out. |
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12 Hour Clock From the factory, BMWs come with a European 24 hour clock. The clock has been modified to show time in a more US friendly 12 hour format. |
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Calibrated Speedometer From the factory, K bike speedometers usually read about 10% fast. It's annoying so I have calibrated the speedometer on this bike. |
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Side Stand Down Warning Light I added a switch to the sidestand so that a warning light comes on in the instrument cluster to remind the rider if the sidestand has been left down. |
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Choke Light On some of the later K bikes BMW, being cheap, eliminated the choke on indicator lamp in the instrument cluster. This bike does have the choke indicator lamp enabled. |
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VDO Fuel and Temperature Gauges Since the inner fairing had positions for them, I added brand new VDO fuel and temperature gauges. Like the instrument cluster, these are also backlit by matching LEDs. |
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"C" Handlebars with Barbacks For a bit more upright comfortable riding position. |
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Heated Grips I also installed brand new heated grips which have high and low settings via a switch in the dash pad onthe handlebars. |
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ProGrip Gel Grips I've never liked the hard ridged OEM BMW grip rubber so I've replaced them with ProGrip gel grips. These are comfortable even riding bare handed (not that I do that) and work well with the heated grips. |
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Electrical |
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Upgraded Alternator From the factory, K75s came with a 32 amp alternator. This was more than adequate for the bike but when you start adding accessories like heated grips and driving lights or running heated jackets/gloves from the accessory socket. I upgraded the alternator to a 50 amp which provides ample excess wattage for accessories. |
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Upgraded Horns From the factory, the K75C came with a single wimpy little horn that sounded like a Japanese scooter. That has been replaced by a pair of 135dB FIAMM horns which BMW used in larger bikes and cars of the era. |
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Newer Starter Although the original starter worked fine in this bike, while I had things apart I swapped in a newer starter from a low mile bike. |
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Altitude Switch Although many people don't know it, K75s had an optional "altitude plug" which should be used when riding above an elevation of 4,000 feet. This tells the fuel injection computer to adjust the mixture to compensate for thinner air at high elevations. The altitude plug could be kept on your key chain and you could pull over when traveling at higher elevations to insert the plug. This seems kind of ridiculous so I wired the altitude plug to the up position of the emergency flasher switch. Instead of pulling over to insert/remove the altitude plug when passing through an elevation of 4,000 feet it allows the rider to just hit a switch while riding. It's much more convenient and there's no risk of misplacing the altitude plug when not in use. |
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Odyssey Battery This bike has a metal jacketed Odyssey PC680 battery. |
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Suspension |
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Upgraded Rear Shock The factory shocks that came on K75s worked OK but weren't the best. The rear shock on this bike has been upgraded to a Progressive 412 shock for better handling and performance.
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Upgraded Fork Springs The fork springs on this bike have been upgraded to Progressive fork springs to reduce dive during braking. |
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Fork Boots The bike also has fork boots to protect the fork uppers and extend fork seal life.
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Miscellaneous |
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K1100 Center and Side Stand The center stand on K75s was made of tubular steel. The problem with this design is that if water collects in the center stand tubing then the steel tubing can rust from the inside, break and damage the bike when it falls over. So I replaced the center and side stand assembly with a solid steel center stand from a K1100. |
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Tail Cowl Protectors Another thing that BMW elminated in later years were the tail cowl proteectors inside the passenger grab handles. This bike has them.
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L-Jetronic Mud Guard And yet another item which was not included on all K bikes was a mud guard for the L-Jetronic fuel injection computer. This bike has one. |
