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Information on 1968 R60us

jasper650

New member
Hi all,

First off, thanks for all the advice you all have already offered; this will be my first attempt at a rebuild and I have no real familiarity with these older BMWs, so your collective wisdom and advice are very much appreciated.


I've done a good amount of research on this model and year, but some things are raising questions for me. First off, the gas tank seems larger and has a map box in the top of it that I'm not seeing as it having been an option. I have seen this tank in photos elsewhere, but I haven't seen a lot of them. Can someone tell me more about these tanks.

Second, this bike has no turn signals on it. Doesn't appear that there were ever any in the bar ends and there's no switch, though on the brake lever there appears to be a place to mount one. Did this bike typically not come with turn signals?

Finally, someone somewhere along the line added an odd ignition cylinder to the headlight bucket. I opened the headlight bucket and it wasn't wired to anything; wiring appears to be correct based on what I see in the Chilton's manual that I have (I'm awaiting the Barrington Motor Works manual). I'm betting I won't have a whole lot of luck finding a reasonably priced headlight bucket, so any thoughts on how to deal with the hole? I'm not looking to make this a show bike, so my first thought was to just put the cylinder back in and leave it, but I'm open to suggestions.

Here's the bike, sans the sport saddle that was reupholstered in brown leather that has long since given up the ghost, and the headlight bucket:

20201228_bmwr60usSmall.jpg
20201228_headlightBucket.jpg
 
That's a "Sport Tank"

The Sport Tank was an option for bikes to give it a few more miles between fill ups. Interesting point with those Sport Tanks is there is a slight difference between the ones made for an Earles Fork bike and a US fork bike. A trained eye can tell with a quick inspection but most people would need to see the two gas tanks side by side.

Turn signals, front brake switch and side reflectors on the rear fender and head light ears came into ply in 1969 to meet D.O.T requirement's.

If I were you I would just stick a red, green or blue round indicator light in that extra hole in the head light bucket and call it a day. Just tell the curious its for the super charger.
 

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As 69zeff said, those appear to be BMW-added extra lights on the headlight bucket to meet US standards. The two smaller ones at the base were neutral (green) and generator (red). The other two round lights were turn signals and high beam indicators.

If you're interested in getting more information on when the bike was built, look at this thread:

https://forums.bmwmoa.org/showthread.php?50039-2-VIN-Numbers-Model-Years-and-Build-Dates

You can email BMW Archives to see what they have on the bike...they are currently out for vacation so it might take some time to hear back. There are a number of PDF files given for the various models. I've collected information over the years whenever I found a build date for a bike or someone has reported it. While not complete, it might give you some idea of where your VIN falls relative to other owner's information.
 
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