1998 October 28 (Wednesday)
Before removing the engine I made a mini engine stand out of 1 1/2 inch angle iron bolted to a length of 2x4 with holes drilled in the angle iron where the engine mounting bolts will ride. Something like this (ASCII art):
| <--- angle iron ---> |
__| |__
|xx| |xx|
|xx| |xx|
|xx| <--- 2 x 4 ----> |xx|
|xx| |xx|
The material to make the stand was on hand, but not put together on this date. The tank and exhaust system was removed in preparation for engine removal.
Fuel tank
Tank, left rear
Tank, right front
Before removing the tank I had to drain it. I removed both of the gas lines at the carburetors and routed them to a gas container then turned the petcock to reserve. Once the flow stopped I tried removing the cross-over gas line between the tank halves.
The cross-over line was plastic, held on with mini-clamps. Removing the clamps didn’t help: the plastic tubing was stuck tight. Oh well. I cut the tubing and didn’t spill too much gas before draining it into a pan.
Fuel tank bracket
tank mounting detail
tank removed
With all the gas out I removed the bolts from the bottom mounting bracket and the bolt at the front of the tank. It lifted out easily. Once the tank was out I removed the mounting bracket from the frame. I also removed the BMW emblems, rubber knee-pads, and fuel petcock from the tank.
The knee-pads were in excellent condition, but the tank emblem from the right side of the tank needed to be replaced.
Exhaust
exhaust, before removal
exhaust pipes removed
The last thing to do for the evening was to remove the exhaust pipes. I first removed the exhaust clamps from the rear engine mounting bolt. As long as I was there the front foot-pegs came off, too. The rubber on both pegs was cracked so bad I cut cut it off the pegs. New peg rubber was added to the need-to-buy list.
I used an exhaust nut wrench to remove the nuts and pull off the exhaust pipe. I must have used enough anti-seize when I put them on as they came off easy enough. I cleaned and polished both pipes and the cross-piece and wrapped them in newspaper until it comes time to put it back together.