Trying out another Maintenance Procedure on the R80

Having recently received my brand new Clymer Manual for Beemer Airheads from Amazon.com, one of the things I'd been meaning to do was to check the freeplay adjustment for the rear drum brake.

Turned out to be dirt simple to do, and it was so easy I decided to go ahead and take the rear wheel off this afternoon and actually check the wear on the rear drum brake's pads. I got the manual, made sure I was looking at the instructions for my model year motorcycle since it covers every model from the seventies to the nineties.

The procedure had me putting the bike in fifth so the wheel would not rotate, it still tries to though so I held the tire down against the floor to add that friction while I loosed the four lug nuts that hold the rear tire onto the final drive hub.

A breaker bar came in handy to give me the leverage since my hurt shoulder really can't exert a lot of pressure yet. Once I got the lug nuts loose, I supported the bike using a floor jack and pulled the tire off.

The hardest part was easing/twisting the tire out from under the bike between the left exhaust pipe and the rear portion of the wheel cover.

Here's what the drum brake assembly looks like, the red rectangle, the manual explains....was installed to prevent "annoying squealing" by the brake when used. Seems to work ok.

As you can see, plenty of pad left, I measure about 5mm remaining, the minimum is 1.5 mm so I should be OK for a while yet.

Four lug nuts is all that holds the wheel onto the final drive hub....torqued them down to 78 (closer to 80 ft-lbs) and went out for a short test ride.

It was a muggy evening, low 80s but at least the sun was down. Still, not as cool a ride as I thought it was going to be. The good news being the wheel did not come off while I rode so I guess I put it back on correctly! : )

So, now I've adjusted rear brake freeplay twice, and confirmed how to check rear brake pads wear....easy.