Police Cars.....

[wheelsup_cavu]

Cool pics.


Wheels

 

[BikerBabe]

I honestly cannot make a comparison to a BMW bike, based on my personal experiance. I have owned a 1939 Indian and a number of Japanese bikes (Katana 1100, GPZ1100, etc) as well as ridden Harleys, etc.

I'll say that a Harley Davidson is a heavy bike with plenty of power. They aren't as nimble as a sport bike, but Harleys are a traditional American law enforcement platform, and you'll find a great deal of police officers who would prefer a Harley over most other bikes. They have good top-end, and can hold a corner at decent speeds, but you can't "get down" because you'll drag the foot rests (they are flexible to a certain degree, but you run the risk of digging in).

I think the one virtue the Harley has over a BMW, is that it rides lower and allows you to sit upright completely, which I think would better reduce fatigue on long shifts. That's just an observation, but if I compared my Indian (sitting upright) to my Katana (dang-near prone), I could ride my Indian far long than the Katana.

Anderson P.D. has two fairly large BMWs, and they have North American Law Enforcement fairings and accessories, though look similiar to thier German Polezei counterparts. The Anderson Officers like them and did comment about "feeling a little weird" on them at first. They were used to Harleys!

Here's a photo of me working on one of Redding P.D.'s bikes about 7 years ago...it's not the greatest photo, but you can see some detail of a typical Harley 1000. (and if you scroll up to my post with the CHP pix, you'll see an old RPD Kawasaki near the Camaro!)

Hi again GG, cool pic.

Oh God, we've managed to poke my "start motorcycle talk"-button...be warned! Beemer talk is following!
As far as the riding position is concerned, I'd take a BMW over a HD any day - my bet is that it's just a matter of training and sufficient numbers of kilometers (- or miles, for the metrically "challenged" ), before you get used to the bike and the saddle, the different type/style of handle bar, and the position of the foot pegs and pedals.
I'd say that if you ride a K1200 RS, you'd get pretty tired in both back and arms until you've gotten used to the bike, as the sitting position is very much leaning forward.
If you try out a R1200RT, the sitting position is upright.
A wee explanation:
The "S" in the RS model stands for "Sport" and therefore you get a more sporty riding style, where the "T" in RT stands for "Touring", i.e. a more comfortable riding position for the long stretches on the autobahn, like going on a weekend from Copenhagen to Paris or something like that.
Apart from that, I can very well imagine that it'll take some getting used to the different riding position when going from a HD to a BMW, or the other way around, for that matter.

About the handling of the BMWs on the road and in a curve, the experience here is that the foot pegs'll dig in before the cylinder houses will do so on the R-models.
Here's 'nother lil' lesson for those of you that are not familiar with the beemers - first two pics are my own, the last is courtesy of BMW Motorrad Deutschland:

R-models: Boxer engine = two horizontal cylinder houses w. cooling ribs sticking out, one on each side of the bike. Great for drying out wet gloves on when arriving at destination.

R-model - BMW R1150RS.


K-models: straight-three or straight-four engine, which means no cylinder housing poking out anywhere, and therefore no risk at digging in at corners and curves. At least not with the cylinder housing. Has a tendency to heat your feet, whether you like it or not - great in winter, sheer hell during the summer. Doesn't have the same heavy vibrations from the boxer engine, which some riders aren't crazy about. I love K-models.

K-model - in this case, a K75RT. (Straight-three)


F-models: Are not talked about here, they're not born and bre...eh, made and assembled in Germany. *giggles* An austrian Bombardier-Rotax-engine...*snorts wrinkles nose*...not that there's anything wrong with that, it just isn't a proper beemer in my opinion then.
The danish police has got three F650 beemers which are used for chasing moped kids and doing city patrolling; they were promptly nicknamed "Ugly", "Uglier" and "Ugliest" on arrival.

F-model - BMW F650GS (GS: Gelände Sport - Cross Country Sport)


Both K- and R-models are good sturdy bikes that'll take you just about anywhere for about 124000 to 186000 miles before needing the big overhaul - that is, if you of course keep up with ordinary maintenance intervals, the occasional new set of tires, brake discs, and whatever the bike'll need.

Btw - for police work, they'll last about half the distance, which is why I usually warn people against spending money on a used cop beemer - they're usually not worth the money, unless you're planning to spend a lot more of both time and money on a lot of mech work and new parts - and complaning about the %¤%# bike now and then.
In other words, the bikes has been used.

Btw, do you happen to know which BMW models the two PDs has got?
It could be fun to know.

Cheers,

Maria.

 

[B-17engineer]

Some very nice info there!

 

[Lucky13]

BMW=Beklagar Markes Walet! or, Bor Man Weva....

 

[GrauGeist]

Hi again GG, cool pic.

...Btw, do you happen to know which BMW models the two PDs has got?
It could be fun to know.

Thanks!

As luck would have it, whenever Anderson P.D. had thier BMWs up at the shop, I was either very busy, or my trusty Kodak wasn't handy, so I don't have any photos of 'em...but I'll find out what the models are (and perhaps see about getting some pix)!

 

[BikerBabe]

BMW=Beklagar Markes Walet! or, Bor Man Weva....

Nope - Bayerische Mittelklasse Wagen, or Bikes Made Weird!
(Bavarian Middle class Wagon)
Here's some more:
Babe Magnet Wunderbike - Bad Man's Wheels - Basic Marin Wheels - Badly Made Wobbler - Bad Marriage Wagon - Bald Middle-aged White guy - Barbarian Motor Works - Bavarian Manure Wagon - Bavarian Marriage Wrecker - Bavarian Money Wagens - Bavarian Motorcycles Wimps - Bavarian Motorcycling Wonder - Bavarian Milk Wagon - Bavarian Murder Weapon -
Beats Most Winnebagos - Big Mutha Wheelie, etc., etc., etc.

Thanks!

As luck would have it, whenever Anderson P.D. had thier BMWs up at the shop, I was either very busy, or my trusty Kodak wasn't handy, so I don't have any photos of 'em...but I'll find out what the models are (and perhaps see about getting some pix)!

That'd be great, thanks.

 

[Lucky13]

 

[GrauGeist]

Here's some Anderson Police vehicles (no BMW bike pix yet, BB...sorry!) that I've photographed over the years. You'll note that A21 hasn't had it's striping applied yet.

IMG 1: A08 - 1998 Ford Crown Victoria (Photo: 2001) with experimental LED lightbar - No longer in service
IMG 2: A10 - 1999 Ford Expedition (Photo: 2002) - No longer in service
IMG 3: A01 - 2004 Ford Crown Victoria (Photo: 2004) - No longer in service
IMG 4: A21 - 2009 Ford Crown Victoria (Photo: 2009) - In service

 

[Lucky13]

They're not powered by 427's by any chance, right?

 

[GrauGeist]

lol...definately not...

Standard equipment = 4.6L V-8 with EFI and (on the interceptor package) progressive tuning and silicone hoses with over-sized oil/trans cooling. Until 2003/2004, Ford only offered the 78 Amp alternator, which was a nightmare, because the vehicle under a typical load would pull about 30 Amps, leaving only 48 Amps reserve...

The Vector (Federal Signal) lightbar would pull 50 Amps under Code 3 (fully lit), then you have additional lighting(decklights, corner strobes, mirror lights, etc), the Two-way radio (about 2 Amps idle/receive and 20+ Amps/45 Watt or 40+ Amps/150 Watt in transmit), Mobile Workstation (computer), Vehicle Radio Modem (VRM - 2 Amps receive and 20 Amps/45 Watt transmit), Cellphone, Scanner, Radar, Video System and so on...this would put a typical vehicle well into the neighborhood of about a 125 (or more) Amp draw...meaning the Alternator was under constant load and creating a vehicle battery life of about 3 months...

 

[Lucky13]

.....and now I have a headache!

 

[GrauGeist]

.....and now I have a headache!

Try working on some of these!

IMG 1: Redding P.D. - brought to us after another shop's install...
IMG 2: Redding P.D. - same vehicle, trunk area...
IMG 3: Shasta County Sheriff - system shorting out...found the problem (circled area - yellow tag placed there for the photo)
IMG 4: Tehama County Sheriff - some days you ask yourself "why did I get out of bed?"
IMG 5: CHP - With serious wiring issues...
IMG 6: CHP - After correcting the problem.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Gees, now I have a head ache!

Cripes I've seen aircraft with less wiring!

 

[B-17engineer]

No no no! Not the yellow wi--*BOOM*

 

[BikerBabe]

Did someone at the previous workshop have a wire-fetish or something??? Jaysus, even I couldn't make such a mess, and I'm only your average kitchen table tinkerer!
And that last pic: Really nice work, restoring order to chaos.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Nice work Dave!! I know what it's like fixing someone elses spaghetti incidents. About the alternators. We have a shop locally that rebuilds our alternators for us back to factory spec. I had them build a 200 amp alternator for my El Camino and they charged a reasonable rate. You might look into finding a local shop that does that. It would save money in the long run.

 

[GrauGeist]

Thanks guys!

One of the problems, Maria, is that there is no standard for installations and no certification existing for equipment installers. The majority of shops grab kids off the street that had some car stereo/car alarm install experience. This is not to say that there aren't any good installers out there, but the photos I posted are just a fraction of what I've had to deal with over the past decade coming through our shop alone.

Aaron, until Ford introduced the 200 Amp alternator in 2003/2004, a workaround was to use a Bosch 125 Amp alternator. The factory 78 Amp alternator's housing wasn't large enough to rewind and you were limited to what alternator you could install, because the 4.6L engine has a fixed mount integrated into the front of the block, unlike the older engines where you could un-pin an old alternator and replace it with a larger one (Like replacing my Delcotron with a 10-S alternator on my '63 Nova) and it's brackets.

Here's a photo of my cabling on a patrol car I built about 5 years ago. Notice how it's up on the firewall, away from the passenger's feet. The harnessing nowdays is much different because of the modern controllers, plus the lightbars and additional lighting is LED technology, which needs much smaller (and fewer) cables.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

That SUCKS!!

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Ok. Time to wake this one up again. Got this one as he had just pulled into the parking lot at the head of the Creeper Trail to run radar. He seemed a little embarrassed. Oh well.

 

[B-17engineer]

Sweet. I haven't been able to get down to my dads station. He's been busy lately but, I am trying!