The Simson Saga

Simson was started in the southern portion of East Germany in the Suhl region by two Jewish brothers. The roots go back to the mid 1800s when they were a weapons manufacturer. Like so many others, they diversified into bicycles around the turn of the century. They then progressed to making automobiles, including the famous Simson Supra. It was not until the depression era in the 1930s, that they entered the 2 wheeled market with a 98cc offering. Although they got off to a good start, the Simson family was forced to flee the country by the Nazis. The factory continued to produce, but WWII quickly interrupted production, as the government was more interested in the continued production of weapons. Simson ended up as part of the Russian zone following the war, and portions of the factory were carted off to Russia as reparations. What remained was slowly returned to being functional.

Their next 2 wheeled vehicle did not emerge until 1952 when they introduced the SR-1 50cc moped under the AWO label. It was followed by the much improved SR-2 model which sold well. The evolution continued into the AWO 425 model which had a single cylinder 4 stroke 250cc motor, shaft drive, and a four speed gearbox. A sidecar version of this bike was also produced. More impressive though was the competition version which began competition in 1954, and came home with the 250cc national championship in 1954, 1955, and 1956. This really bolstered Simson sales in the market, and they naturally produced a more sporting version, the AWO 425S, as a result. Then in 1958, they introduced the Renn Sport model (RS250). This bike, in the hands of racer Hans Wienert, won back to back titles once again in 1958,and 1959. In all, more than 300,000 of the 425 machines were sold.

Shortly thereafter, the eastern block industrial management restricted Simson to machines 100cc or less, while MZ was to be the home for machines greater than that (see Muzings). Along with the dominance of 2 stroke machines, this ended the 425 competition phase of Simson. However, the company continued to produce mopeds and scooters. The Schwalbe model in particular sold over a million units and remains very popular in Europe with a large cult following. Simson remains in business today producing scoters, mopeds, and bikes up to 300cc.

7 Miles of Misery

The motorcycle is the perfect vehicle for urban environments. it is small, nimble, relatively, efficient, and you can always find a place to park. On a recent trip into the city, I experienced all of those benefits, but I was undone by a mighty urban beast of legendary fame.

There is seven miles of roadway in the US which represents the very worst in motoring experiences. The very name of it strikes fear into the hearts of men and beast alike. 10 time Paris-Dakar winner Stephan Peterhansel said of this road "For zis road I am very afraid". The best that has ever been said about it is, "I got through with only minor issues". In 30 years of using this road, I have never made it through unscathed, and this includes all hours of the military clock.

It is a funnel point for the entire northeast. 150,000 vehicles pass through every day. It is even more of a funnel point for trucks which cannot use NY Parkways, so it is probably the busiest commercial corridor in the country. Fully laden trucks are hard on roads, so they exacerbate the problem. In 2007 and 2008, Inrix, a real-time traffic service, declared the road to have four out of five of the worst intersections (exits) in the country. Impressive, yes?

The shoulder is 6 inches wide and has a combo of broken glass, discarded hyperdermic needles, shards of tire-ripping plastic, and spilled nuclear waste. The road surface has a topographical profile unmatched by the Andes or the grand canyon. Modern SUVs have a special suspension mode named after this road. When activated, a Military transport helicopter picks up your vehicle and carries it to safety. There are websites dedicated to documenting crashes on this road, and a movie starring Robert DeNiro was filmed nearby (Fort Apache).

On two wheels this corridor is like running the gauntlet. Even the cars that try to stay in their lane are dipping, heaving, bobbing, weaving. It turns every vehicle into a mad max machine trying to kill you. Horns bleat, people abandon the road in sudden and dangerous desperation, parts fall off and become impossible to clean up due to the traffic volume, all of the overpasses look like they might drop an I-beam at any time. If this were a video game, it would be rejected as too unrealistic.

Because of all of this, the road clogs, and clogging leads to blockages, which really backs things up. Because there are no shoulders, police, fire, ambulance, and tow vehicles take forever to get to the scene. I have been stuck on this road more than once while entrepreneurial individuals walked among the cars selling water, Gatorade, cocaine, and firearms.

Then you get to the GW. It has expansion joints that are more properly called expansion jaws. Because it has two levels, it has exits right, left, up, and down. Because of the confluence of roadways coming on and off the bridge, your GPS says "Can I have some of that Cocaine?". It costs $12 one-way to get into New York and begin your seven miles of misery. It is free to get out, but chances are you left more than $12 in parts behind you. If you do the simple math, assuming only half the traffic comes into NY, the GW collects a little less than $1Million per day. You would think that by now, a few, just a few, of those dollars would have made their way to the Cross Bronx Expressway. 

Beginning With An Ending

The BMW 3200CS of the early 1960s was the last of the postwar BMW V8 cars. It was a successor to the very limited 503, and ended a proud era of producing big sporting sedans, coupes, and sportscars with this engine configuration. It was built on the same chassis as the 503, and also inherited many of its' features. There was a lapse of 3 years between the end of the 503 and the introduction of the 3200CS which roughly corresponded to the near death experience of the company and the ultimate rescue by the Quandt family. Inside BMW a new direction was being set in many directions, and in-house vs contracted design was one of them. Marketing manager Helmut Bonsch wanted to attach a Pininfarina designed Lancia Flamina with a facelift to a BMW chassis. This idea was not approved, but instead a coupe from Bertone was commissioned for a perimeter chassis. That coupe became the 3200CS.

The result was a handsome luxurious coupe, and a prototype cabriolet. BMW decided against producing the cabriolet, although one was built for Herbert Quandt. They did give the green light to the coupe. It was formally introduced at the 1961 Frankfurt show, along with the 1500 Neue Klasse sedan (see Birth of the Bavarian Sports Sedan). The first production models followed in early 1962. The coupe featured an all alloy 3.1 litre V8 producing 160hp and 177 ft/lbs of torque. It was a four speed manual with twin Zenith carbs which could propel the car to a top speed of 124mph. The suspension featured wishbones and torsion bars up front, with a live axle and torsion bars in the rear. Brakes were disc up front and drums out back. As mentioned, the body was steel on a tubular steel chassis weighing in at 3300 lbs. With this combination of numbers, the 3200CS, like the 503 before it, was more GT than sports car.

The coupe represented many "lasts" for BMW. The last postwar V8, the last pushrod motor, the last live axle car, etc. However, it also began a new era. More than the numbers, it is the influence of the car that makes it important. A host of styling and engineering decisions lived on in future models. The engine being placed low to allow for a low nose, the generous greenhouse, the round tail lights with turn signals in the center, the elimination of the B pillar, gearbox to engine mating, rear kink, belt line crease. The 3200CS lost the studebaker-like styling (IMHO) of the 503 and ushered in the modern BMW coupe. It only lasted 3 years, from 1962 to 1965, and only 603 were produced, but it is a very short evolutionary step from the 3200CS to the 2000CS, the 2800CS, and the iconic 3.0CS that followed within just a few years.

Finding Fault

The older the motorcycle, the simpler its' electrical system. Pretty straightforward right? If you go back far enough, the electrical system was a spark generator, and a spark arrestor. Even when lighting first came along, it was acetylene and other gas varieties. The first horns were air bulbs, so no need for electricity there. It took the need for a brake light to really propel the need for an electrical system with wiring running fore and aft. Today of course there are miles of wiring in most motorcycles, and diagnosing the electrical system is beyond most of us DIY mechanics.

This, however, was not the case on my 1965 BMW R50/2. It has a magneto, headlight, tail light, horn, and two indicator lights for charge, and headlight/high beam. No turn signals, no heated seats, no beverage chiller. There is a single little circuit board in the headlight bucket to which all of the wiring runs. The wiring harness exits the headlight bucket, splits off a few wires for the horn button and high beam switch, and then runs the rest back for an aux socket, battery, brake switch, and tail light. That's about it. When my tail light began to work intermittently, it should have been a simple matter to find the problem and fix it, yes?

No. A 45 year old motorcycle with a 45 year old wiring harness is surprisingly resistant to quick fixes. This is what helps to make vintage vehicle ownership a thinking man's pursuit. first I replaced the tail light bulb. The light was brighter, but a short run that evening proved that the problem still existed. The light simply turned off about 15 minutes into the run. It then came back on a few minutes later, then off again, then on back at the garage. No obvious clues like hitting bumps, or under load, or after some consistent period of time. I got out the shop manual and looked over the wiring diagram. Yep, it was dead simple, and no obvious way that a suspect horn switch could cause the problem. I played with the switch anyway to see if I could produce the fault. All I succeeded in doing was sounding the horn 20 times, which brought the family running out to the garage with looks of concern first, and then irritation. I checked continuity and current. All was well according to the multimeter from the tail light, to the diode board. Of course, the problem only happened when running.

At this point, The smart play would have been to get a new harness, tackle the pesky horn/high beam switch, and maybe get a new diode board as well to ensure electrical system health for the next 45 years. But that would have resulted in a multiple-hundred dollar fix for a flaky tail light. I already had experience with such adventures (see The $800 CV Boot). Plus, what if this was simply a bad soldering connection? There was only one thing to do at this point; I unleashed the Classic Velocity Electrical Diagnostic Methodology (developed in conjunction with Dr Seuss):

I wiggled on switches
and jiggled on plugs
I unwrapped the harness
and gave it slight tugs
I soldered connections
and added protection
and made sure that all of
the ground points were snug

I uncovered nothing that hinted at the problem. I was hoping to uncover some aged brittle insulation or a chafed wire, but everything looked good. I went for a (hopeful) ride. The problem with an intermittent problem is that it is hard to know when you have it solved. The ride produced no sign of the fault, but it was only 30 minutes. I didn't ride this bike a lot at night with it's 1960s lighting system, so 30 minutes was about as long as I had ever gone. The other challenge is that you can't exactly monitor a tail light very well while riding. If it was flickering or going out briefly, I would not know. Despite this, I decided to declare success.

It was about 3 months later that I had a 45 minute ride home in the dark with the bike. The fault really appeared to be gone. Why? I don't know. Was it gone for good? I don't know. As an engineering type, this is not a satisfying conclusion. You want to find root cause and know that failure F1 lead to result R1 and was remedied by solution S1. Accordingly I am concluding that a faulty soldering joint and a slightly corroded ground conspired to interrupt the circuit due to harmonic vibrations when the motorcycle hit 49.6mph. Echoes of those harmonics persisted for a short period of time and then dissipated. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Inexpensive Procrastinator Gearhead Gifts

We all have them. Neckties and sweaters and scarves that are in a box in the basement, or the back of the closet. Some are so low on the goodtaste scale that they could not even be re-gifted. Some can only be worn one day per year in very understanding company. Most are waiting for people to forget that they gave them to you, or for moths to completely devour them, or for the pawn shop to open. Wouldn't it be great if you could ensure that you at least got something useful, however inexpensive ? I have offered other Holiday posts and suggestions before (see Twas the Night,  The Twelve Days of Classicus, and Gearhead Gifts). This year, I offer help for the last minute shoppers (ie: the procrastinators, the unorganized, and the few truly busy) with not much to spend (ie: those of limited means, those buying for people they don't really care about, and cheap SOBs) but who need to hand something to a known gearhead. I guarantee these will be appreciated and used, and I guarantee that you can still find these items in stock....

 

1. A Box of Latex/Vinyl Gloves. These represent a brilliant leap forward in gearhead hygiene. They also say "You are only worth a few bucks, and I got this on the way over here, but I am thoughtful."

 

2. A Box of Shop Towels. Ditto

 

3. A Case of Oil. Get the right stuff by peeking into the garage, or in the trunk. Nothing says you care like Castrol.

 

4. A Gift Certificate for the Tire Rack, Bike Bandit, Autozone, etc. Hard to go wrong here. This is also a good gift for a gearhead that you don't really like because it will cause them to spend their own money to make up the difference between your $20 gift certificate and the $2000 set of wheels and tires they need.

 

5. A Zippo Hand Warmer. Just the thing for a cold garage, a cold ride, or a cold heart. 

 

6. Spark Plugs. Inexpensive, but you need to get the right ones. If in doubt, see #4.

 

7. A Key Safe. If the person has more than one vehicle, or even just more than one key, this along with some of those little plastic labels will help. Don't get the kind that lock with a key.....within a week you will be repairing a wall, and helping the person to recover from a self-inflicted wound.

 

8. An Air Pressure Guage. Even if one exists, you need one to keep in the vehicle toolkit, one for the toolbox, etc. You can never have too many.

 

9. A Scale Model. This can be for either an existing or a dream vehicle. If for a dream vehicle, attach a note that says "Full scale model to follow on or before mm/dd/yyyy." If for an existing vehicle, attach a note that says "It's been nn years, when is it finally going to look this good?"

 

10. A DVD. Search Amazon and the web for movies featuring a specific vehicle, or just get a gearhead-centric movie. Gearheads will repeatedly watch a 90 minute movie for a 2 second glimpse of their vehicle in the background partially obscured and out of focus.

 

11. A Gas Card. This is a great multi-faceted gift. It says, "Let's go for a ride/drive honey", "Your vehicle deserves the very best. You on the other hand..", "Go take a long ride/drive", "Get that @#$$% thing running", "Haven't seen you at the club meetings in a while, maybe you need this", "Show your carbs some love by using the good stuff", "Fix the @&$%^# fuel guage", "Take care of that vehicle, its gonna be mine very soon", "Next time fill-up BEFORE the rally starts", et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It should be delivered with the appropriate facial expression and hand gestures to help convey and amplify the meaning. After all, it is the season of giving.