Dual-sporting a 2010 TE 450, with cheap tricks

Dan's "Living with a 2010 Husky TE510" was a big inspiration for this thread, that and I didn't do anything like this for my last bike, the Blue Beast that I took off-roading with some guys in New Mexico a couple of times, once in October and once in November of 2010.




It was great fun riding the Beast to and from New Mexico, and great fun on the improved roads, but when we got to the deep gravel crossing the Rio Grande, and the steep uphill climbs in loose football rocks, the deep sand washes, and the 60mph washboard roads,....well, it wasn't fun anymore, it was a lot of work and a lot of horrible sounds coming from the Beast. Hence the decision to get the Husky. Why did I get a Husky and not a KTM or something else? I wanted EFI, at least a 450, and LIGHT WEIGHT.! And, I used to race a 250 Husky waaayy back in the early 1970s so it was kind of an emotional decision on some level.




My goal is to be able to ride the bike 700 miles from Austin to New Mexico, change the countershaft sprocket, ride 100-200 tough miles with the best of 'em, then change the CSS again, and ride 700 miles home.

If I can achieve the goal with stuff I have in my garage, that's usually gonna be the way I do it....I'm cheap as hell. I read where people said you needed to build a guard to protect the throttle housing from the kickstarter. Ever since I saw my brother expose his bloody calf muscle trying to kickstart a KTM in the mid-90s, the protection I wanted was FOR ME from the freakin' kickstarter! So I looked in my hose box and got a piece that would slide over the kickstart pedal, it'll protect me when the time comes, and it protects the throttle body a little bit too.




Trying to break this bike in with a bad fuel pump, I'm riding alot of street, staying close to the house and using roads with shoulders so I can pull off when it dies. The top of my left foot was getting sore from upshifts, makin' a whole lot of them with this insanely close-ratio gearbox. I used a Dremel to grind the rear/bottom edge on the square part of the shifter, and then slid a piece of hose over the round part, trimmed it, used a lighter to singe the end a little. Much more comfortable and easier on my boot as well. Also in the pic is the solution to the suicide kickstand, I saw that Dan B had cut the post off his kickstand bolt so I did too.




When I was preping my Blue Beast for duty, I bought a $20 piece of decorative steel for a radiator guard, $20 was a little more than I wanted to pay but what the heck. Anyway, I wanted to get rid of the black plastic guards that came with the Husky, some folks said that they actually hindered cooling air, so I used the leftover deco steel and it turned out pretty good, of course, anything painted black is generally gonna look pretty good to me.



More cheap tricks to come....and some not-so-cheap ones as well.

Once I got to ride this Husky, I knew gearing was gonna be critical. I needed to be able to do at least 70mph to make it feasible at all. With stock gearing of 13/47, 60mph yielded 6000 RPM, not acceptable.
I used http://www.gearingcommander.com/ to figure out my needs. Per their database, I had to use 09-10 TE 510, but all the gear ratios checked out identical to my manual. I knew I didn't want to use a 16t CSS, too big, wanted the 15t. Using the 15t CSS meant dropping 3-4 teeth on the rear (1t CSS ~~ 3t rear sprocket). Sprocket Center had a 43 tooth, they were great BTW, great service, no mistakes. http://www.sprocketcenter.com/

Thus, my street gearing will yield this:



That'll do. Now for dirt, I had to go with a 12t CSS to get the gearing back to stock using the 43t rear, I'm not changing rear sprockets on the road, (1 tooth rear above stock really, not enough to notice). That meant I had to lose 1 link in the chain, it was just too long for a 12/43. I'll have to get 1-2 link patch for the street gearing.



I found a PVC collar that measured close enough to 35mm and then I cut a half-circle out of the chain slider, left a little on it, now I have a way to accurately and quickly get 35mm deflection at the exact spot the manual calls for.

Santa got here early, brought the piece that I think is one of the coolest farkle for a dual sport bike, easily removeable for servicing stuff, provides wind protection for highway cruising, provides for a dashboard for "stuff", provides the platform for awesome lighting, and it looks good to me. ((we were downloading stuff from the attic and it was all still in the garage, decorations for the grand-daughter.....in case someone thought I'm a little bonkers...))




Ian at Britannia sent a nicely packaged box, everything in good shape, got here from Canada in 6 days, the same time as some other USA shipped farkles. The 2010 TE bottom triple clamp is a little problematic, due to the 2 bulges that are the fender mounting holes. I just lucked out that the fairing is actually too short to reach the bottom clamp, so I fabbed up a little square extender. My luck continues, the black fender brace actually covers this sad little piece of engineering completely.




It's taking me ALOT longer than I anticipated, so many little details to work through. Here's the template for cutting the dashboard to accept the speedo/tach.



More to come......

Cool!

It's gonna end up taking 2 1/2 days to get this fairing and HID light set on. Man, I almost lost hope. It was the generic kit, and that ended up meaning, alot of fabrication and make-do, PLUS I had an electrical gremlin that just about kicked my butt. Here a pic of the inside before I had to go and change it all around, trying to fix the gremlin.




The dashboard ended up pretty good, lotsa room for add-ons. The speedo is so much better, tilted up, in between the handlebar clamp and the brake line. The $10 voltmeter that plugs into the powerlet shows 14.6 volts with both HIDs on at one time.

Go on....

She's lookin' pretty hot, still need a gasoline solution, handguards, skid plate, new seat, luggage rack, a work in progress, but this is a great start.

With that front end (which looks very sporty! Nice Job) go with the white Safari tank already. It will work well with the shape of the front end and bet it will look really trick with your light setup.

I've considered the Safari, but have decided against it. The cost, the inability to get at my spark plug, the placement of the fuel pump, a number of things have me looking at the IMS 3 gal, with a 1.3 gal gas can mounted, giving me 4.3 gals.

Did you put dull cans on your TE?

¿No Comprende?

I think he means dual, like the SM setup.

Dual Exhaust canisters. It almost looks like the can is on the right but it is on the left if you look close to that photo.

Older, looks real good, man you are going to throw down some miles on that thing. Great work....

Yeah, I got to thinking "dual cans" and saw that the way the pic is taken, it does look a little funny.

Can't wait to put on the skid plate, I couldn't disagree with Dan on that choice!

I need to order the IMS tank, as much as I hate to pay $250 to get a 3rd gallon, it has to be done. To get the 4th gallon, I'll only pay $60.

Your TE is looking good. My 2 cents here. Remember the taillight support/sub frame on the bike is not ideal for packing fuel. See the "trip to the tip" thread here on CH. 1 sub frame broke off, 1 was on it's way. Myself, I would not pack a gallon+ of fuel on the back of my bike. I had a PMB rack and sold it after seeing the possible carnage. You may not be planning to pack the fuel like that? The Safari tank isn't cheap, but it may be the best bet. I remember reading MotoXotica has the line on the replacement Sherco? fuel pump elbow. Throw an elbow in your gear if you go with the Safari, or send the fuel pump off to Up-Tite for the brass elbow. Pack a camera and post some pics.

Your ride is looking good! Hope you have many great adventures on it once you have it set up to your liking. That Lynx wiring looks like a PITA

Thanks guys, I will look for that trip report about the sub-frames, I am thinking my idea will be OK, I might have to do some reinforcing, maybe not....

The wiring is definitely a PITA, especially for me, I have a rare form of dyslexia that deals only with colored wires and electricity, it all looks like gibberish to me

Here's the next 2 items: the Touratech luggage rack is tiny!! It didnt look that small on the web page, but hey, I DID want something on the small side, this just happens to be TINY !

I posted before that I couldn't argue with Dan on the skidplate choice, Dan had said the Uptite was his "favorite piece of bling", and man, it is hot looking for sure. George is a hoot, here's my memory of the email and how I ordered it:

ME: I wanted a skidplate for my TE450 and I couldn't find a way to order it on your website.

GEORGE: I'll send ya one. Pay the UPS guy, OK?

ME: Uh, OK, thanks George.

GEORGE: Thanks man.

Cool dude, great product.

Thanks man, I found the thread, saw the broken sub-frame, saw the amount of stuff being carried, and I'm gonna be OK. My 1.3 gals of gas will not be at the rear, and I'm only gonna carry 8 lbs of gas and 2 lbs of can, so 10 lbs max. I believe it will work well, it's just not gonna be the best lookin' thing around, but when I can add 1.3 gals for 60 bucks, I'm all over that.

Before IMS came out with a larger tank I used the Acerbis number plate aux tank on the rear subframe and never had a problem. The capacity of the tank I was using is only .8 gl however they offer a similar at 1.3 gl. Later I added a 610 rear rack which fit the subrame bracket of the 2008 model perfectly and carriered extra fuel/supplies on it.









IMS and Acerbis Aux off subframe




mounted on the 610 rack

Hey fast1, yeah, I saw pics of your bike somewhere. sometime, and those pics gave me the push to do it to mine, I went ahead and got the 1.3 gal, only like 4 lbs more than the .8 gal, and the same $60 cost, now I have 3.2 on the bike. I like the way you did yours, it looks integrated and balanced with the exhaust, I hope mine looks as good. Really glad to hear you havent had any problems with it. I am going to do the siphon thing, run the hose under the seat and the tank shroud to the main tank vent and use really small ID vacuum hose and let the vacuum on the main tank draw the gas up from the gas can. I'll test it tomorrow.