Ya Ken, how about some pics! Need to post your idea for the single RotoPax too. Glad you made it home safely! I will order my map of the Colorado BDR tonight so we can start planning. Glad it's in my back yard so we can detour off route to some great coffee shops and eateries. Got a little work in today on the skid plate sub frame/radiator guard combo. Cut out some high density polyethylene for sliders that will be attached to the 1 1/2" chromoly crossbar ends and then turned to shape.
Fab, you are really cranking along! If no one comes up with good rad guards I'll be begging at your door this summer for shop time to make some. That HDPE would be a fantastic spacer in the front down strut for bar attachment up high. the lower point can be on the engine mounts. Your idea (I won't spill the beans) will be unique and I'm anxious to see it finished. I worry a bit that any crash bars made by TT, AltRider, SW Motech, etc., will not allow for the Motosportz skid plate mounting (crash bar mounts would be spaced out beyond the side of the stock down strut. Bending some tube and fabing some mounts would be pretty easy I think. Maybe two days. Looked at my Colorado BDR map today and it is a good one. I'll see about getting GPS info too as it is supposed to be available. July? Mirror pics tomorrow. Mine are round, but KTM has some sexier models as well, as has been posted in the regular MOD thread. I have the round on all three bikes, so if one gets broken I can borrow in a pinch.
Excellent Ken! Ya, just wait and we will bring your idea to fruition, so don't buy anything. Like you said, it probably won't work anyway.
BB Offroad make a TR650 radiator guard and it's pictured on the terra. Haven't seen one in the flesh however. Cheers Pete
That guard will protect from stones, etc., but not from a crash. We need wrap-around bars that fasten to frame/engine mounts (lower and upper. What I had in mind was a bar that fastens to a lug machined to fit into the upper engine mount in the frame, then down and onto the lower forward engine mounts, on top of the Motosportz skid plate. A cross piece at the upper down strut would help as well. From the side you would see just a single chromoly bar tucked next to the bike and down outside of the radiator shrouds. Looks like we will have to wait until this summer to see one; just one!
Judging from the thickness of that guard and the photo, I'd say using this guard requires the removal of the black back section of the mudguard, which means while the radiator is going to be better protected from impact, it's going to suffer more impacts than it would if the mudguard was fitted. I might be wrong, but seeing how close the mudguard is mounted to the radiator it's hard to see how it could coexist with that radiator guard.
Really nice work guys! Those mounting lugs for the bag mounts up by the seat are the missing pc. of the puzzle I couldn't get straight in my mind. I believe this project might be within my capabilities (probably not near as nice looking as yours). Looked om backroads motos website and I'm not finding those loop pieces available. Is this something you need to call and cajole the guy into selling you? Also, would you mind revealing the size and wall thickness of the tubing you used? Thanks for figuring all this stuff out and posting the writeups.It's very helpful. Lots of ground to be broken in the care and feeding of these machines.
DirtyOldMan, go back to BR Moto and there is a place for DIY Rack parts. That's where you'll find the loops and the straight tube we used. I think he sez what the wall thickness is, but we just bought most of our tube from him. You can also get prebent pieces, and if you get two 90's and two 45's you could do pretty much what I did. Being able to cope the tubes would be nice, and you could buy that tool to make it easy. Everything else is just handwork. My rear loop is by BR Moto and is for the TE630. Just buy that and put your own mounting tabs on the back of the loops. To do that though, you will have to line up the loops like I did, parallel with the mufflers, and spaced 1.5" off the face of the cans. Fab didn't have to do that and made his loops parallel with the centerline of the bike. It looks good both ways. Here are pics of my mirrorss. Notice the racks in the last pic. I think they are very unobtrusive and look like they just belong there. I think I will leave them on permanently. I will trim down the sides of the Rotopax mounting plate though. Right now it's the full piece as provided by Rotopax.
Fantastic DirtyOldMan and thank you! We inspired someone Ken! Here is the link; http://brmoto.com/racks/diy-side-rack-parts.html 3/4" 4130 chromoly tubing with .065 wall. Have fun and please show them off when you are done. I am glad Ken mentioned the pre bent tubing. I didn't know they had it and it would make the job a lot easier if you don't have a bender. I don't want to sound like a know it all, but if you don't know already, disconnect that battery before you do any tacking up or welding on the bike. Someone mentioned in the mods thread to disconnect the computer. I have no knowledge of this or why and maybe they will explain if they see this. My last big welding job was a cracked frame on a large aerial bucket truck and if I followed that rule, I would have had to disconnect 15 or so ECM's. I have never had a problem. I disconnect the battery and ground directly to the piece i am welding. This is just what I do, so please investigat this on your own and make your own decision. This is, in our opinion, the best bag system out there. If you make your own racks, you will have about $300 to $350 total invested. Anyone with light welding skills shouldn't be afraid to take this on. I would love to see this thread filled with other people's homemade racks or anything else. We coud start a TERRAFORMERS club!
I got a chance to check this out yesterday DYNOBOB, but when I fit the pax in that location, there is no leg room. Your racks look to be farther back. We mounted our racks so the center weight of the bags are at about 1.5 to 2 inches in front of the rear axle. I really appreciate the idea though. Thanks!
OK, found the right place and have parts ordered. My welds will almost certainly not look as good as you guys did but I ordered an extra length of tubing to practice on. I'm satisfied that these wolfman bags are the best for what I want to do, hope I can make a worthy frame for them. And thanks for the disconnect the battery tip, I'm paranoid about welding on a bike anyway but I cant say I would have thought of that. Putting the ground clamp close to the work is sure to help, kinda ignorant about electricity but I seem to remember that it likes to take the path of least resistance and it likes to go back to where it came from.
Another note on the rear fender support: I have Bills rubber lisence plate mount on my terra, and my rear rack loop snugs up right against it. This supports the rear fender nicely and provides plenty of stability, but I noticed a couple of holes in the rubber and used them to run cable ties around the rear loop and snugged it up. Now it's really solid, but will give if pushed in a fall. My fingers area crossed that this prevents the rear fender issues which have been showing up.
There is some pretty darn good stuff going on in this page. I am a 650 lurker but loving the work outs on a new model. Plaudits to all of you and keep the innovation going..
Thanks Kelly and right back at you! I got to see your skid plate and risers on Kens bike and it is top quality. If I don't come up with something soon, I may be ordering that plate.
This is the start of what I had in mind for a light and simple guard for the radiator (sliders would go on the end of the 1 1/2" tubing) and the lower half was going to go to the rear of the frame and I would mount a skid plate from this sort of sub frame. I like the sub frame idea, but not the idea of the large tube with sliders. A nice street bike option maybe, but it would leave something nice to snag on for off road. I don't know for sure, but I just don't feel right about it and will likely abandon the idea. I only have bending dies for 5/8", 3/4", and 1 1/2" tubing. None of which are ideal for a crash bar. Going to move on to the controls for now.
What about something like this? I know the Touratech Skidplate only uses the lower frame/engine bolt for their skidplate - leaving the upper one for an anchor point. Then there's the upper engine-frame mount for the top attachment point.
