• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Skid Plate Options

Just got on the list for the MotosportZ plate. I'm looking forward to it, with this and some radiator side protection I'll feel a lot better about really taking this bike off-road.
 
Motgosportz, any progress on some wings? I've been holding off on doing something here in hopes that your schedule will open up on that item.
 
IPA Brewer said:
Ricochet plate is available...

http://www.utahsportcycle.com/store/page484.html

I like the solid design, front protection, color choices, and price, not sure about the mounting...
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they make solid plates. Never the most attractive things but hit a price range and are good. I have one on my 125 and 449. The front must be a bracket off the lower motor mount and the rear appears to be what I call "conduit clamps"

One%20Hole%20Conduit%20Clamp.jpg


these work OK but with time and after hitting the plate a few time rattle and don't hold all that well, I am always tighting the ones on my 125. Nothing wrong with them but nothing real quality about them ether and tend to get bent up. Good tough inexpensive plates.
 
gunnr said:
Looks like it will work for me. I have one of theirs on my 610 and had one on the KLR. They get blasted from the rocks and gravel. They do the job. For the price I can add more protection if I think it needs it.
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I ordered one last night in Gun Metal. The one on my CRF is from Ricochet, works like a champ, has never come loose, and doesn't buzz any.
 
Those hinge tabs hang WAY DOWN below the skid plate and will hang up somewhere if you ride off road. For street use, no problem. 'Just Sayin'......
 
Kenneth Webb said:
Those hinge tabs hang WAY DOWN below the skid plate and will hang up somewhere if you ride off road. For street use, no problem. 'Just Sayin'......
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We need another picture with the stand stowed. Looks to me like the stand will swing up enough to keep the stand side of the hinge out of the way. Bike side of the hinge looks like it might offer some protection to the under slung brake lever. I think I'm more worried about where the cross bar ends up.

Update: Just looked again... brake side looks ok but it does look like the shifter side spring mounting point is in danger.
 
You are right, not as bad as a first glance makes it look. The pivot point is high and concealed in the photo, so just a little hangs down and might be vulnerable. I have no idea if it would work with the Motosportz skid plate though.
 
Ken, you were right the first time. Look again...The spring tab on the left side is well below the skid plate and pivot point.
 
rww said:
I had to grind some off of the rear mount on the right side arm and add a washer on top of the spacer to get to clear the case not a big deal....the washer would probably have done it, fits nice. Comes up far enough in the front to help out and leaves room for crash bars I will be adding to protect radiator and the lines on the front sides of the engine.
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(RE: Touratech Skid Plate) Trimming the arm and moving it out is a good idea. I didn't do that and the arm nicked my case a bit. May have happened when I tried lifting bike from under the skid plate. Better there than a for-real bash.

Was there enough thread on the nut after you installed the washer(s)? Could always remove some material from the opposite side spacer, I guess. Probably have to rely on locktite instead of the self locking nut.

Also, the nutplate for the rear attachment just barely touches the case and removed some paint and deformed the nut plate a tiny bit. I think the real solution may be to lower the front of the skid plate just enough to provide ample clearance for everything in the rear. Lowering the front pushes the skid plate back which allows the rear arm to rotate down, moving the skid plate away from the engine. Drilling two new holes higher up on the front skid plate would be necessary. A quick fit-up looks like this might work.

When all is bolted up, the thing seems plenty strong enough to withstand a hit or a lift. I like it, but am wary. If that rear fastener ever came loose or off, bad things could happen in an impact if that nutplate acted like a punch. I think a hunk of heavy rubber between the rear of the skid plate and the casing would be a prudent precaution. Fortunately all these remedies are free, easy fixes.
 
When I put it on I just fitted it all loose, then started with the bolt through the pan so I could pull it all down and back. Then I snugged it all up with loctite on everything. I locktite all fasteners except the body work screws. I don't plan on jumping logs with bike, just jeep trails and easy single track.
 
thanks for the pics - helped me make my mind up about a couple of things. That skid plate is very nice, but I want a bit more coverage and will go with a Utah.
I've had their skidplates on TE 610, big XR's etc.

I love the looks of the Touratech handguards - this will be the first bike I haven't put Cycra CRM's on in a while.
 
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