a humvee is to a car= a GS is to a motorcycle.... a rallye car is to a humvee= a PD/Baja racer is to a GS an ATV is to a rallye car = Pilbaras vision is to a PD racer..... a machine stripped of everything but what is necessary to go damn near anywhere in your beloved outback... with the capability to: crawl up, over and down most anything,,, cross rivers, watering holes and billabongs,,, wick it up and fly across the trails and dunes,,, capable of carrying the fuel,H2O,and gear to get there and back,,, reliably,,,for great distances day in and day out.... i'm with ya,,,especially when it comes time to think outside the chalkboard woody ....or did i miss something???
Glad to see you back in action. That is one heck of a pile of parts. I have my F650GS in pieces right now as well. Hope your's progresses better then mine. ;-) Cheers, - Ivan
would you like to test drive a set???? be careful you may be biting into the ''forbidden apple!!! woody
Sorry about delay these shots taken a few weeks back will get some more recent ones up soon. Cheers Pilbara
check this out....may give ya some ideas on that off-road special woody http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=w_F7QrR4Ur8 you're making progress
Some of you may be wondering why I am doing what I am to a 1200GS, well the reason is in my opinion they make a very capable dirt bike and the one you see below was ridden 10,000km in the dirt and loved it. So I had an attempt to make it into a rally bike in 2006 as below, some good Wilbers shocks and a few other mods to make it rally friendly. Stu@totallylost.com.au the guy standing beside it (AKA Cashelvale) organises one of the only two other well attended navigational rally rides in Oz and I was going to have my first nav ride on this the GS, well a lot happended just trying to get there, a big story in itself.... ...but when I did eventually catch up and get going, I only got 20 km into the ride and this happened. Now before you all run off in shock and horror worried about your new 1200 swingarm breaking, it won't This won't break it... ..and neither will this Riding a lot of tracks in my backyard like this at high speed is probably what fatigued the arm and subsequently broke it when the new shocks went in. The photo does not show it...the washout on the right is big enough to fit the whole GS in without sticking out the top except the screen, just to see how big the little ones really are. This little vid shows some of the terrain on the Wild Boar ride where is did break, the 950KTM featured was Kando's and he kindly let me have a spin on it. He followed me for the first 20 kms I did and when we stopped he asked if I had had something done to the suspension as he saw me cruise through some rough at pace and tried to follow, having a few moments, not the cruise he saw the BM go through like. On an earlier ride through Rudall River National Park in Oz the torque arm broke, but again a lot of high speed square edge washouts. I have had a number of bikes since then, KTM950SE, 690Rally, G450X and none of them really do if for me like the big GS used too. Admittedly the Rally is good, but there is something about the big old GS that I am missing - hence the project As RichardM once said; 'its like big tits, once you try them you won't go back...' Maybe that's what it is, capacity, but I don't know, there is something that really happens when you get a big GS going in the dirt. So, I am building a GS dirt bike, why did you just not by an HP2 I hear you cry out! Well, it should be cheaper, I know it will take what is coming for it. (if it doesn't I'll just make it stronger) it will be similar dimensionally to the GS, as that was the bike I had fun on, but adjustable and the ergos built to suit me, exactly! I can't wait. Its been a long time coming. Cheers Pilbara www.totallylost.com.au
Hello, the build is progressing OK, we have had to make a few changes to speed it up a bit...some of the fancier ideas had to be culled. But I am left with a problem and that is that I need to move the alternator. It is in the way of where we need to put some adjustment for the front shock, now that it is in a more traditional position. Does anyone have any knowledge of an alternate generator, I am thinking smaller diameter maybe longer that I can mount some where off to the side? I dont need the same output capacity as the amount of electrons required to run this beast will be reduced somewhat. I hear a lot of good reports about the Odessy batteries, so will be on the look out for them too. Cheers Pilbara
I wouldn't think it would be too hard to fab up a bracket and a couple of bearings to put an idler shaft there, and move the alternator back or to the rear, possibly offset to one side? Anyway, neat project.
Wild guess but I've the feeling u'll find a lot of different models on cars. So one will be the right one for this. You should go to an autoparts seller with the alternator specs or even the beast itself and see if there's something that'll fit ur requiments. and, yes, as the others, I'm hooked to ur project ! It's Brilliant !
g'day pil,,, just returned from the Rawhyde X challenge ,,,they picked the 3 finalists and alternates that will head to africa for the international competition later on this year,, so looking at your problem,,, i wondered if you left the pulley in place and then via a shaft toward the rear you can remount your alternator and use those trick universal joints to power it up from the shaft.. how far do ya hve to move the alternator out of the way for your 'shock adjustment area',,??? i'll look for a link to the coupler woody http://www.beldenuniversal.com/?gclid=CJGU78j_uKECFZFV2godFDmjAA http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/232304664/Rubber_Flexible_Couplings.html http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/303032479/Coupling_with_spacer.html