BMW F650GS DAKAR suspension upgrade

I think that Jim's and my bike are the same up front,other than my cowl frame and damper mount are homemade.Most every thing is available from TT.Not shown are my lites-I use a Hella fog lite for low beam,with an HID for high.Don't forget the heated grips and acc plug for the heated vest.

Chris

Well I am glad you made it! From Garberville to Hwy 36 to Hwy 3 is one lengthy stretch of remote road. I am glad you were able to find a station with gas in their tanks. I have really just begun to discover the dirt roads north of Hwy 36, lots of neat stuff up there.

Jim contacted me recently and is hoping to look over my bike setup to squeeze a few more miles out of his rig. I am reminded that I get 50mpg on the 2003 and the 2005 gets 70mpg...that said, you all have me thinking about the front forks....it's a never ending hobby!

Here's last weeks afternoon ride south of Hwy 36:
http://www.pashnit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5289
A 1900 foot climb on a road made for horse and buggy.


And Jim, I am headed up to Snow Mountain above Stonyford this weekend if the weather holds up for my brother's construction project, rebuilding my dad's cabin...this weekend is mostly riding as we are fixing a water barrel but doing no construction. It's about 2.5 hour ride from Sac.

Hi Paul,

Looks like you had a fun ride on Mud Flat, keep exploring I need someone to help sniff out new roads.

I'm hoping the weather holds for the weekend, if so I may try and meet up with you on Saturday which now looks like the best of the 2 days. I'll let you ride my bike so you can get a feel for the WP forks, I think Chris and I are sold on them.

Jim in Sacramento

Is that my old rig? Sure looks pretty.

Hi Vince,

Not quite. I still have your old rig though, It is the only bike I own for the moment with hard bags. I keep thinking I will sell it but it is such a good running bike, I can't seem to pull the trigger. I picked up the Blue Beast from A&S on a special deal

How is the HP2 coming along? We need to plan a ride and get all the Nor Cal owners together for a fun weekend.

I was out in your neck of the woods on Sunday, I thought of you as I drove by Joy Rd.

Jim in Sacramento

How difficult was it to install the tt-39?

Shame on you,, where's my tomatoes

That TT bike sure looks nice, I thought I seen that bike at A&S a few years back sitting on the pedestal, same bike yes?

Hi James,

The tomatos are still in the Sac.

It is the A&S bike which was on the showroom floor for about 3 years.

Jim in Sacatomato

I looked at that bike several times! First it had the trailer, then the price changed and no trailer. I noticed it didn't have the wide footpegs when it was on the floor. I wasn't sure i would use the roadbook either, but I sure wanted that bike!

Jim, I guess it's time to put snow spikes on the tires if we want to ride the mountains this "spring"...

sniff...snifff....lol ok!

So...

The Touratech front fork is a WP. Anybody happen to have the WP part-numbers?

{This is of course and attempt to avoid the Touratech Tax.}

Search and ye shall find:

I'll have to call the local WP stockists to ask about the clamps. I dont know what the deal is with these.....

I am curious to know if anyone ever sourced the WP fork kit from an alternate supplier than Touratech?

The trick with the Touratech kit is that they have made sure the ignition lock, the stock BMW front wheel, brake caliper etc can be reused. It fits out of the box. So they built their own triple clamps for instance. If you don't really care about that and if you know your way around with basic tools, I think you'd be far cheaper off with a second hand front fork from let's say a KTM 640 Adventure and make it fit. Source a KTM front wheel and a brake disk and hey presto you're finished. I think the brake caliper from the BMW and the KTM are even the same design.

It is the same basic design but I have heard that the BMW uses bigger pistons, don't know for sure though.

If anybody manages to get a set of triple clamps from Touratech I have a set of WP 4357 MXMA USD forks (also wheel, triples and disc if you need them).

I want a better fork than the stock Showa.
I want a way to use my existing brake system and wheel; to save on cost
I want to retain steering lock capability with the new system
I like the WP option offered by Touratech
I don't think all of this is worth $2400.

I investigated alternative sources to Touratech-USA for the parts mentioned by MaxCool. The short story is that I couldn't get my local KTM shop to return my calls, so I bailed on the idea of sourcing the WP parts through KTM. I returned to Touratech-USA and tried to buy a few parts from the WP-kit. This didn't work out.

A TT-USA representative explained to me that their 'kit' parts are not for sale to the general public; that a person must show proof of purcahse in order to buy "replacement parts".

I now have beef with them on that point because I feel that they could be manufacturing parts and making sales to a minority of the consumer base, but instead they make kits that sell only to a very slim minority of the consumer base.


Where does this leave me? I'm off to build my own 'kit'. After observing that a UK gentleman successfully adapted a KTM 950 ADV front end to his Dakat, I'm moving in that direction. It looks like I'll invest half the amount of money on a one-off kit for my motorbike as I might have if I were to buy the TT-WP option. In the end I'll end up with extra front-end and wheel that I can then sell to offset the cost of the project. Who knows, maybe (probably) I'll end up with a better product than what TT sells.

-I'll post back here with updates in the Winter.

New thread started which specifically addresses WP forks on the Dakar.


http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=409625

I decided to post this at the tail end of an older thread instead of starting a new one...

I've been playing around with lightening my bike and improving performance for some time. Posted many times of the 650 Dakar thread.

I've made my own 1" lift dogbones which started out as 7075Aluminum (See pic)


which was too brittle and then the 6061 Aluminum which has been great. Enjoyed the whole setup for a few years and then pre-ran the 2011 KotW Rally with notmybikemodelname and destroyed my WP rear shock. Snapped the clevis pin and did another Mcgyver rig to ride it 250 miles back to Tonapah, NV.

Sent it to Trailtricks to fix and he had it for 6 months and finally said he couldn't get parts for it. He's gone and so is the shock so I ended up buying a used OEM Dakar shock a year ago. No problems with the shock, but it dropped the seat height of my bike, so I raised the WP forks in the clamps to compensate. Never been a good set up and the geometry of the bike is wrong for off-road. I spent some time researching options and contacted EPM PERFORMANCE who got back to me right away!


Very good customer service and prices. Spoke to Klaus on the phone and he gave me some options. Decided to send the WP forks in for new springs and service, ordered this unit (Sans preload ajuster...never used mine much) with a ride height increase of 1.5" to bring the bike back up. I'm 6'1" and liked the tall seat.




So measured the sag, compression, static, stroke of all my existing suspension, and dropped the forks to ship to EPM in New Jersey.




More to come when the suspension comes back. Going to be selling the Dakar shock if anyone is interested PM me.