R1100GS fork swap & more or my HPF build

Nice work WR! Lots of mods there :eek1. I can't wait to see this in action.

The gearbox was due after about 170K km but I may have a little responsability with the engine's situation :)

Gotta get back to the shop and have this running now. The airhead was not supposed to see as much mud as it did this past week end lol.

Hi there, I've been quite busy in the shop getting this thing alive so here it goes:

The welds were inspected visually and show no signs of failure yet. So far so good.

The cockpit layout:



All the wiring is done and everything attached properly.

This is also in the bike for a 9lbs saving:



The bike is now this color:



Here in the garage, we go to great length to find the best staff available and I'm very proud to welcome Annie the painter to the HPF project:



Don't ever think you can over drink her either

Next, we're almost there.

For those who follow the TCAT thread here on ADV you might have read somewhere about one of my luggage escaping from the bike near Baie-Comeau. Well, I've waited and waited but it never came back home. That was the right side case. The left one did not quite befriend with my 2Bros can and developed a see-through cavity which rendered it unusable. Long story short, I began looking for some bags. Flea market here is a great place and I quickly found some nice chap from the west coast who was parting with his Jesse's 1200GS set. Before long the bags were heading cross countries and I was hoping that I could fit them to the 1100GS. Thanks Wccdavehamby.

Here's a pic along with a sneak peek at the next project:



Side view without bags and the 2 Heidi's I've got fitted this week. Also, notice the trim job I did to the ugly Corbin unit. It even looks like a seat now:



Found and fixed this while re-installing the body work:



Plugged-in the turn signals, filled the beast with oil and petrol and......

Braaaapppaapapapap!

It's alive. Took it for a test run and it was running a little rough so I switch the CCP jumper to connection 30-87 (interresting link: http://www.ibmwr.org/r-tech/oilheads/R11inj-surging-fixes.shtml )and it ran almost perfect appart from an occasional surging on idle. I will play a bit with the twin max and sort this out.

Took it for another run and a fuel line disconnected from the right-side injector probably from a locking clamp falling during the engine swap. Fixed it with some ti-wraps until I can find a new clamp.

Next, the weight-in!

The initial goals of this project were to get better off-road ability and to loose a significant amount of weight to avoid me from spending a ton of money on a HP2. I ended spending quite a bit of cash and a lot of time but it was some great fun.

The off-road has been tested last year and documented on video. The only change now is the stiffer fron springs that will make it even better. But the real guess was how much weight could I save and how it would compare to the HP2 and to the 12GS.

We did not have an HP2 to put on the scale but a friend had a 04 1200 GS that weighted 232kg wet and full of petrol so that was the benchmark. Here's the verdict. By the way both bikes were full of fuel and weighted on the same scale (although a few months appart) which is calibrated every month and tested with a dead weight every day:





Next will be the shake-down ride. Stay tuned.

Oh la la, looking good....the new staff and the bike


Maybe a carbon bash plate to protect and keep weight low?

It will be made from Airware http://www.best-tips-to-lose-weight.com/constellium-airware-technology/ an Aluminum-Lithium alloy perfect for bash plates.

Looks great fabrice. Totally different bike.

Thanks a lot Blake. Are you back on your bike?

absolutely. i've been back on since last july. i was only out of commission for about a month.

Here's some decent pictures:

I rode the bike around town a bit and it was time for some real mileage. Along with my buddy Sylvain, we took off heading to Natashquan, Quebec. This place is located about 900km from my hometown and soe 1500km from Montreal. Here's the place on Google map:



Why Natashquan? Well the road (138) ends there. Really sad because if it would continue (and it will in the future - a bridge is being build over the Natasquan river), it would make quite a nice loop throughout the Trans-Labrador Hwy. The road may be a dead end but it is quite spectacular. Pretty much like the trans-Lab with taiga like landscape but most of it being near the ocean with great deserted beaches to camp on:



A great ride, 3 days and 2000+kms with the only problem being with my throttle bodies being way out of sync. I fixed it when I got back home and now the bike is running great.

Next, the skid plate.

The stock 11GS skid plate is made of 2 plates and not really good looking. Deadly99 suggested a carbon fiber unit which would be really nice but my pockets are of the regular depth not the unlimited model so I had to think a bit more to spend a bit less.

Touratech makes a nice plate but being Touratech, you can expect to pay about twice what it's worth, especially in Canada where, according to the salesperson I spoke with, the prices are about 10% higher since they don't buy as much volume as their US counterpart. Well, schhrew them anyway, I will take what's good from their design and try to improve on it.

What is good? The design and look. One piece and sharp looking modern shape. What can be improved? The material. Sure, aluminum is cool but there's a better product around: Aluminum Lithium alloys are lighter and stiffer than the regular stuff. How much stiffer? I tried to make the bends on my 12 ton shop press but I only managed to nick the surface of the plate with nothing bending at all. I finally used a 80 ton press and it took some pressure from the sound I could hear coming from the hydraulic unit that powers the press. The only drawback of this alloy is that it cannot bend much so you have to make multiple bends of about 20 degrees or less or it will crack and break.

The skid plate:



A nice plate for under 50$ and some time/craft learning including hardware. TT: 152$ plus shipping.

Nice skidplate, I need to do the same to mine, the stock one was hanging by one bolt after Death Valley.

I finally got a chance to read through the thread. Great work!

Will you be mounting the skid plate from the engine (like the stock plate), or fabbing up a different way to hang it?

It will be mounted to the engine with rubber bushings à la TT. Same as stock except that it uses engine side male thread and plate side female with flush mounting screws.

Thanks for the good words too

Skid plate in place:

Very impressive, lots of heart put into this one.

Fabrice,
If I have not told you already....you are an inspiration.
I will NOT blame you if my build goes south at some point, but I will give you props for inspiring it and giving me many, if not most of my starting points.

Thank you kellymac, At the time I started this conversion the info on the subject was hard to find so I'm glad if this thread can help a few to get started on their own build. As I told you in pm, I will continue posting here about how the parts inspection will turn out and report as the bike gets more km's on it (so far 4000km since the swap) as I intend to ride it a lot more next year.

Feel free to share a link to your build anytime.

I just wanted to post in this thread so I can find it easier....great job.

I do have one question, I see you used the bearing mount for the telelever arm by cutting off the bearing end. I then see you ran up some 1" pipe and welded it to the rear frame stats. I am missing something I guess, but the rear stays are steel and the bearing ends for the Telelever are aluminum...did something change in there? Or is there a steel insert inside of the aluminum end that you used to weld the 1" steel support tubes to?
Or wilder yet are the upright tubes aluminum and you have developed some cool way to weld steel to aluminum?

If anyone is still watching, I am thinking of welding in an aluminum CR neck much the same as Fabrice did, but I am thinking of taking the Telelever arm and modifying it some, swinging upward and welding it to the bottom of my CR neck and then bracing it to the front frame on the bottom.

Obviously this will take some playing with, but I think that will help transfer some of the rearward force that some of you were concerned with right back to the original point that the Telelever would have recevied the braking or forward impact force {meaning hitting a bump and pushing backwards on the steering neck}.

This should also help with side forces as it widens the base mounting point of the bottom of the neck.

Engineers or serious fabbers, what do you think?