My 950 Refresh or Mission Creep...

[cjracer]

Beautiful looking bike you have there.

Congrats on the future rider. Have a great trip.

Safe travels,
cj

[HappyGoLucky]

Congrats on the child coming Gregor


Bike looks super as has been said, I cant wait to see her in her racing kit - no luggage, and serious knobs.

Whats the animal kill? I get the deer, bugs, tree, eagle(?), and 5x RIP bike moments. Whats the other 4 legged creature?

oh yeah - did you kill a hawk/eagle? What happened?

[Katoom119]

Looks great. Sorry I missed you at the rally but I wound up working all weekend.

[Roughidle]

Originally Posted by sakurama

Okay, I'm finally going to tie this up for now - sorry to keep you waiting...

So I got the bike done Wednesday afternoon and left for TN and the BMW MOA rally on Thursday morning. Not wanting to be stupid I rode the bike once around the block and called it a day when nothing fell off. I went home, packed a few things in the panniers and Thursday morning I hit the slab.

570 miles later I pulled into a hotel and called it a night. The chain was too tight so I fixed that (better late than never) and that was about it. Two strange things were that the bike surged and hunted a lot at steady throttle on the highway which it's never done - I think I might have forgotten to hook up the float bowl vent as I did have a few things left over. The other thing was that I thought my fuel light was broken since it didn't come on until 200 miles - WTF? I thought it was a mistake since only once before did I get more than 200 and that was nursing it whereas this was 75-85 the whole time - even some traffic.

Since I didn't actually do anything to the engine I can only assume that the amount of dirt that came off the bike was worth about 8 mpg. Impressive.

Anyway, I didn't do beauty shots but I shot a couple quick ones at the motel:



And the other side:



When I got to the rally the KTM certainly got attention - it's orange and loud. I discovered a missing 6mm nut on the rear brake adjuster and I lost one rear exhaust stud and the other was loose. I consider that doing okay really. The new brake master cylinder is worth it's weight in gold. Brembo really is that good. There's much more power and far better feel. It's true two finger stops now. James Siddall of SuperPlush is nothing short of a magician as the suspension somehow became more supple (plush?) and yet more taught and responsive. Expansion joints disappeared and yet the bike was firm in the rest of the stroke. I like his style. James Renazco is a god among men and this saddle is beautiful and comfortable. I certainly have to thank Chip Munn of Munn Racing because I placed about 30 orders with the guy and got everything including the last minute stuff. I've been ordering all my parts from him for about 5 years now and I like doing business with him. Andrew of Adventurer's Workshop got me the new carbon for the bike and some nice new packing straps and other assorted things. I've mentioned CJ but I will again - his clutch cover was like the hypnotist's watch at the BMW rally - they couldn't stop staring at it. I can't either actually - it's fun and functional. Woody of course made gorgeous hoops for me and I love the wider rear rim.

The bike looks as nice as it works. Saturday Judiaann and I leave for a little two up adventure to do the Trans Lab over a few weeks. We're going to be testing some new gear for Revit, taking photos, camping and enjoying ourselves while we still can. Judiaann, we just found out, is pregnant so I guess this trip will be three up. I'll do my best to put up a ride report but right now I'm just slammed with work and packing and just getting ready.

Here's the last shot - some "kill markings" - these are career totals and not for this bike. This bike owns the bird and the tree...



I'm still on the fence about what wheel set to take up there. It will be 3000 paved miles and 800 dirt road. I've ridden the 17/19 on dirt and it's fine but on soft loose stuff it's squirrelly. I love the 17/19 on the road and I'd much rather take that but the thought of hitting the Trans Lab after a fresh grading and a rain storm makes me want the larger wheels with a set of TKC's. Anyone done it that can offer some advice?

That is one fine lookin orange beast Sak!

May have missed it, but where did you get the vents/ducts for the windscreen?

[sakurama]

Originally Posted by Roughidle

May have missed it, but where did you get the vents/ducts for the windscreen?

I co-opted the idea from the GS forum as a way to reduce (not eliminate) the wicked buffeting that I was getting from my Arai XD. It worked for me but as the 70 page thread "Windscreen Disgust" will attest there's no making everyone happy. I think that thread is driven by street riders or those coming from touring bikes who are expecting something similar. I'm not - this is an adventure bike and that's how I ride it and what I do with it and I don't expect it to be a touring bike.

Anyway, the NACA ducts are added to the stock screen - I put up a how-to here. Your mileage may vary and if you visit that other thread you will see all manor of whacky ideas.

[Uzay]

Wow, it became a masterpiece

[Flanny]

Originally Posted by Uzay©

Wow, it became a masterpiece

Ditto.

Great Job Gregor.

Congratulations on the little sakurama....!

[Douf]

Originally Posted by sakurama

I'm still on the fence about what wheel set to take up there. It will be 3000 paved miles and 800 dirt road. I've ridden the 17/19 on dirt and it's fine but on soft loose stuff it's squirrelly. I love the 17/19 on the road and I'd much rather take that but the thought of hitting the Trans Lab after a fresh grading and a rain storm makes me want the larger wheels with a set of TKC's. Anyone done it that can offer some advice?

One thing to consider - you'll probably be looking at two sets of TKC's for that kind of mileage, whereas a single set of distansia's should make the whole trip. FWIW I've slid around the Dalton with nothing better than a set of bald Metzeler Marathons on the 950 - it wasn't too bad.

Douf

[B-Rod]

Originally Posted by sakurama

So I went back and forth all day from the rim to the parts. Here's the first nipple sealed with the Seal All - looks good:



I did two coats but the stuff seams to bubble up as it dries which is strange but Cyborg mentions small bubbles are okay - I hope so:



By this time I'd done the whole wheel so I'm going to hope for the best and add the GOOP tomorrow and then let it sit for a day or so and by then my new Conti Attack will be here and I'll see if it worked. I'm looking forward to getting a 170/60-17 on that new rim.

I too had been thinking about the aviation product PRC, and today I was looking at your website and saw it was here that I had originally found that you had the same idea. Did it not work out for you? I thought it would be good as it is tough, and removable, but now see you have gone another route. They use tons of the stuff at work.

[sakurama]

I didn't like the aviation stuff even though I thought I would. It was really difficult to work with and set up too fast and then it didn't make a great seal. I fixed it and didn't give it any thought for the last couple years as the wheels held but this time round I wanted to see if there was something different.

Cyborgs method was good because it eliminates a lot of weight which is a great thing to do on wheels. My original method tried to allow for trueing the wheel while maintaining the sealing but in the end how often do you adjust spokes? For me the answer was never so why not just seal the area that needs it and do it with as little material as possible?

As I mentioned if I were to do it again I'd skip the Seal All and just use the Goop - I don't see the benefit of the Seal-All since it bubbled so much whereas the Goop was strong, flexible and clear. The wheels are holding just fine too.

[sakurama]

If anyone is curious I've got a ride report going on our trip to Labrador on this bike. So far things are holding together.

Trans Lab Ride Report

[sakurama]

So my bike now has somewhere close to 60K miles (I don't know exactly as I had to replace the speedometer once) and over the last year developed a rather pronounced leak at the rear base gasket. I wanted to spend some time over the winter to rebuild it but my Ducati Hypermotard was stolen while I was in Moab (from the dealer of all places) and that left my 950 as my only running street bike so it stayed on the road and I adopted the mantra, "Check the gas and fill 'er up with oil!"

I had my doubts about going but this past weekend turned out to be her last hurrah. Gino and I met up with our Canadian crew (Dan, Flanny and Johnny) to ride the Roaming Rally in Ontario. Well the wet weather produced some rather deep water crossings...



...and after a while my bike began stalling. After a few stall outs my oil light came on and when I looked in my tank it was a frothy mess - water was being sucked past the base gaskets into the engine.



We changed the oil on the trail and the oil light went out but then came back on. I could see clean oil being pumped back into the tank at the filler and the valves were quiet so I hoped it was a bad sensor or electrical gremlin from the water. I know my engine is tired so a part of me really didn't expect much. The bike sounded fine for the rest of the day but the light stayed on. I decided to just keep on riding but with one finger on the clutch the whole time in case she siezed.

Well, she went about 300 miles before a pop and she started running on one cylinder followed by no cylinders and there I was - stranded on the side of the thruway.





I got the bike home and was going to rip into it but an inmate (thanks guymanbro) put me in touch with Pyndon who was selling some engines and when we spoke he let slip he had a 990 as well as a couple of 950's. Well, I rode Flanny's bike over the weekend and we've had a friendly rivalry but I will admit his bike was a beast so when I heard 990 I said "Yes!". Pyndon sent me a photo of the new engine and I think Flanny should be worried:



I threatened to open a can of fabrication whoop ass on Flanny years ago and the time has come. Since my last update here I've aquired a mill, a lathe, a tig welder and the skills to use them. I don't have the time or money for this but that won't stop me. I'm going to build a Flannymobile killer. Get ready Beeeatch!

Gregor

[slackmeyer]

This should be good (again).

So, have you done a postmortem on engine #1? I'm always curious about what takes these motors out, as I creep up on 50k.

[motowest]

Glad to see your bike in the spotlight again (enjoyed this thread earlier). Sorry for the bad luck/news/oil issues.

[jtb]

Keep up the build report on the engine...


I can't wait to see how it all plays out.