New here and lots to share... tips and tricks you may already know tho

[Marc - Australia]

Good evening UKGSer Team,

I just wanted to say hi and offer my collection of tips and improvements to you guys.

I am riding my 06er since last year January, have never been involved with BMW bikes before that but have since then improved the beast with several lilttle things I found on the net or by thinking creatively.

You guys probably know about all that stuff anyway, but maybe you like the pictured tutorials on my Bike diary page.

The things I've done to the bike include:

• Vinyl - matt black, the whole bike wrapped in matt black vinyl, its not painted
• cutting the windshield and the back to stock
• replacing worn grip rubbers with the ones from the GS1100
• making speedo dials yourself
• the 10KOhm trick or now the BOOSTERPLUG
• cutting short the stock exhaust :cool
• handle-bar-end mirrors
• ceramic coating of the headers in matt black
• Battery upgrade with Odyssey PC625 (with hardly any modification to the bike)
• ROx Raiser
• Fastway Pegs
• and lots of tours around the east coast of Australia

From this:

To this:




So all the best to the UK... my previous home country

__________________________________

 

[MikeP]

How well is the header coating holding-up? I've seen others that look good at first but start to deteriorate fairly soon after use.

 

[Marc - Australia]

so far its alright... I heard the same, but decided to take my chances. I am hardly offroading tho.

The guy where I got it done said that it would chip if hit by rocks. I got it done in May and it still looks like the first day.

 

[Deleted account 211025001]

That looks soooooo nice, I'm especially liking the black front end/forks

How the feck do you get the vinyl to cover everything so cleanly - is it shrunk on or what

Andres

 

[Deleted account AWRT]

MMmmm Bike looks like fricken Street Hawk. Can anyone remember that series??

Each to there own I suppose

 

[Yonkyo]

Hi Marc

just had a look at your web page. Some interesting stuff indeed.

That vinyl work is clever. I would definitely like to do my front forks.

 

[Marc - Australia]

... the feck do you get the vinyl to cover everything so cleanly - is it shrunk on or what
Andres

it's wrapped around... here are some examples how it looks when you go REALLY close

halt a meter away and you cant see any of that tho

the vinyl is just cut along the triangle

I guess with a heat gun you could get it fit a bit better

the whole thing in one piece is fairly hard

Bubbles, with a heat gun and a poky knife, you can get rid of these

at some stage you have too much material, a cut is a necessity

and sometime, when you stretch toooo much, it rips. but it goes a long way before that happens

when you have to overlap, do it on an edge...

... unless you dont care

If you use soap water you wont have any trouble with bubbles!

the nose. done with three pieces, one in the middle and one on either side, the overlapping is happening just on the inside where the white lines are, you cant see a thing!

this is from underneath the nose... its the same on all the other parts that are wrapped.

btw the back part of the frame is wrapped as well, NOT painted!

happy you guys like it

 

[Deleted account 211025001]

Not sure if that's madness or genius, but, I'm impressed none the less

Andres

 

[Deleted account AWRT]

 

[theop]

is it reversible? can you unwrap it in other words?

very good looking otherwise.. best looking GS ...

 

[Gaz]

Anyone know of a UK supplier of matt black vinyl that would be suitable for that use?
Is it just regular vinyl you might get from a craft shop i.e. the sticky black plastic of Blue Peter fame, or is it special somehow?

 

[Marc - Australia]

is it reversible? can you unwrap it in other words?

very good looking otherwise.. best looking GS ...

absolutely! I had the bike in Camouflage for three months before I pealed it off and applied the matt black

just a week ago I took all the vinyl off the back of the bike, after being on there for more than a year.... i took it off to actually spray paint it. The vinyl came off without any remains on the plastic parts. I simply washed the part with water and sprayed it



now sprayed:

 

[MikeP]

Anyone know of a UK supplier of matt black vinyl that would be suitable for that use?
Is it just regular vinyl you might get from a craft shop i.e. the sticky black plastic of Blue Peter fame, or is it special somehow?

Try these people.

http://shop.grafityp.co.uk/

 

[MrC]

Looks good mate. I've had my under pillion seat cowl thing painted black too, as well as powdercoating all the bars black also (It's a GSA). The only thing i'd like to do beyond this is the fork legs. You got any closer up shots of this?

 

[skyenet]

Bloody hell that is a good job covering using the vinyl. I even find attaching a screen guard to a phone hard going, and that is a flat surface and material that is cut to shape.

I am sure its not the sticky back stuff made infamous on Blue Peter
Took me ages tonight to perfect a method of covering Skye's schoolbooks in sticky back plastic without getting creases and bubbles everywhere.

 

[Steptoe]

There's a coach firm a couple of miles away from me that covers their coaches in vinyl to stop them getting stone chips etc. The guy who does it started to fit it for other coach firms and did some one off designs.

Anyway he become a bit of an expert and his reputation spread and now he does all sorts of one offs on ferraris, lambos, and other exotica and is doing so well he sold off the coach firm.

They do look stunning, especially a matt black lambo...

 

[Marc - Australia]

...thing i'd like to do beyond this is the fork legs. You got any closer up shots of this?

first of all, sorry for all the pictures... :huh

No problem, here you go. Side pads of the tank, the front end and the frame at the back are wrapped in matt black vinyl, not painted. The tips of the fork are covered in glossy black vinyl.

When wrapping the front end I made some paperforms (see measurements at the end) to see what I would have to cut out to fit the cylinder forms perfectly.

The side pads:

Here you can see how nice the vinyl sucks itself into the GS letters. it looks like painted.

The front end:

The lower end is wrapped in glossy vinyl. To get the vinyl on the front end i soaked both,
front end and vinyl bit in soapy water to be able to adjust it before it sits in it final position.

Closeup, wrapped around it closes perfectly.

the cylinder form fits perfectly fine. It can't be see as it is on the back side

The frame:

I like the black frame of the Adventure, which is the reason why I wrapped it as well.
Sticking the vinyl on the frame is easier as you don't need to use soapy water.

closeup of one of the joints. The vinyl is very flexible and covers therefore the welded joints
nicely.

Front end cut forms:

All four bits of the frontend have the same size.
It's just that the top bits are exactly the upside down of the bit below.

When you do the fork have a look at how I did it, specially around the ridges next to the brace. It's not one big piece of vinyl! It's that piece where I showed the paper cut form (see above) plus two little strips of vinyl, because it bends a lot better when it's just a thin bands. The same at the very top end of the fork.


...it just finishes before the ridges or the top bend:

I tried to take a close up shot, but even here you can hardly see.
There is just a little narrow strip of vinyl tightly wrapped around the fork once; overlapping the bigger piece.

Oh and here is a photo of the Dials:

Puh, I think that's it...

 

[gzpainter]

Nice one...
You can have every month a different bike...one month blue... one month black...the other month white...

Nice idea ...because like that you protect your forks from stones and other...


I really like this one...can you provide some info on this? how difficult is to do it? where you bought it? (I mean the white colour on the dash..)

Oh and here is a photo of the Dials:

 

[neil 23]

Paddy Dakar of this parish is the man to speak to about vinyl wrapping, did his bike in stars & stripes for our USA trip, looked awesome !

 

[Marc - Australia]

I really like this one...can you provide some info on this? how difficult is to do it? where you bought it? (I mean the white colour on the dash..)

Hey, I am happy you like them... I opened another fred with some more info.

Please see here Make your own speedo dial designs

Cheers,
Marc