Which ehngine bars or cylinder head protection?

RSavage

RSavage

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I know that this question is submited regularly and make no apology for doing so again.

I was dissapointed to discover after dropping my 2011 R1200GSA at <5mph that not only do the the OEM bars offer no protection to the rocker-cover covers and, I imagine, the rocker-covers themselves but they appear to be made of toffee as the side in contact with the ground (mud actually) has bent slightly. What rubbish!

Whilst I agree that a new rocker-cover cover and even a new rocker-cover itself might cost less than new bars, a punctured rocker-cover is a show stopper.

So the questions are:

do I replace the OEM bars - with what?

http://www.heed.com.pl/index.php/en/gmole-heed-for-r-1200-gs-adventure-06-12-full-bunker-en


http://www.altrider.com/index.php/product/detail/pid/713

Wunderlich?

?

do I add a bit of additional protection?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rockfox-L...373673719?clk_rvr_id=1019505262785&rmvSB=true

http://www.advdesigns.com/r1gsaenguex.html

http://www.nippynormans.com/machine...s-for-dohc-models-pair-r1200gsadvrrt-r-nine-t


TIA

Richard
 
Be carefull here. I appreciate your hacked off but something has to move to absorb energy. It is either the bars, engine or frame, which would you rather? Crash protection by its very nature is sacrificial.

Personally I think the original kit has the balance about right and yes when I had mine I dropped it and a lot harder than your 5mph in mud.
 
Marki_GSA said:
Be carefull here. I appreciate your hacked off but something has to move to absorb energy. It is either the bars, engine or frame, which would you rather? Crash protection by its very nature is sacrificial.

Personally I think the original kit has the balance about right and yes when I had mine I dropped it and a lot harder than your 5mph in mud.
Click to expand...


Hi Marki

Appreciate what you say, but I still think that the OEM bars should have kept the heads off the ground - would not have been even slightly difficult for BMW to ensure that they do so.

I'm thinking that the Machine Art covers are the best of a bad deal. What do you think?

Part of my annoyance is related the fact that the last time I dropped a bike was nine bikes ago - IYSWIM.

R
 
My GSA engine bars do all of F all in keeping the cylinder covers off the road. Even worse they aggravate any impact loads because they bend back and hit the cylinder head. On the right there is about an inch of bend space (or is that acceleration space). On the left the bar will be fouling your spanky new head covers even before it gets whacked.

My plan is to cut the engine bars back well inboard of the head covers. The engine bars are needed to support the lower petrol tank frame but are IMO worse than useless around the engine area.
 
Bendy toy said:
My GSA engine bars do all of F all in keeping the cylinder covers off the road. Even worse they aggravate any impact loads because they bend back and hit the cylinder head. On the right there is about an inch of bend space (or is that acceleration space). On the left the bar will be fouling your spanky new head covers even before it gets whacked.

My plan is to cut the engine bars back well inboard of the head covers. The engine bars are needed to support the lower petrol tank frame but are IMO worse than useless around the engine area.
Click to expand...

We seem to be of the same view regarding the OEM bars. Interesting that AltRider make great play of the fact that their bars are not mounted by bolts-through-flanges and use the 18mm engine bolts which are behind the oil line fixings unlike the OEM bars which use (bendable) flanges and share the same - tiddly - fixing as the oil line. Wasn't aware of the role that the engine bars play in supporting the tank. That's a very poor interdependent function.

Interesting that the Altrider lower bar set is 326 Euro plus 240 Euro for the top bar plus only 15.68 Euro (567 Euro plus P+P gulp) shipping whereas the AdventureRider add-on to the OEM bars is a shocking $350 + $75 shipping. Downside of the Altrider set is the need to remove them when doing valve work. Thoughts?

Richard
 
I looked at all sorts of cylinder head protectors and thought the Machineart ones offered the best protection, though I eventually settled on a second hand set of BMW alloy covers. The limiting factor is always going to be the relatively puny fixing bolts. And for almost any sort of drop you're going to need a new cover of you're fussy about how the bike looks.

I was looking at a bike with Hepco & Becker engine bars fitted and they seemed like they would give good protection, but it was only a look. As already said a holed or cracked rocker cover puts the bike off the road, a damaged engine bar can be removed and dumped in a ditch.
 
RSavage said:
We seem to be of the same view regarding the OEM bars. Interesting that AltRider make great play of the fact that their bars are not mounted by bolts-through-flanges and use the 18mm engine bolts which are behind the oil line fixings unlike the OEM bars which use (bendable) flanges and share the same - tiddly - fixing as the oil line. Wasn't aware of the role that the engine bars play in supporting the tank. That's a very poor interdependent function.

Interesting that the Altrider lower bar set is 326 Euro plus 240 Euro for the top bar plus only 15.68 Euro (567 Euro plus P+P gulp) shipping whereas the AdventureRider add-on to the OEM bars is a shocking $350 + $75 shipping. Downside of the Altrider set is the need to remove them when doing valve work. Thoughts?

Richard
Click to expand...

The GSA petrol tank bars don't support the petrol tank in any way but they do protect the tank quite well.

My issue with the GSA engine bars is the risk of them either cracking the crank case or ramming into the rocker cover and cracking the screw mount lugs inside the cylinder bead. The head protector bolts are third issue. They really should be made to shear off. The alternative is a bent bolt that wont unscrew or worse - the mounting lug sheared off at the cylinder head and a scrapped head casting.

As said on another thread, I believe the GSA engine protector crash bars are worse than useless. I'm having my engine bars adapted to support the tank bars but not stick out beyond the cylinder heads. My rocker covers have Machine Art X-Head covers and nothing else. Even that's not ideal because the M6 bolts are shear loaded risking the cast lugs getting snapped off the cylinder head. £120 for a new mag alloy rocker cover looks cheap in comparison.
 
Bendy toy said:
The GSA petrol tank bars don't support the petrol tank in any way but they do protect the tank quite well.

My issue with the GSA engine bars is the risk of them either cracking the crank case or ramming into the rocker cover and cracking the screw mount lugs inside the cylinder bead. The head protector bolts are third issue. They really should be made to shear off. The alternative is a bent bolt that wont unscrew or worse - the mounting lug sheared off at the cylinder head and a scrapped head casting.

As said on another thread, I believe the GSA engine protector crash bars are worse than useless. I'm having my engine bars adapted to support the tank bars but not stick out beyond the cylinder heads. My rocker covers have Machine Art X-Head covers and nothing else. Even that's not ideal because the M6 bolts are shear loaded risking the cast lugs getting snapped off the cylinder head. £120 for a new mag alloy rocker cover looks cheap in comparison.
Click to expand...

Sorry, this: ". . . The engine bars are needed to support the lower petrol tank frame but are IMO worse than useless around the engine area." is why I made the comment about tank support.

I understand your point about the bars causing more damage than they prevent. I'm really suprised and dissapointed that such a low speed drop bent the bar. Yes, the fixings for the rocker-cover cover are screaming out to fail in a most inconvenient way at the first opportunity.
 
I was abit cryptic. The petrol tank protection bars have a cross tube just below the tank that bolts to the engine sides. The engine bars plug into the ends of that cross tube and provide a more solid support. My plan is to get the engine bars adapted to still provide support for the tank cross bar but not stick out beyond the cylinders.
 
Bendy toy said:
I was abit cryptic. The petrol tank protection bars have a cross tube just below the tank that bolts to the engine sides. The engine bars plug into the ends of that cross tube and provide a more solid support. My plan is to get the engine bars adapted to still provide support for the tank cross bar but not stick out beyond the cylinders.
Click to expand...

Ah, yes. Understand what you mean.
 
I have a set of SW Motech top and bottom bars on my 06 1200. After a stationary drop I am of the oppinion that they are only any good for very low speed falls
on hard ground and possibly slightly faster falls on soft ground. By slow im talking bellow 8MPH.
The one thing I do see is any set of bars regardless of manufacture shouold be able to easily slide on any surface they come in contact with.
The steel bars I have will not slide easily on a road surface but will try to grab the surface as they are worn away in a slide.
What I do think would help would be either Delrin or Nylon pads on the bars that would both wear away easily and slide easily on the road surface.
If the bars can slide on the road the force introduced into the bar mounts will be reduced. Least this is my thinking.

I would say that the Motech bars do seem to give reasonable protection to the rocker covers, least in a slow topple over they did.
 
kevingambrell said:
I have a set of SW Motech top and bottom bars on my 06 1200. After a stationary drop I am of the oppinion that they are only any good for very low speed falls
on hard ground and possibly slightly faster falls on soft ground. By slow im talking bellow 8MPH.
The one thing I do see is any set of bars regardless of manufacture shouold be able to easily slide on any surface they come in contact with.
The steel bars I have will not slide easily on a road surface but will try to grab the surface as they are worn away in a slide.
What I do think would help would be either Delrin or Nylon pads on the bars that would both wear away easily and slide easily on the road surface.
If the bars can slide on the road the force introduced into the bar mounts will be reduced. Least this is my thinking.

I would say that the Motech bars do seem to give reasonable protection to the rocker covers, least in a slow topple over they did.
Click to expand...

Thanks Kevin

Yes, 'grabbing' is something to watch for.

These add-ons http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ENGINE-GUARD-CRASH-BARS-HEED-BMW-R-1200-GS-Adventure-06-12-Bunker-silver-/172173381812? seem to compliment the existing bars but at what risk to the rst of the structure?

I'm increasingly thinking that BendyToy has the right answer in removing the lower wings and fitting Machine Art heads.

R
 
Have run without crash bars on the HP2 for several years and it has had many drops - I've found the plastic protectors to be great and have now gone with the machine art covers :thumb2

You can over analyse this stuff - sure, you can find weaknesses, but the GSA crashes remarkably well, considering it's size and shape - I run a GSA also.
 
Mav said:
Have run without crash bars on the HP2 for several years and it has had many drops - I've found the plastic protectors to be great and have now gone with the machine art covers :thumb2

You can over analyse this stuff - sure, you can find weaknesses, but the GSA crashes remarkably well, considering it's size and shape - I run a GSA also.
Click to expand...

Hi Mav

I absolutely agree with you about 'over analysing' - it's a particular weakness of mine. But I do like to achieve a near-perfect result at a sensible price :-)

Richard
 
kevingambrell said:
I have a set of SW Motech top and bottom bars on my 06 1200. After a stationary drop I am of the oppinion that they are only any good for very low speed falls
on hard ground and possibly slightly faster falls on soft ground. By slow im talking bellow 8MPH.
The one thing I do see is any set of bars regardless of manufacture shouold be able to easily slide on any surface they come in contact with.
The steel bars I have will not slide easily on a road surface but will try to grab the surface as they are worn away in a slide.
What I do think would help would be either Delrin or Nylon pads on the bars that would both wear away easily and slide easily on the road surface.
If the bars can slide on the road the force introduced into the bar mounts will be reduced. Least this is my thinking.

I would say that the Motech bars do seem to give reasonable protection to the rocker covers, least in a slow topple over they did.
Click to expand...

I got caught out on a muddy lane and dropped the bike to the right. Wrong tyres, not paying enough attention considering floods had recently subsided, etc. etc. Speed maybe 15 to 20mph. The back end fish-tailed on a left hand corner exit and I had zero chance of catching it. These bikes do crash extremely well and I suffered not even a bruise. But the right hand engine bar (GSA) was rammed into the Touratech engine protector. And to be fair the protector took a bashing. the crash bar was rammed so hard I had to loosen the bolts and lever it away from the cylinder head before I could get the head protector off the bike. Im sure a higher speed fall could have caused some nasty engine damage purely because the crash bar increases point loads on the cylinder head.

I have not yet modded the engine bars but certainly just removing them isn't the solution because the petrol tank crash bar would become unstable.

I now have the X Head covers on the bike and they do look the business. My main concern is that sooner or later the bike will topple so I need some alloy cover plates to take the cosmetic hit at the ground contact areas. Another job for the hacksaw and file.

The X-Heads are not cheap hence my point about some Delrin or Nylon pads screwed directly to the rocker covers. They would take the abrasion, not cause any raised stress points and minor marks would not look scruffy.

I agrees we can over analyse stuff. These have clearly taken some damage, but while cosmetically rough I'll bet the bike was ridden home.

$_1.JPG
 
RSavage said:
I know that this question is submited regularly and make no apology for doing so again.

I was dissapointed to discover after dropping my 2011 R1200GSA at <5mph that not only do the the OEM bars offer no protection to the rocker-cover covers and, I imagine, the rocker-covers themselves but they appear to be made of toffee as the side in contact with the ground (mud actually) has bent slightly. What rubbish!

Whilst I agree that a new rocker-cover cover and even a new rocker-cover itself might cost less than new bars, a punctured rocker-cover is a show stopper.

So the questions are:

do I replace the OEM bars - with what?

http://www.heed.com.pl/index.php/en/gmole-heed-for-r-1200-gs-adventure-06-12-full-bunker-en


http://www.altrider.com/index.php/product/detail/pid/713

Wunderlich?

?

do I add a bit of additional protection?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rockfox-L...373673719?clk_rvr_id=1019505262785&rmvSB=true

http://www.advdesigns.com/r1gsaenguex.html

http://www.nippynormans.com/machine...s-for-dohc-models-pair-r1200gsadvrrt-r-nine-t


TIA

Richard
Click to expand...

These are superb... big thumb's up from me for these, i have a set on my 2012 and they've saved the bike twice - when i fitted them i did have an issue with one of the mounting plates fouling the Lambda sensor on the Akro Headers but that shouldn't be an issue with standard headers, for some reason the sensors are slightly further forward on the Akro's.

http://www.altrider.com/index.php/product/detail/pid/713
 
Ive been surprised how close the head gets on tight right handers. Not that I look very often :eek: but when I have sneaked a peek...
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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