X-country project.

[jtw000]

I'm the owner of a much beloved BMW G650x. We've been through a lot together, years of daily commuting around London and weekly green-laning sessions. She took a lot of abuse and took it all in her stride. I refitted her into an adventure bike and toured Europe, 2 up.

For that she had a host of extras. Dirtbagz, tools, auxiliary tank, screen, the works. She did a great job so I rode her across the Middle-East into Asia.

She took some serious abuse on that one but took it like a champ and gave me no trouble. That's more than can be said for the KTM I rode with.
Once in Asia I ended up settling in Cambodia. I used Bella for my daily bike as motorcycles are welcome and nobody really cares about such trivial things as laws.

She underwent a minor refit and served well enough. After a while, the guy who rode with me asked to borrow her for a trip around Asia. I couldn't imagine how anything could possibly go wrong.

She suffered a minor electrical fire and the loom was shot. She still moved and got him through Thailand, Laos and back to her new home in Phnom Penh. I had 2 choices. Retire her or rebuild her. So... she's a project.
The aim is to get her looking good, ideally a practical adventure all-rounder I can daily use. I also want her to look good which is no mean feat for a BMW. I managed to get a new loom. She's going to be completely worked over with a lot of new mods. THe ABS system is gone, it was damaged and I never trusted it. It never let me down but I had a BMW R1200gs and an F800gs and both of them had ABS which nearly killed me. I won't miss it. I'm looking into moving the battery down to the ABS unit area. I'm restyling the sides and front and going with a minimalist look. The tail panels are gone, the tail light is gone, the sides are gone, the exhaust is smashed. I can't easily get any of these parts out here so that's going to be interesting.
So far the bike is stripped. The engine is in good condition, against all the odds, there's absolutely no wear or tear inside. There's scuffing to the frame and engine sides so the frame and covers are all off for powder-coating this week.
Progress on this might be slow. I've got a friend in town, he's a mechanic. He's taking a ride next week so after helping me strip her down (thanks, Kingsley) I've got a week to let the powder-coater do his stuff. Hopefully I can get her back up on her legs before he leaves at the end of July. He's back in November and will bring any stuff I can't source locally so fingers crossed on that.

And as she stand now, just a collection of bits, hardly a bike. I reckon matt black but I might go gloss. I really can't decide. I'd prefer gloss but the low alloy frame and swing arm will look a bit crap in glass, I think.

Comments welcome!

Jack

 

[mikedefieslife]

Got some work on your hands there.

How about satin? I'm getting my subframe and pillion pegs done at the moment.

I was tempted to get the swingarm done but it might look odd in black. I'd like to see another first before I pull the trigger.

 

[jtw000]

In Cambodia, choices are limited. There are three Western mechanics in the whole country, for instance. I have a choice between matt and gloss but gloss does look more satin. I did seriously consider yellow. I want to make her different but the truth is, the standard colour is pretty good.
I probably will go satin, we'll see how I feel when I get there. He has some samples, I'm hoping when I see it for real, the choice will more or less make itself.
I spent a few fun hours with a bum-gun yesterday. We don't have toilet paper, we have a water jet you hose your arse off with. It's powerful enough to do some damage, luckily so in my little spare bathroom/laundry I started cleaning up the bits. I've got a couple of boxes soaking over night and some of it is looking good already. It looks bad when the bike is in one piece but right now, the job is looking easy enough.
Last year I did a KLE250, that gave me the confidence to tackle this one. This time I have a mate helping who's an actual mechanic too, which doesn't hurt.
I've been pouring over pictures and the idea of switching the body over to the X-moto/challenge is getting under my skin. It won't happen since the panels are insanely over-priced on Ebay and the postal service is hopeless here.
At the moment I'm thinking of cutting down the airbox side panels and removing the radiator covers completely and replacing them with a solid guard of some kind, ideally with a traditional enduro style scoop.

 

[Losttheplot]

XChallenge panels..

If you subscribe to this forum, you could pm a guy called "Pinkytiff", he did have a full set of xchalllenge panels to sell, albeit in need of a bit of tlc, but it was sensible money.

 

[mikedefieslife]

Even brand new the panels aren't that expensive. You'd get a complete set from BMW for the cost a single ZX9R panel.

 

[jtw000]

I'm going by Ebay costs, where I am is difficult to get parts sourced. Postage is also a bit of a joke. There's one post office in the country and they close for lunch for three hours out of seven! Also they steal about half the things that get sent there. An American on another forum offered my some Challenge parts. I don't know, then it wouldn't be a 'Country' any more.
Anyway, today Disaster struck! I just took the parts down to the powder-coater. I had dropped in the other day, explained what I had and he quoted around $140 to do the whole lot. Pretty good. I added the clutch basket and water pump cover and told him I appreciated that this would add a little extra cost. He rubbed his chin and said it would now be $500. He started making up things and clearly didn't want to do the job. I carefully explained he was a piece of crap and took my bits home.
The tutuk rider tried to steal my money and on the way, a scooter cut through a gap and the pillion went head first into a mirror and probably lost half his face.
This is pretty much the usual story in Cambodia, unfortunately. Last time I powder-coated some parts at a different place, a quote of a week stretched into three months and half the parts weren't done properly.
I have a plan B which is having my regular guy do a paint job. I'd rather powder-coat but that's the way it goes.
So, we'll see how things go tomorrow.

 

[mikedefieslife]

If it's metal bits you could spary them yourself to save some cash. Not as good as powder coating but build it up in layers and get a good quality lacquer and you're set. I've used Tough Black in the past and it seems to be pretty decent.

The good thing about spraying, is that you can easily touch it up anytime.

 

[jtw000]

You can't get anything like tough black out here. You can get cheap acrylic and that's about it. I use a guy, he can get it painted. I've seen his work and it's good enough for me. I would have rather had powder-coating but that's life.

 

[jtw000]

Minor update. I loaded up the parts to take to the painter. I would have preferred powder-coating but that's life. I stuck the parts onto my little runaround scooter. I wouldn't get away with this in England but here, anything goes. A mate, Kingsley and Mrs Jack loaded up the rest in backpacks and we headed out.

Another small update. We don't use toilet paper here, instead we have a bum-gun which fires pressurised water up your arse. It's ideally suited to clean up the greasy, filthy, dirt-clad parts. Most of it is coming up nice, the Wilburs shock looks like new again.

Not really an update but one more thing to show. My dad is an engineer and made me up some new switch-gear pods. Here's one, they take two switches each. The bottom ones will take a double throw latching IP67 waterproof switch which will be the indicators and the top ones will take the horn and the full-beam button. The rest of the buttons, the ignition and lights on/off will be tucked away somewhere else. They're solid machined alloy and look much nicer in real life.

 

[jtw000]

I got the frame and parts back today. Not perfect and certainly not as good as powder-coating. Still, I couldn't scratch the paint off. I'll let it sure for a few days before I play with it, plenty of things to do before then anyway, there's a lot of cleaning to do.
Here's pics. It's all matt black, the clutch and water-pump cover are done and a pretty good match to the rest of the engine. They were badly worn but have come up like new now. Also is the frame, front support and rear subframe.

 

[mikedefieslife]

Those casings look good.

 

[jtw000]

It's a pretty good job. I'm not good with a camera so the pics are a little deceiving but when I put the casings on the bike, they matched pretty closely. The water pump casing was very bad, it had all peeled off, the clutch housing was just rubbed against my boot. I'll have to put a shield there to stop that happening because I seriously doubt this finish is going to be as durable as original. Having said that, this guy has done a lot of bikes, including one I own and the paint is excellent on all of them. Fingers crossed.

 

[GB.]

Im interested in how you have mounted the two fuel canisters on the side of the engine??

 

[jtw000]

I can't remember exactly how I did it. Frankly, it was slightly in the way, it wasn't an ideal setup which was why I changed it. It was a Touratech rack I modified and I built a very simple bracket which (I think) came off the regulator mount and bent round the front and mounted under the radiator so the weight was distributed properly. I know it wasn't hard to do.

 

[Mav]

Really cool to see an x-country being put to such good use and having it's life extended. Most of us would've convinced ourselves we needed to buy something 'better' even though it rarely is!

Keep us updated

 

[jtw000]

Ummmmm.... Well I also have a Honda XR400 for the dirt (way better), a recently acquired 1250 Bandit for the road (way, way better) a Honda Grom MSX125 for the town (interesting), 15 Suzuki Steps and I'm in negotiations for a CB750. I have a weakness for bikes.
To be honest, since I got to Thailand the BMW has been nothing but trouble. My exs brother tried to steal it after nearly shooting himself in face while drunk, then the government advised me an overstay was perfectly fine without bothering to tell me (after repeated requests) that more than 6 months meant a prison sentence (that was when I finally left). I couldn't source a battery easily so have cut away the airbox and fitted a larger one, the HIDs blew up and took half the loom with them then the other half of the loom went when my mate borrowed her.
With all of that my experience tells me she's not really the bike for me. If I was facing rough roads I'd probably go for a Honda XR650 next time, more power, lighter, easier to work on, cheaper and if just an adventure I'd go for a litre class bike with knobbly tyres (I'm projecting the Bandit, adding Strom legs and making her a tracker.)
But... The BMW is my bike. She's been amazing, with everything the world has thrown at her, she still manages to keep going. There are bikes that are better but any bike is a compromise and they are what you make them. Bella has been very good to me so it's my turn now to be good to her and repay her for all she's done so this is it. A friend of mine is suggesting a RTW in a few years. If I do it (strongly leaning that way) then I'll be taking Bella. There's no question. She's the best bike in the whole world as far as I'm concerned.

 

[coyotedave]

This is a great thread, Keep it going as much as you can. It's got a REAL life adventure feel to it.

Good look with sorting the bike out with limited parts supply. These are great bikes, A do it all bike.


Cheers Dave.

 

[jtw000]

Sorry for the long delay between posts. I had issues with the bike to resolve which now seem to be sorted. (Fingers crossed). I was aiming to start putting her back together over the weekend but sadly something came up. I'll be putting her back together over this week so long as nothing else goes wrong.