HP2 Bashplate Mod.

As everyone knows, the weakest point of the HP2 and in fact the entire 1200 GS range is the bashplate, mounting it directly to the sump was a bit of a brain fart, what usually happens is that the bolts break off and in more extreme cases they break a part of the sump out.
This mod is extremely cheap and EXTREMELY effective, I know exactly how it works on the HP but haven’t done it to a normal GS, I believe the HP2 has a different mounting bracket in the front.

Right, to start.

You will need.
Rubber approx the size of an A4 sheet of paper 10mm thick
A spring with hooks on both ends appox. 100mm long.

Remove the bashplate completely, I found it easiest to let the bike lie on it’s side.



Then get your hands on some rubber, preferably not too hard or too soft and approximately 10mm thick. I couldn’t find something like that but rummaging though my old mans garage I did get my hands on 3mm thick rubber so I used 3 pieces.



Use a piece of A4 paper and mark the size you need, it should fill the area till where the bashplate bends up.



The green circle marks where you have to punch a hole for the ONE bolt you are going to use to re-attach the bashplate, the red circle shows where you have to drill a hole for the spring.


(I went a bit big you can use a thinner drill bit)

Put the rubber in between the bashplate and the sump, and use only the “left front”(when sitting on top of the bike) bolt (marked in green) to bolt on. Make sure you screw it on nice and tight. Put the other 3 bolts in a safe place.


Attach the one end of the spring to the bolt where that little wire that’s supposed to keep sticks out of your brake lever is supposed to be(my bike has never had one)



Using a pair of pliers pull the spring down and hook the other end onto your bashplate.



Wiggle the bashplate around a bit until it sits staright.

The end result should look something like this





I generally don’t hit the bashplate when I ride but this just gives me a bit more confidence when riding big rocks. The idea is that now if you do hit a big rock the shock will be transferred equally over the entire sump and not only through one or two bolts. I’m not saying this makes your bashplate indestructible, but it will handle normal to big-ish hits better.

Use it, don’t use it.

H

Nice to see someone trying different things, but

with the rubber between the guard and the sump aren't you restricting the guards ability to locally bend and absorb an impact?

and is the airflow now restricted, for cooling? has it had any noticable effect on running temperature?

I wasn't happy with the standard sump guard's mountings, but went for the easy option of buying a TT guard (mounts to the frame).

Hope your mod proves to be effective

Spout

Our Hp's here in South Africa tend to run slightly hotter than you guys on the muddy island, that said, no-one in a group of 20 HP's in the Namibian dessert, riding in THICK sand had ANY overheating problems, of the 20 bikes probably 18 had done this conversion.

As for restricting the gaurds ability to absorb impact, i've never seen the "fins" in the sump bend, just smashed, so i don't trust them to begin with, this mod spreads the impact, and trust me, we've seen some big hits on modified sumps and they take it better than the standard.(can't speak for the TT one as it is almost impossible to get TT parts here.)

H