So I got home from the CABDR, took a little time to reflect in THE RECAP, and now it’s time to fix what I broke. Luckily, and amazingly it’s not much.
The first thing I did was take the bike down to the local car wash and give it a good spray.
MOSKO MOTO
I contacted Mosko Moto about the torn strap on my Reckless 80’s. They wanted to see a pic of the damage. It’s right on the seam and I knew it’s an easy fix. I told them it wasn’t their fault, all mine. I explained that I was running with no side bags, just the 20 liter top bag when I hit the barbed wire fence.
They saw the pics and they send “Ship it and we’ll fix it!“. They only wanted the part that broke with everything removed so I stripped it down to bare minimum and shipped it off. BEST COMPANY EVER!!!! READ THE UPDATE at https://aufroad.com/updates-on-mosko-moto/
MOTOMINDED
Next up, was returning my borrowed Motominded Headlight. I had asked Scott what size shirt he was and snuck a Local 1230 t-shirt into box as a thank you. Thanks again Scott!
The headlight was perfect and although I didn’t need it, I’m glad I had it. There was just one problem with it (due to my setup) and that is that the main high beam was mostly blocked by my fender bag. You can see here with the low beam on, how the high beam (lower quad set of lights) would be blocked.
It’s only a couple of inches and you can see where there’s maybe a couple of inches in space between the light and the headlight mask or fairing. In theory, if everything could be moved up just a bit, that would fix it. Heck you could even go up higher than that.
So I reached out to Chris a MotoMinded. He was kind enough back when I wanted to order the light set to point out that with an 8 week delivery time, I’d be pressing it to get it in time before LAB2V, which led me to find Scott and borrow his. I also knew he was moving so I waited until after the new year to ask. My bike is an older model and I know a little about manufacturing and supply and demand, so I wasn’t surprised when I got the reply.
Yeah, it’s not the reply I wanted. I still like the product, I just need to make it work for me. So now I’m looking at building out my own brackets. Either that or mount a couple of Ruby R4s up near my bars kind of like this. It’s really just the high beams I’m looking for. The Ruby option will give me even more lumens than the Baja Designs combo Motominded is using.
One of the things I really liked about the Motominded setup was the increased space behind the headlight mask for that ugly nest of wires. So if I go back to the stock headlight, I’m going to still be fighting that wiring issue. Hmmmmm.
TACO MOTO GRAPHICS
I believe I was the first one to use Taco Moto for graphics for their 690 Enduro. I might be the only one. Elisabeth was wonderful as we went through the process. It was only when I was actually putting on the decals that any of us realized that we were missing a piece and so they scrambled to figure it out – shipping the missing piece to me after I had left for LAB2V.
I wasn’t too worried as the Mosko Moto Rackless 80’s pretty much covered the blank area anyways.
When I arrived home, there was the missing piece.
I put the decals on using the wet method. That’s where you use a solution of water and isopropyl alcohol (and a couple of drops of dish soap) and then heat gun and squeegee the sticker in place. With the heat gun you can really stretch the vinyl if need be.
There’s a lot of fudging that needs to happen to make things line up. I got the bottom pretty good.
But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get this one section up higher towards the rear to line up any better than this.
But then again I have to keep reminding myself, it’s a dirt bike and not a custom. I’m going to drop it, scratch it, abuse it and more. I’m also going to have my bags on it most of the time too.
THE OIL LEAK
The one and only problem I needed to fix when I got home was a small oil leak that appeared to be coming from the lower left side. Counter shaft seal right? So I cleaned up the area really well. I ran the bike and it’s definitely not my counter shaft seal. Although my camera chose to focus more on my Hammerhead shifter, you can see it’s clean and dry up under the sprocket.
Moving the phone just a little more towards the front and looking up, I can see right where the leak is coming from.
That black and white module thingy is the gear position sensor. It’s function is to detect what gear you are in. I have a gear indicator on my dash that I never use. The really cool thing – it’s an o-ring that costs less than a buck!
WHAT NEXT?
I think down the road I’m going to redo all the bearings in the rear – shock, swingarm and pivots. I also want to look at and beef up the tank mounting bolts that failed – I’ll do that at the same time. I’d like to replace the fuel pump too. That’ll be a Taco Moto. Here’s why.
I mentioned I’m switching to a regular style of GPS and moving away from my iPad running Gaia Maps. To do so I would also like to mount it above the speedo but still slightly behind the windshield. There’s just enough room to do so, but the trick is going to be the mount. I’m looking at something bar mounted that would clamp on to my bars right near my top clamp. I’m running Highway Dirt Bike protectors that replace the stock top clamp. Adventure Spec and a few others make something that might work – like this but without the white fairing. I’ll have to see.
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, had a big cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and is currently building a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
- PRE LAB2V Prep - November 11, 2024
- The NORCAL BDR (part 3) - October 29, 2024
- The NORCAL BDR (part 2) - October 21, 2024