The Custardline

I think I've finally finished farkalling the F8
The lastest effort was to fit the TT supertank and get rid of the low front guard so I don't have a repition of this......

I do have to say that the problem was not as bad as on the Boxer GS



Anyway, thanks to WW Ronin and others on this forum, who did all the design work for me, I fabbed a bracket out of a plastic chopping board and mounted an aftermarket KTM fender to the beast.




The blanking plate at the front of the tank nose, where the beak usually bolts on was cut from a piece of ally sheet.
What do you think? I recon it looks OK.
The fork guards are braced from behind with a bit of light galv. sheet and fixed to the fork legs with a single screw.
A local brake bloke fabricated the dual brake lines, which come down from stacked banjos at the ABS block.
So here is the finished job.

Very nice. That tank looks fantastic. The paint blends it right in and really hides its size. Goes good with the Ohlins decal too. I also like that side shot with the orange rear sprocket (Supersprox?).

Thanks Dan and thanks for the inspiration, it made my work very easy.
Yep, it's a Supersprox, came with the Woody 18" rear

great looking bike! how do you like the ohlins?

Awesome looking 800!

I'm jealous. When I had Woody make my wheels, I stayed with the 17" rear which was a mistake as I am primarily interested in dirt. Oh well. Maybe I'll have him make me a 18" rear that I can use for dirt then switch my 17" to a more road biased tire. I wonder if I can switch out the 17" to 18" and back with the same length chain? I guess it would also depend on if I changed the size of the rear sprocket. Someone must have tried this. I guess I'll ask Woody if I ever get around to it.

I'm about to. An 18 inch Woody wheel being built now, with a 45 tooth rear and the stock size chain. I did order a 15 tooth front sprocket too though. I'm a bit worried about the tire hitting my mud gaurd thing because the chain will be pretty short.

Dan, I have the stock 16/42 with the 2.5" x 18 and it's fine. I do a fair bit of gnarly stuff and honestly can't tell the difference in gearing. The narrow tyre (130) is a hoot as it allows a lot more throttle steering, at the expense of shorter tire life I fear.
I can't really qualify that, however, as I changed brands of tyre at the same time.
I think if I was doing it again I would opt for 3.5 x 18.

A couple of other details for anyone planning to do the same.
I had a lot of trouble trying to source spacers. They seem to be unobtainium (at least in Oz)
So I made my own, bought a length of 20mm aluminium rod, cut into desired length, drill a hole down the middle with a hand held drill. I doesn't matter if you are not completely accurate, it's not a bush, it's a spacer.
The spacers you see in the photos above, between the guard and the cutting board are ~15mm.
There is also one with an 8mm bolt through it that goes right up through the horn bracket and has a nut on the top of it to hold the horn on. This one is about 20mm long.
Then there are 2 about 10mm long between the cutting board and the original plastic doofus.
See WW Ronin's thread for more details.
I am attempting to avoid cutting into the main fuel tank.
To that end, instead of running fuel lines from the TT tank to the bottom of the main tank I have run a line from the TT tank to the vent on the main tank in the hope that as the fuel in the main tank is used it will suck fuel from the TT tank.
When I get home from this swing I will test this idea.
Stay tuned

Usually when people do these big mods I think they look fugly but yours looks good

Looks good!

Now that is one sweet looking 800, very well done

After chucking it down the road in outback Queensland, I was left with a rather second hand looking F800GS.
However, with the help of the insurance & Touratech the Custardline lives to fight another day.
This time the tank came ready painted, so, although I liked the Sunset Yellow remember what a PITA it was to paint last time and decided to leave it as is, at least for the moment.

looking smart!

Love it! great job )

What happened? - You needed a new tank - seems you had a bigger spill. I thought those tanks were indestructible. Did you come out alright?

take care

petzi-baer

Dude
What happened? I hope you didn't get injured.
The bike still looks great.

Thanks Dan & Petzi, it's a long story but the short version is, I binned it on a shitty piece of track in outback Queensland.
The tank was cracked open where it hit the road.
Touratech replaced the tank, saying that they felt it was a manufacturing fault and had not seen such a thing before.
The bike also needed a new subframe and a few other bits, which were replaced under insurance.
I managed to slice my left leg open with the bigfoot on the sidestand. It was not a pretty sight but I won't post pictures here, it may cause distress.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service flew me out from the medical centre at the remote Aboriginal community where they initially stabilized me.
I spent 6 days in Cairns hospital, then flew home.
The bike came home on a truck.
I go back to work tomorrow after 3 months recovery.
Its all good.

Sorry to hear that. I'm glad it all worked out.
I've got a few decades of medical experience and carry a decent medical kit but there's only so much you can do. I also ride a lot solo out in the sticks and that's one reason I just got my ARRL license. I now have a decent hand held HAM radio and this should give me communication to emergency services when I'm out of cell range.

Sorry to hear about the accident Mike! Bike looks good again, welcome back to riding.

I'll be sure to think carefully about what sidestand foot plates I feel comfortable with. You are not the first person I hear of that this happened to! :eek1

how about some pics in Faceplant?

No don't want to seem like an asshat and will say the same thing as every other human being: glad you're ok, and good you had some good insurance!

I'm impressed by the Touratech behavior. Really nice to hear that these guys are serious about the stuff they make.

Hope going to work won't be to difficult after 3 month of "vacancy" )

ride safe!