625sxc, A story of two tails.

Rightio then, have decided to call the new toy two tails. 'Cause everytime I ride it I'm as happy as a dog with two tails.
The story so far. $8500 aud for a 2005 625sxc with 1400 klms and a Rallye tank. Part no 5850701304444. 25ltrs or there abouts. Everything clean, still on original tyres. Seems like the guy I bought it from had the same idea as me but started to build a new house, ran outta time yadda yadda. His loss and my definite gain.
The plan is to turn it into a long trip bike. I already have a 300exc so don't need another full on dirt weapon. Two tails is fairly stock. Came with the flimsy black KTM handguards and fitted with the Mikuni fuel pump for the large tank. Nice touch that fuel pump. Makes all the tank useable. Dunno about the hand guards, jury is out on those. They may be replaced by some barkbuster ergo's soon.... Nothing sucks more than broken levers in the middle of no where.

This site is just the best. Seriously. I had so many questions and didn't know what to buy. It's all here. And people are all so happy to help. So I thought I would document what I do to prep my bike in the hope that I can pay some of the goodness back... I hope!!
I have a two day ride with friends this weekend so am looking forward to the initial shake down. We leave Friday lunch time.
What's happened so far??
Ordered a bash plate/skid plate from B and B Aluminium products.
http://www.bbaluminium.com/
$168 aud plus $13 freight. They promised it'd be here before thursday, I'm starting to sweat on it. We'll see.
Spoke to the people at Shock treatment about some springs.
http://www.shocktreatment.com.au/index.html
I thought long and hard about this one. I see that others on this site prefer 80/260 rears and .50 fronts for big units on the 640 adventure. Now I'm a big unit at 98kg with my birthday suit on. I run .44's in my 300exc. But my mate has an adventure and he's weighed all the adventure stuff when he stripped the bike once. Result 13 kilo's. That's right... 13 kilo's of bling. So I went for .48 fronts and 75/260 rears. Now the 75/260 they had in stock but the .48's for the 43mm front end are about two weeks away. So I'll wait and put them both in at the same time. I'm a firm believer that suspension has to be balenced. If it's too stiff, fine. Just make sure it's equally too stiff or too soft at both ends or one end will make the other tie it's self in knots. With predictable results...... Don't ask me how I know. They don't call me fat boy crash for 'nuthin.....
Managed to get a Adventure seat from the local KTM dealer.
www.teammoto.com.au
$212 aud. The original seat does fit the rallye tank after a fashion, but looks ugly, doesn't really fit and if I had to sit on that thing for 4 hours at a time I'd be buying preperation H in 20 litre drums....
Spoke to Lee from Offroad enhancements.
http://www.offroadenhancements.com/main/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_main
Ordered a JD jetting kit for the 41mm FCR that we are lucky enough to get on this bike in Oz. Plus a hand adjustable fuel screw and some force radiator guards
http://www.forceaccessories.com.au/Page/RadiatorGuards.htm
Total cost $284.56 aud. The JD jetting kit arrived this morning. Overnight delivery. Outstanding. The rad guards should turn up before thursday.... we'll see... I don't want to fit the big tank before the rad guards as I'd only have to do it twice... I have the force guards on my 300 and they are exceptional. Like a combination brace AND stick/stone guard. Very well made.
Tonight I fitted the JD jet kit and used my hole saw to cut some holes in the top of the airbox. That sucker is SMALL!!! No way it could deliver enough air... I refuse to pay $100 aud for the KTM side screen. What a joke. We get so ripped with KTM parts in Oz. I also uncorked the exhaust as per this thread.
Bugger, I can't find it!!! Anyone want to chip in?? Basically you take the end cap off, cut out the 25mm end cap tube and put her all back together. Easy as. Except that KTM use the worlds HARDEST material for the rivets in the end can. Amazing. Cheap mod, not too loud and def. breathes better.
My initial 'round the block seat of pants impression is much crisper. A little stumble if you whack the throttle WFO from low revs but I expect that and ran out of time tonight to play with it any further. Stay tuned. At least it sounds like a bike now and not granma's farts.
To do before weekend..
Fit rad. guards, seat and large tank.
Adjust and lube chain.
Flush and change brake fluids to good 5.1
Clean airfilter and fit filter skin
Change lube oil and filters
Change coolant
Valve clearance check.
Buy spare sparks and some neoprene fork seal wiper thingme's
Check all nuts and bolts.
If the rad guards turn up tomorrow I'll do the above and post pics.
Stay tuned. I have to fit those springs when they arrive, grease head stem bearings and swingarm bearings and work out how to swap my bar raisers and steering damper from my 300exc to this bike so that it's a painless swap dependant on what bike I'll be riding.
Regards
FatBoy

Can you post how you go with the bar riser / damper swap, as I am buying a 300exc soon and want to know if the damper / riser set up can swap straight over. I thing I might be fooked though as the ADV has rubber mounted bars ( and risers and damper) where the 300 doesn't AFAIK.

Gudday!!
Dunno about that new barkbuster..... but the ergo's are def. on the agenda.

I contemplated the Adventure bash plate, but it retails for over $300 aud compared to $102 USD... Go figure. By the time I got one from stateside (which I do quite often for my other Kato) it was approaching the $200 aud mark so the locally made B and B was the winner. I've used BandB before and they make a great product so I have no concerns there.

As for the adventure seat, if it's too soft or needs to be made taller (which they often do for me as I'm over 6 foot) I've been very lucky and found a excellent guy who specialises in m/c seats.
http://www.twowheeltrimming.com.au/index.html
I've used him before and he does good work on time at a reasonable cost.

I just like the idea of radiator guards, maybe I'm a belt and braces kinda guy... ??? Yes the big tank does give good protection but my mate Rob managed to Banana a rad just recently on his Adventure. We are still mystified as to how it happened but the thing is bent! Weird! As for the the support bracket, you guessed it, it retails for OVER $340 Aud here... For a scrappy bit of mild steel bracket.. Grrrrr
I do like the idea of support in that area so I'm going to copy the horizontal lower bar support and mounts. You don't need the upper part of the bracket (bracket part no. as per diagram , 25) unlesss you need to mount the Adventure fairing and lights etc. But I have ordered parts 26, 2 and 5 (x2) to make up the mounts. Only about $25 aud total, but a 3 week back order from KTM Austria. Stay tuned and I'll post some pics when I fabricate.

Yeah... Kato chains. I'd like a dollar for everytime some one has said "mate, gee ya chains loose..."

I think youre in for an expensive shock with the steering damper situation on the Adventure. The rubber mounting almost dictates that you need a different top clamp. The 625sxc has standard hard mount Katoom top clamp. MSC (top aussie product) http://www.mscproducts.com.au/
quoted me $1150 for a damper, top clamp and under bar mount. Expensive but I've seen them. No one makes a better product. Plus there support is exceptional. I'm biased 'though, 'cause I'll always go the local Ausssie product if I can. If I had the money I'd go this way for the 625, but financially swapping the damper from the 300 when I need it makes more sense just now..... donations happily accepted
My force radiator guards turned up this 'arvo... I'll fit them and take pics.
Stay tuned, keep ya bum pointed down....
FatBoy

.

I would be very interested in how this turns out, im looking for a good 2nd hand 625 as well.. but it seems I might be buying new the rate its going.

Those Force Rad guards look very good, as does the b&b bash plate, I was going to make my own (or more accuratley have my super welder friend make one.. if he can weld sub skins and nuclear reactors, im sure he can weld me some dam fine bash plates :)) But at the B&B price, it might just be easier (for him ) for me to get the B&B ones.

The MSC dampers are on my shopping list as well.. but they drop off the bottom if i have to buy new

Real interested in what you are doing , and like it so far :)

PS if you get those force guards from http://www.offroadenhancements.com/main/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_category&CategoryID=17 you dont pay shipping.. and only pay $1 more for the actual guard. Might be what I do.

Gudday!
New update to come very soon. I've had my first two day ride and have done some more mods.
Yup, offroadenhancements is the way to go. Delivers on time and seems to be a nice bloke to deal with. Now if only the rest of the Aussie M/C retailers would follow suit....

Rightio then,
It's Sunday, I've just been for a two day ride with 3 mates and covered almost 800k's 90% dirt. Some fast open roads and some goat tracks. Two tails is a winner.
The suspension is WAY too soft. I cast an eye over my mates Adventure and it runs a 70/260 rear spring stock. What was KTM thinking putting a 63/260 on stock? Dunno. The new springs (.48 fronts and 75/260 rears) are on order and should be here in a week or so.
The motor is a gem. Yes they vibrate. Live with it. You get used to it anyway. After riding my 300exc the LC4 vibes are negligable. I'm running 17/48 gearing and whilst this is fine, I feel that the 16/48 would be better when the going gets a bit technical. I opened her up on one section and saw 145kph and still accelerating hard. I just don't need to go that fast but would appreciate lower gearing on snotty uphills.
The adventure seat is a winner. If anything a little too soft. I will get two wheel trimming to add some height to it 'though. Just to make the transition from sitting to standing easier. The 'bars need to be raised as well. I'm a good 6'1' and find most dirt bikes built for those with ducks disease anyway.
Does it need a steering damper? Dunno, probably not. I could live with out it but will fit one anyway, just for that one time when an unseen &*(kn thing gives you a tank slapper. Plus I'm thinking it will be a different story when the stiffer springs are in. She's like a large recliner chair at the moment. All good for nice flat roads but not so hot for gnarly sections.

So, it's Thursday night and I've got some work to do.....

My bash plate from B and B didn't turn up on time. I've been billed for it so I'm guessing the couriers dropped the ball. Grrrrr. Radiator guards did so they need to be fitted. My list of to do is:
Valve clearance
Oil and filter change
Air filter clean
Filter skin fit
Chain adjust
Change plugs
Fit radiator guards
Fit tank and seat
Blled front brakes with 5.1 fluid.
General once over.
Here's the radiator guards

And here thay are fitted.


These are a great product, fit well and will def. protect the radiators well. A new task will be to fit some cheapy 12volt computer fans in there behind the radiators. Just to be safe, keep it cool when doing 1st gearly uphills. I'll "find" some "surplus" ones at work...
Whilst I had the tank and bits off, I thought I'd check the steering head bearings. Grease must be VERY expensive in Austria. Sure 'aint a lot of love in here...


So out with the belray waterproof grease and get dirty. The belray grease is the best thing I've found for this application. Dunno what's in it but it sure lasts good.. baby seal smegma??
Then on with the fork seal wipers. I use cheap ones. $15 bucks as I find they only last about 6 months at best. Sure beats replacing fork seals or a blown brake side seal leaking on your disc in the middle of nowhere. I can live with the stiction..

Here's a tip I picked up from somewhere, dunno where. Fit your lever's with a few wraps of plumbers PFTE tape aound the bars. Helps prevent broken levers as they'll rotate out of the way most of the time, you can adjust the position out on the ride without tools and still do up the bolts to full spec.

Safety tie the grips. Just do it. Nothing will shit you more than your grips rotating on a ride. Especially throttle.

Next the tank went on. Fits well, don't forget to check that all your hoses have clamps. Some of mine didn't. I could just imagine the joy of finding a loose hose mid ride... even cable ties will do. I had to be careful with the transfer hose (hose that goes from one side of tank to the other) as it's easy to have it too close to the exhaust. The sides of the tank just rubbed the radiator guards, so I temporarily put some old inner tube rubber between the gurds and inner tank sides. My thoughts are that when my brackets turn up from Austria the cross brace will alleviate this. So yes, a cross brace is necessary with the larger rallye tank on the 625. That should help a few out. I'm going to manufacture one, the stock one is overpriced.
Here she is..

Next the seat. The mounting is slightly different to stock, which is a bummer as the stock one has a lovely quick release dzu fastner. The Adventure seat requires a bolt from the underneath, ala EXC bikes.
Looks good 'though and goes from being one of the hardest to one of the softest seats I've parked my butt on.
So here she is...

All that's left to do was fit the clean airfilter with a filter skin, bleed the front brakes with Motul 5.1 and go ride. I find filter skins to be great for longer rides. You can pull up at the end of the day, pull the skin off and jobs done. Clean filter for the next day. Two tails sure did appreciate it on Friday night as she was idling a bit slow and rough with a clogged filter. It's as dry as a dead dogs donga here in SE Qld right now and HOT as a bastard. Soon as I pulled the skin she was happy to idle again. My mate on his adventure with the BST40 had no dramas but I expect the FCR41 to be a bit more touchy. That's what you get I guess for having a "performance" carb.
All the KTM's I've ever owned (four so far) have had mushy brakes until bled with a decent fluid. Changing front brake fluid every six months or so should be a must anyway. I suspect the brake line going up in a loop above the Master cylinder as the air hiding culprit, but that's just a guess. Bleeding nearly always gets some bubbles and improves anyway.
That's all for now. When the bash guard turns up I'll fit it and post.
Oh, and my rear MT21 is F%$#*&d.... I'll get a newy soon and fit some heavy duty tubes while at it. I had a long discussion about tyres with friends and have read a heap of tyre threads on this forum. Its all so confusing... D606's or D908's or MT21's or what???? Dunno...
FatBoy

Gudday,
Well I received my B and B bash guard on Monday. Very nice. The welds are a work of art and impressions are that the thing will be bullet proof. All good if someone is shooting at you I guess... Nah, seriously it appears that it'll be a good addition. Covers the oil filter well and protects the underbelly but still has access holes for the oil plugs. Filter removal will ned the plate to be removed but once fitted that's only 4 bolts.


Underneath



The fitting was a little fiddly and requires that you remove two engine mount bolts. No biggy, just fiddly.

Here's a tip I picked up from the road race boys. Last thing you need is that oil filter abandoning ship

One of the rear brackets needed a little adjustment to make the fit snug up hard against the frame rails but I'm happy with the end result.


Use loctite on the mounting bolts and all should be good.
I'm just waiting for the new springs to arrive. I ordered the bits to remove the secondary air system (SAS) and in total that should be only about $84 aus. I wasn't going to remove it, but on the weekend my mates ALL commented on how loud the bike was, popping and farting when the throttle was shut. Funny how the brain works, wasn't a problem before but is now! As far as I can see, all the thing does is use manifold vacuum to open a valve and inject air into the exhaust to help with epa stuff.
Stay tuned for a later update!

excellent

Good work!

Thanks Dave,
More to come...
FatBoy

still from me :)

2 questions,

1st one, did you put some old tube bits over the bash plate mounting brackets? reduce metal/metal rub and maybe some vibration/noises?

2nd question, can you please explain what you have done with the oil filter? how is that wire attached to the bolt? Have you just got the wire under the case bolt and screwed it down holding it? Can't work out what your doing there, or exactly why?

3rd question.. oh wait. No.. Yep there is a 3rd, the bash plate, you said its fiddly to fit, and needs to be removed for the filter (obviously) and you had to take out 2 engine mount bolts.. so im guessing each filter change, this needs to happen, 4 bolts for the bash plate and the 2 engine mount bolts??

brilliant info so far.. looks like I will be following this here to a tee!!

The more pics the merrier!!

Nice mods fbc , that tank sure is large , be intersted to see how many klm's you get out of it. I seen one of these down at our local bike shop and old mate had 195klm per hr on the top speed recall part of the speedo.:eek1

Not to rag, but being an aircraft mechanic....


that safety is NO GOOD. If youd like that to hold, you need to get a drilled bolt and safety to that. Another option is to safety it to the frame. But, as it is, thats going to do you no good.

Nice work otherwise.

Gudday!
Nah, no rubber over the frame mounts but is a bloody good idea! Next oil change I intended to run some rubber olong where the frame rails touch the actual plate itself so I'll do that as well. As you prob. know these guards do tend to reflect any mechanical noise making the engine "appear" noisy.

With the oil filter, all I've done is put a hose clamp around the filter and then used some safety wire to tie the hose clamp to a fixed point.. To try and prevent the oil filter becoming undone under vibration or anything. I simply drilled a small hole in the head of a nearby bolt ran the wire through. The idea is that you never have to cut the wire, just undo the hose clamp and slip it off when you need to change the filter. Slip it back on and tighten (not too much as you can crush the filter) when the new filter is in place? Does that make sense? I'm always in trouble with the Missus because I can't explain things!

With the bash guard plate thing, the engine mounts only have to be undone at initial mounting to fit the front bracket. After that it's just 4 simple bolts and the bracket stays in situ. Crikey, having to undo the engine mount bolts everytime would be a pain! Someone has really thought about this guard and it shows. I run B and B on my other Kato, not only for a bash guard but also for a engine case protector and they are top stuff. I'll see if I can take some pics to show.. hang on...

This is the bracket that you have to mount on the engine mounts..


And so from then on you only have to undo these two bolts at the front, leaving the bracket in place permanent like... And two more exactly the same underneath.



Hope that helps.
FatBoy

Bloody Hell!! There had to be a proffesional around didn't there!!
I used to have a neighbour that was a licensed aircraft maintenance engineer. He was a monumental pain in the arse to work on stuff with as he was so pedantic but there was NONE better. If I ever had to have something super difficult to sort out I'd ring him.
That bolt was drilled, and the wire threaded through. Was there something I should've done differently? Seriously? All help appreciated. I've moved the fixed point attachment to the bash plate bracket now, have a look in the new pic and let me know if that'll be okay.
I once saw my neighbour safety wire a prop hub with 8 bolts. Sheer work of art...... I miss him but the bastard has gone and moved to singapore looking after some rich bastards business jet for stupid money...
Regards
Fatboy

Gudday,
Mate, I don't doubt it! Especially if it was running the stock 40 tooth rear sprocket. I saw 145kph on the weekend and she was still pullin' hard. That's with a 48 tooth rear and 17 front. Hence I'm gunna drop to 16 front as I don't need to go that fast in the dirt.
The motor is a real sleeper. Happy to grunt around in the lower revs but with a good top end that I haven't needed to find the end of yet...
As for the Tank, I got 500klm's out of it on the weekend without hitting reserve. But reserve must be very close!!
The funny thing was that my mate that rode with me on his 640 adventure DID hit reserve just at the very end of the ride. Which strikes me as weird as his bike has the BST40 which you'd think would use less fuel than the FCR..... ????

Hope you didn't take any offense friend, was just trying to be helpful. The new location looks just fine.

BTW, thanks for posting this. My good friend picked up an SXC last summer and has been kinda working on it. Ill be sure to pass along your work to him.

No offense taken! I honestly appreciate your input. The more the merrier.
Regards
FatBoy

I just found out that the all but two of the bits I ordered fro my SAS removal are on "back order" from Austria. And we all know what that means.... .... Especially in Australia. There is a bodge temporary way to do it, which I'm contemplating. Just means removing most of the stuff and blockin the inlet tube temporarily. Stay tuned. Will try and pick up a 14o section MT21 and some HDD tubes today..
FatBoy

Lookin good! That's gunna be a very well set up bike when you're done. One must do on the LC4 that you haven't mentioned (it may have been done) is to get a proper chain guide, a Husaberg one bolts on, see yer KTM dealer.

's funny that getting KTM stuff from Austria is a problem in Oz, over here they're bloody good, 3 weeks & it's usually here, 5 max.

Cheers
Clint