MODIFICATIONS: Tank Bag

About 4 months ago I loaded up all the spare bits and pieces I had accumulated and went to a local moto swap meet hoping to rid myself of some shed clutter. I came out of it with a nice set of 24" tire irons and one of THE BEST MODIFICATIONS I HAVE MADE TO MY BIKE!

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I was packing up an old set of WP forks from a 560 I had got in a trade (I'm the sucker) and a guy I had been talking with for a while offered me this old KTM Equiptment tank bag off a 990 adventure minus the zippered attachment points for the forks straight up. I said hell yes and it was on.

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I bought 6 feet of 1" Nylon Webbing from ACE, some heavy duty nylon thread and got to sewing.

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Needle drivers are a great investment if you are planning on sewing nylon. This stuff is TOUGH! These tools can be found at most surgical supply places, but are more commonly found where any fishing gear is sold. The surgical quality ones are better, but anything to give you a good grasp on the needle as you punch it through three layers of thick nylon.

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Essentially I just folded the webbing in half and sewed around the existing zipper attachments. I left four straps coming off at four attachment points a the front and back corners. I then put on some ABS strap clips from ACE on the four straps.

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I used 18" velcro 1" straps that I could easily take off the bike if need be to clip into the bag. This allows for quick access to fuel up just by undoing the clips and not the whole strap set up.

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It does limit forward movement on the seat a little bit, and standing is not as comfortable, but I gladly sacrifice that for carrying 3 liters of fuel, a map holder, a tool roll, an emergency rain suit, and my cable lock.

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This bag has opened up a whole new group of roads to me with the extra fuel I can carry. It also sits center mass over the tank so I don't notice the weight as much as I did with saddle bags.

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COSTS:

KTM Equipment Bag -$Free although it does resemble this FAMSA bag

Nylon Webbing 6' 1": $1 a foot x 6 from ACE = $6

Strap Clips: $1.49 x 4 from ACE = $6

18" Velcro 1" loops from ACE $3.99 x 4 = $16

Total: $28

MODIFICATION: FORK SWAP STEP 5: STEERING STOPS

The part of the fork swap that is the least "plug & play" is making it so that the triple tree bolts do not piece the gas tank in the event of a "tank slapper." Usedtobefast solved this problem in a pretty sleek way by tapping to the original triple tree stops and installing bolts that would contact a welded on tab to the ATK frame before the triples contacted the tank.

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I bought some bolts and went to my local art welder with pics of usedtobefast's swap hoping to recreate the same thing. After looking at the stock 490 frame steering stop steel bar welded under the downtube, we mocked up a couple of stainless ball bearings, thereby extending the stock stops ~1 cm.

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Since they were round, they wouldn't ding the cast aluminum triple tress either. You can see there is plenty of room left between the triples and the tank. Left side:

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Right side:

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COST: $25 to the welder for at least 1.5 hours of his time

MODIFICATION: FORK SWAP: STEP 3: ASSEMBLY

This went fairly smoothly, except that I wish I had 3 hands or a shop monkey to hold things in place while I grabbed a wrench or a hammer.

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The headtube and triples are ALMOST a perfect fit. Per the instructions of usedtobefast and zaz696 I put 1/8" worth of 1-1/8x1-3/4x14 gauge galvanized machine bushings between the compression nut and bearing retainer (not pictured).

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Each of the bushings is 1/16" and after trying 1, 2, then 3 of them, I settled on 2 (total of 1/8" and everything mated up well and the compression nut settled down nicely and the bottom bearing of the triple snugged up nicely to the headtube.

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Couldn't get the plastics back on quick enough to see the big reveal:

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I decided to use the CRF bar clamps as they had slightly more rise to them than the stock ATK bar clamps. This provides plenty of room to drop the forks in the triple trees without the Cycra Pro Bend mounts hitting the top of the fork tubes.

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Mind you, this is not a functioning street legal motorcycle at this point. I still have to figure out the brakes, speedometer, and a few other things I'm sure that need to get sorted out before it is road-worthy.

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PART # H882802 at ACE Hardware

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COST: $1.50 (2 Machine Bushings @ 75 cents)

MODIFICATION: FORK SWAP: STEP 2: DISASSEMBLY

The paradox that one must face when doing this is taking a PERFECTLY FUNCTIONAL motorcycle, and deciding to rip it apart only to attempt to make it functional once again. I put this project off for a couple of weekends after getting the new front end just to get a few more rides in "just in case."

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With the "last rites" out of the way, disassembly could begin:

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There is no "quick guide" to taking a dual sport bike apart. I just started with the plastics.

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As I got deeper, I made sue to document wire and guide positions with pictures so that when it came time for reassembly I did not rely on my memory a few days later. I used a roof rack strap to lift the intact bars / controls / electrics slightly above to old forks so I wouldn't have to rewire the whole bike. Also, important to note at this point was that I was careful to strap the back end of the bike to the MX stand and put some blocks under the rear wheel to keep everything from falling off the stand when I took the weight o the front end off of the frame.

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GONE!

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COST: $0

MODIFICATION: FORK SWAP: STEP 1: FINDING FORKS

The stock Paoli forks are really nice. I have nothing against them, but when searching for replacement parts, seals, guards, hubs, or anyone locally willing to do any service on them, I came up pretty short. I had read several entries by usedtobefast and zaz696 on the ATK RIDERS FORUM andSOUTH BAY RIDERS about swapping the Paoli or WP for CRF forks.

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There have also been people like BONES and Desert Racer who have retrofit the Cannondale Ohlins forks to the single sided 605 as well.

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I was pretty content to ride the Paolis until they fell apart, but then I ran across a local guy parting out a complete CRF 250f on Craigslist and after waiting to see if he could sell the complete bike for a couple of weeks, he gave up and let me know that the front end (Wheel, Caliper, Fork Legs, Triples, Bars, Master) was mine for 300 bucks.

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They were re-sprung by Pro-Circuit, which I saw as a plus.

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After a sketchy meeting at dusk in a Sear's parking lot, they were crammed in the back seat of the Honda and made the trip back to the shed.

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COST: $300

MODIFICATION: ZETA HAND GUARD BLINKERS

In further attempts o clean up the front end, I wanted to get rid of the giant stock turn signals that came stock on the ATK. Internet perusal of options revealed Hodokaguy's post on PNWDS of fabricating the Zeta hand guard turn signals to fit into the Cycra Probend guards.

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Mocking up for drilling:

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Drilled, and maybe a bit too enthusiastic with the Dremel. Looking back, I would have gone a litle more gentle with a file, and not a high speed grinding wheel on soft plastic:

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The stock connections pressed in nicely to the provided copper connectors provided with the Zeta replacement blinker kit:

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Flush mounting with a little bit of play due to my over enthusiastic grinding. I also replaced the self tapping Cycra plastic mounting screws with stainles through bolts with locking nuts:

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In the wild:

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Here is a video of Hodokaguy's install (start at 50 seconds in)

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Part # ZE72 3992

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Cost: $36.95

MODIFICATION: POLISPORT HALO

My headlight bezel plastic was looking pretty tired, and looking for a DOT legal headlight that wasn't too futuristic, or too bulky, I settled on the Polisport Halo after seeing how it looked on Zumina ZX's ATK 605 and seeing the nice DOT stamped on the front.

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This is an easy plug an play conversion. The wire harness hooks directly into the Halo, and mounting is as simple as routing the rubber around the forks.

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The Halo does have a daytime running light that I have yet to hardwire into the electrical system, which would be a nice safety feature to have when not wanting to run the full headlight during the day, or god forbid the times I start up the ATK and forget to turn the key that extra 1/3 rotation to turn on the headlight.

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Hmmm, that pesky speedometer seems to stick up quite a bit... That will have to be fixed!

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Part # wp64-6921

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Cost: $63.86

BIKES: ROCKERBOX 605 STREET TRACKER / CHOPPER

Repurposing street legal dirt bikes into cafe racers and street trackers is becoming more and more popular, as is evidenced in Lincoln Black's Blog Crossed Purpose. Not a whole lot of folks are jumping on the ATK bandwagon for this building trend (who can blame them due to a serious lack of cross compatability). But the Rockerbox show in Milwaukee bucked this trend and converted an ATK 605 into a street tacker / chopper for last year's raffle. Not a lot of diehard ATK enthusiasts have been impressed by the build, and even though I am not a huge fan either, I believe it is worthy of mention due to the pure ingenuity that it took to make a peanut tank to mount to the single sided frame.

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BIKES: DUAL-SNORT

There are dreamers, and then there are dreamers, and then there are dreamers who will fabricate the crap out of something. The ATK based Snocycle is one of them. Now I feel bad for feeling bad about having to get a spacer fabricated for wheel fitment.

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Images taken from: Snocycle

INSPIRATION: CHUCKY A.K.A. MICHELANGELO

If like most people looking to supermoto (verb) an ATK, you turn to Google for inspiration. In turn, you will run across the very familiar pictures that Chucky (on the ATK forum) A.K.A. Michelangelo (on the supermotojunkie forum). His bike has provided an artistic accomplishment in motard'ing an ATK, since I have seen so many "not so good looking" ATK motards. Perhaps it is the custom headlight, or the custom cut side panels, or maybe the powder coated swing arm, but whatever the "It Factor" is, this bike has it. Unfortunately he has since sold it, and we must be content to peruse the pics that remain in better times when cash could be rolled and Rotaxes roared the open plains!

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Images taken from: Supermotojunkie.com