Dual-sporting a 2010 TE 450, with cheap tricks

I put the bike on the scale today, I still have to put the handguards on and the bike weighs in at 300 lbs right now.

TE450 dry weight 250 lbs

add oil, water, gas, + reality 280 lbs
(my TE450 actual weight)

extra 1.3 gal of gas, with Ascerbis can
Add Lynx windscreen with HID
Uptite skidplate
Touratech luggage rack,

300 lbs.

The Lynx fairing works like a dream, just the right amount of wind protection for me, I can still feel the wind passing by my little hole in the air. With the shield at its highest position, 65-70mph is perfect for me, glad I got it. The Acerbis gas can worked but not at full capacity yet, I think I still have an air leak, just not fully airtight. The main tank drew .3 gallon from the Acerbis can as the main tank burned 1.5 gals. Will keep working on it, that's a long hose from the can to the tank, it may never be perfect.

I quit trying to let the main tank vacuum suck gas from the Acerbis aux can, there is just not enough sustained vacuum power to get 1 gal of gas from the rear of the bike, uphill, to the gas tank. The Acerbis can is my 1 gal reserve, I have a $7 pump I can transfer the fuel with, which will also serve as a reserve for anyone I am riding with.

I got the IMS 3 gal main tank on, pretty good fit, not perfect, but it'll do.
Also, I called Corbin about the $380 seat I ordered, I had gotten an email from them and a phone call, the guy said "We cant guarantee it'll fit your 2010, do you want us to send it anyway, we have a no-return policy". I said howze about you find out if it will fit my bike and then we'll talk. Anyway, I called Corbin back after a 2 week wait, they did not have me in their system at all, no where. Nada. I went ahead and ordered a Seat Concepts seat kit which is the foam and the cover for about $170. Glad I did, it's as good or better as the Corbin would have been.

Lookin' good.

I took a pic of the mounting of the Acerbis aux gas can while I was mounting the gas tank side panels. I used thick 3/4" aluminum L stock, bolted to the sub-frame, the forward one facing up and the aft one (with the green arrows) facing down. This allowed the mounting holes for the can bolts drilled into the L brackets to come close to being level, not perfect but close enough. I used ny-lock nuts on all the bolts. Also, check out my homemade Uptite sticker, made with a color paper printout, clear box tape on the front and double-sided tape on the back. Could use a real sticker tho, George, are you seeing this man?



Someone had posted that they used zip-ties to affix the side panels on. I wanted to do this as well, since I did not want to use glue or anything that would compromise the tank or panels. I trimmed the stock mounting stuff off and used some jumbo zip-ties up front, and a piece of velcro across the tank.

dont stop now bud!

Put some Moose handguards on, and I put a Ducati aftermarket fuel pump in, to replace the failing stock fuel pump, all systems are go. I'm pretty much done with all the cosmetic stuff, I still need to do the radiator stuff, some more mud protection, some chain work so I can switch between a 12t and a 15t countershaft sprocket, looking for an oil cooler to increase the oil capacity, lotsa little stuff. All the major stuff is done, and I'll be lining up a ride to Big Bend State Park, and then on to New Mexico in the spring.

I installed the $150 after-market Ducati fuel pump on Jan 14, and have been street riding it since then, getting a handle on whether it was gonna work....well, it's working real good! Today I did a 100 mile round trip street ride to ride the first dirt the 450 has seen (25 miles), with some ADV FFs, got real muddy. The fuel pump is absolutely fantastic, throttle response, great, fuel economy, great (40mpg) its a better pump than the stock pump! I've got about 200 miles total on the new pump. The dirt riding was fantanstic, the Husky handles better than I anticipated, even with worn out Karoos.







Since getting it in Nov 2010, this was the first dual-sport ride I did on the bike.

Have you tried out the 15/43 gearing yet? I've had a 15/45 combo on my 510 but didn't feel the bike/engine would work well with anything taller. Curious how your testing went?

I actually ran the 15/43 for a short time to see what it would do and it was great at 70mph, about 5000-5500 RPM. But you really had to slip the clutch to take off from a stop. It was not a gear set that I would run unless I was gonna go to Big Bend or a national forest, more than 4-5 hours away.

I shortened my stock chain to work with 12/43 combo, which re-creates the stock gearing for super-dirt work. Today I ran 13/43, which is taller gearing and I did fine in the dirt and my street ride was comfortable at 60-65mph. I may do a 14/43 instead of the 15/43.

Rode another 100 mile round trip street to ride a few miles of dirt, the paved roads getting there were 60-65mph and sweeping.



I took advantage of a $10 demo day at CTOR . http://www.ridector.com/ .
I got there and climbed the first rocky hill to the ridgeline, and had a great view for about 20 miles.


The rest of the trails were way too tight for me, first gear all the time, so I climbed the ridgeline hill up and down a few times and headed home. The bottom pic is of a hill climb I did not do and am now regretting that I did not attempt it, I'll know better next time. This was just my second time on the bike in the dirt and my confidence was just not there.

That is still some high gearing to me. My TE450 is set up with 13/52 for tight trail work, 14 or 15 for dual sport roads and desert riding. I can see where 12/43 (equiv 15/52) scoots you down a highway or road decently, but still too high for my taste in the rough stuff, probably why you never got out of first gear? 12/43 is highway gearing to me and I tended to stall it quite a bit on severe switchbacks. :-)

12/43 is virtually the same as stock 13/47, which is too low for me. With 13/43, I can go 60mph with 5500 RPMs, and still do the kind of dirt riding I like, faster stuff, I have really never been into slow single-track, woods riding, give me 2nd, 3rd, gear stuff out in the desert where I can see whats coming up next, I'm in heaven.

See this site for a $149 fuel pump for Ducati motorcycles that I installed in my TE450
http://www.ca-cycleworks.com/shop/ca...fuel.html#fuel tank
My stock fuel pump had varnished up and would quit spinning when hot. The pic below shows I used $30 a foot submersible 5/16" fuel line, (much better than the stock crap, which was un-usable) an all-metal fuel filter, and FI clamps.
The stock plastic "holster" had to be removed, since the Husky uses a 30mm fuel pump and this one is 38mm. I used 3/16" rod, lightly threaded into the holster's 5mm mounting hole, used 2 nuts to lock it down, trying to preserve the 5mm threads if I ever find a 30mm replacement pump and can use the holster again. I covered the rod with leftover submersible hose and locked it down with double nuts. I zip-tied around the body of the pump and across the top of the pump to keep it from migrating upwards and it has 300 miles on it now and no movement. I zip-tied the fuel level sensor about the same level as stock and the low fuel light does come on about 1/2 gallon remaining.
The bike runs like a bat outa hell, no stumbles, no nothin'. I test it by running 0-60 with it WFO and stir the gears. The stock Husky pump on this bike pumped 1 liter per minute, 60 liters per hour so I dont see this pump wearing out my pressure regulator any sooner than the stock pump.

　

Probably the strangest thing I've ever bolted to a bike, and I've done some strange ones....

When I first put the tiny Touratech luggage rack on, I discovered there was no way to secure the load with the big bulky tie-downs that I had. I envisioned a nice bar on each side of the rack that would take a looped bungee or the big hook. Viola! Cabinet grab bars from Home Depot. I drilled a big enough hole in the plastic to allow the front bar stub to slide through to the sub-frame, where I drilled a hole to allow the mounting screw to pass through. The rear bar stub is anchored only in plastic, where the turn sig was, which is too bad, but it works for me.

A Kriega US 5 or US 10 might fit that rack (depending on dimensions) and the side slots perfectly. It is also 100% waterproof. I use it on my 510 where I have added the TE610 rack for tools, tube and misc supplies. Plus it stays put no matter how hard you ride the woops..

That's a pretty fancy lookin' bag Fast1, I like it.

Another cheap trick, a homemade rescue/tugger strap for the rear. I have whole shoebox of different sized nylon strap saved from bags and luggage I've collected over the years, I chose one similar in width to the rear cross bar where the dzus fastener is. I used a center punch heated up to burn nice round holes in the doubled-over ends of the strap, then used short aluminum pop-rivets to secure the strap, probably a 10 inch piece.

I've put some miles on my SeatConcepts foam with stock seat cover, incredibly better than stock, and for me the stock seat cover is better than the SeatConcepts grabby cover, I couldn't slide around. The stock seat cover was not big enough due to the increased wideness, so my wife sewed some black vinyl on the sides and it fit right up.

I finally put my D606s on the bike and I wanted to balance the front wheel at least. I've read about installing a 2nd rim lock, which makes tire installs harder, plus the 2nd rim lock I had was a different weight than the stock rim lock, plus, each tire is gonna be different than the last so balancing might still be an issue even with 2 rim locks. So, I got a shop to give me their old Harley spoke weights. I put the mark on the tire on the single rim lock. The rim lock was 3 ounces, I used 2 ounces of weights on the opposite side to balance. To mount the weights, I cut some short pieces of vacuum hose, slit 'em, put them on the spoke and then slid the wheel weights down on the vacuum hose, tight as a drum, I've had it up to 70mph, no probs.