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Luis' 2018 Roadster

31K views 102 replies 20 participants last post by  laalves 
#1 ·
So I got mine in Feb 2018 with 1 km on the odo after waiting from Oct 2017 when I placed my order:



Specc'ed it with ASC, heated grips and alarm, so basic stuff.

She looked like this:

Just like all others….

Then I bought the single seater stuff, including a flat aluminium hump:


Next stage was Rizoma: black Eccentrico mirrors, black front Club indicators and rear black Club S indicators/lights, PT706B plate holder, right chassis plug. A bit of Wünderlich, with the stand extender and spikes and front fork and paralever sliders and a bit of BMW with black valve covers and matching black plastic protectors.



In the mean time I also got the BMW soft black side bags that I use to go shopping for groceries as well as BMW radiator cowlings in brushed aluminium.

Last week I painted the hump, snorkel cover, throttle body cover and ignition cover in black storm metallic from RS Motorbike Paints.




Today a lovely package showed up and inside there were a BMW machined handlebar clamp, BMW brushed aluminium side covers and the lovely BMW adjustable footrests as well as the rear footrests for when my son is riding pillion..

I started with the handlebar cover, and used tie-wraps to secure the handlebar before I removed it:


Love it, it’s in plain sight while riding. I disguised the heinous “By Roland Sands Design” with 3M black tape. Might end up painting altogether. I would get more of these parts if it wasn’t for that intrusive branding. The belt cover looks great but that stupid branding…. I would never buy, as it can’t be disguised.

Then the footrests. First remove the original ones:

In plain sight, the Rizoma plug. Can’t understand why BMW put in a plastic cover on the left and then left the bolts visible on the right. And the hole itself, looks as if it’s half painted only. Ridiculous.
Apply a new footrest:

Removing the pins that hold the microswitch to the old footrest was a pain. Had I known, I would have bought a new microswitch. Again, the instructions are ridiculous: they say to “remove the pins using an appropriate tool”, yeah right. That’s impossible, I had to surgically drill their heads to then slide the microswitch through the beheaded pins.
The other side:

In both photos, they are already set to my taste: full down (cramps…) and slightly back to stay away from my trousers when I put my feet down on traffic lights.
And in compliance with Euro4, they fold!:


Then for the brushed side covers. The rear holders come in a really weird colour, more or less white. Another stupid design choice so I painted them black storm metallic but didn’t apply clear coat, left it satin as it is a great match for the frame:


Hardware is ready:

In this photo all the bits have the per instructions thick protective tape. I had to remove that tape from the front brackets otherwise they wouldn’t fit in the frame. I don’t think they actually test run these instructions…
And here is the left, easiest one:

The front brackets disappear under the hose but the rear ones are very visible, particularly if left in their original, whitish weird colour. Like this, in black, they’re passable.

On the right, that was another story, and again it seems the parts are made for another bike: the outer (visible) rear bracket would not fir, because there is a solder seam right where it would go.
So, some cutting was required:

The weird thing in the forefront is a vacuum cleaner tube to suck the shavings.

End product:

Tomorrow I’ll try to do some under the sun shots and will post them here.

Next mod: Puig chassis plugs to hide and protect some of the recessed bolt heads. I will apply a layer of vaseline before I plug them for extra corrosion protection.

Then I’m considering the BMW brake and clutch machined levers and the single Akra. Let’s see….
 
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#44 ·
I too have the Rizoma front mudguard but am wondering why you though to clearcoat it?
Do you just prefer a 'thicker' finish?
What did you use for the clearcoat, and was there any special prep so it stays on?
Cheers
 
#46 ·
Well, the brushed anodised (flat) aluminium look does not agree with any of the clearcoated brushed aluminium bits I already have: tank sides, hump, radiator covers and airbox covers, all BMW OEM.
So, I simply sprayed 2-component epoxy clearcoat high gloss on it, after prepping it with some light scotchbriting. As it comes brushed from Rizoma already, it is now a very good match with the other bits.
 
#49 ·
Hi, thx! Both the bags and the brackets for them are the BMW accessories available from the accessory catalog. I think the brackets are made by SW-Motech as well as the bags. You can buy the same from SW-Motech and use the BMW bags or buy the BMW brackets and use the SW-Motech bags ;-). In my case it's all BMW.

As to riding pillion, the manual says NOT but it's doable (my son has done so), if the bags are not stuff full. Mind you the pillion will essentially only have the heel of the shoe on the footpeg.

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#52 ·
Today I did the cheapest and easiest mod so far to my bike.

The BMW badge is a car part (for wheel centres), ref is 36131181081 and it set me back 7€. It comes with a back sticker but as it is of a convex shape it might not adhere very well so I added a few drops of superglue around the edge of the badge to reinforce adhesion.
I looked around to both the machined breastplate and the carbon one but decided that it is not a very good idea to have that sort of money facing 150km/h winds loaded with meteorite bugs, rocks, etc. Indeed, my original plastic one already has a few small scratches and dents so this might turn out to be a consumable part but I felt it still needed a bit of bling and I think I managed that with 7€.

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#53 · (Edited)
And another update, the details of which may be found in the DIY thread: DIY - Installation of Unitgarage crashbars (EUR4 version)

Unitgarage crashbars, here's a photo, hardly noticeable from this distance.:

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From the side, it does not obscure the heads although that's a compromise in protection.

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I n the next photos, it is visible that they have a different profile from the SW-Motech and Wunderlich offers, being closer to BMW's, they protrude out a bit more and, if they hit the ground, it will not be with a horizontal crossbar below the cylinder, it'll be with the front arm.
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I was a bit concerned about the negative impact on the filtering/lane splitting abilities of the bike but looking down, I don't think it'll make any difference. Those are not the best abilities of any big boxer and the nineT is certainly no PCX125 which, in traffic jams, zigzag around me like crazy but they haven't worsened by these bars.
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If you compare these to the BMW crashbars, it is visible that those extend quit a bit more outwards and certainly will impact on the bike's abilities maneuvering: https://www.ninetowners.com/attachments/orf792zeskan5zr1rnlk-q-jpg.127320/

They are visibly also quite protective since they extend outwards considerably more than any other design.
 
#54 ·
As already show in the corresponding DIY thread, I now have the machined covers: heads and alternator belt:
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Obviously there's no headers in place and that's because they are being "ceramicised". First step is to remove the chrome:

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It'll be a Techline Black Satin coating. Should be back this Tuesday and more photos will follow.
 

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#55 ·
My original 2,75 year old battery has already refused to start once (a charger jolt nursed it), and on several occasions it did it but lazily and slowly and is now dropping 15-20% of charge overnight if left off the BMW tender (I have a Ctek Bluetooth monitor). Reading the tea leaves, I saw myself getting stranded somewhere at night and under the rain some place, so before that happens and after a lot of research, decided to try Li-Ion. My requirements were that it had an incorporated BMS and be substantially more powerful than the OEM, so I got this:

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It comes with several bottom and lateral spacers and for our bikes, just two bottom thick spacers are needed to reach the required 145mm height.
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I won't do a DIY on this since there's plenty of those around already but will report later on how it went and how it behaves although my area is now going into partial lockdown from today so I won't have chances to do leisure rides, only needed rides.

Still waiting on the headers...
 
#57 ·
Your bike looks really nice ! Very tasty sets of mods here, keep it coming (y)
I suggest you remove the forks reflector, these are just glued with double sided tape, this would give the bike a much cleaner look :cool:
Merci! I thought about that but that would make it not road legal. I doubt a cop would spot it, ie, being able to distinguish a Euro4 from a Euro3 bike but still.... It won't have to go to its first inspection until it's 4 year old (and I could always put them back on my way there!) so I'm kind of over the edge...
 
#58 ·
I definitely understand the legal side of it, we don't have bike inspection (yet) in France so you can mod quite extensively here, until the police pulls you over if you went too far ..
I think the reflectors are the first thing that went away as soon as my bike landed, but kept them in stock in case of. I keep every stock parts i remove in case i need to go back to stock at some point for an inspection or while an added part is being serviced (like suspension). I don't think any stock part removed is worth selling for very little money vs the hassle to buy one back if you ever need to quickly go back to stock.
 
#59 ·
I keep every stock parts i remove in case i need to go back to stock at some point for an inspection or while an added part is being serviced (like suspension). I don't think any stock part removed is worth selling for very little money vs the hassle to buy one back if you ever need to quickly go back to stock.
I do exactly the same. I have a few boxes with all removed original parts in them in case I want to sell the bike, although I did buy this bike as a keeper. I may add to the fleet later, but this one will stay. The rear shock has a dealer sticker price of about 1200€ and yet it commands 50 or 100€ in ebay at most. Totally not worth it.

All the mods I made that require paperwork change I made them legal but that was a bureaucratic nightmare and included an inspection in which I had to explain the direction of rotation of the rear wheel to the inspector. Kid you not....🤪. Model specific BMW original accessories don't require paperwork change.
 
#60 ·
Job done, battery replaced.

What an absurd design to have to remove the tank to replace two consumables, the air filter and the battery.

The bike is only 8300km and the air filter is to be replaced at each 20000km but since I was going to have access to it anyway and it's not an expensive item, I replaced it as well. It was dirty.

Anyway, just a couple of rough pics of what went down this evening.

Lifting the tank to set it on top of the improvised table made of two home gym bars and with a wooden plank on top. I rotated the rear and put on top of the plank, leaving the nose of the tank on top of a smaller wooden plank on the bike. That avoided disconnecting the fuel lines. It worked.

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New battery already in place:

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From the rear. It's a Skyrich! Weird name and is made in China but it is THE Li-Ion battery supplier for Ducati, KTM, Beta and a few others. Shouldn't be bad, let's see.
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Unfortunately, couldn't start the engine as I don't have the headers on and not only I don't want to wake the dead but also don't want it to throw errors due to the removed oxygen sensors.

Need to wait until they are back with their new black satin ceramic coating attire.
 
#63 ·
And the final result:

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She's out of the garage finally and in 30 min or so, will be taken for a ride after the suite of maintenance/upgrades she went through in the last 2 weeks: ceramic coating, lithium battery, Machined valve and belt covers.
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I love this look, in my eyes a great improvement over the stock chromed headers which I don't think suit the rest of the bike, even in a full stock form.
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My final conclusion: the R nineT is certainly one of the most beautiful bikes in the market today, and a few touches, it only improves.

The next upgrade and potentially the final one, in terms of bigger, expensive upgrades will be Öhlins cartridges for the forks.
 
#64 ·
Very pretty work! Now, protect your center stand, like this

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Details in post #74 here Central Stand for BMW R NineT Family
and you can even go out protected from those harsh Portuguese Atlantic sea salt winds! Enjoy!!!
 
#69 ·
Thx! And yes, I have been getting rid of some the non-matching colours but decided I like the gold. Actually, I even added the LSL stub handlebars in gold, so I ended up colour-matching that.

I thought about black powder coating, vinyl wrapping or exchanging with black Öhlins but (and honestly much to my surprise) ended up disliking the black in that particular application and found the bike to become dull and missing a big part of its character. Thus, gold it is!
 
#73 ·
Did Ilmberger give you an estimated ship date that you're referring to? I have the lower Rocker cylinder head covers on order since July, so far they haven't said when they will be able to ship those, just that they will be getting them done asap but they are jammed due to covid.
 
#75 · (Edited)
Today I tried to order a Öhlins fork cartridge set only to learn that Öhlins will only have them available mid to late May. No joy then, so instead, I installed a low tone horn :) (from a BMW car, off the auction site). It doesn't sound like a scooter beep or like a PC motherboard piezzo when Windows explodes, it sounds like a horn proper.


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I had to lift the tank just a bit to insert the bigger horn but to remove the original one, that is not needed, I managed to do it with a 13mm socket+1/4 cardan+200mm extension+100mm extension+1/4 ratchet. It works from the left side of the bike, behind the frame. It's a knuckle scratcher but doable.

To lift the front of the tank, I didn't need to remove the seat support brackets as I just lifted it about 5 cm, just enough to squeeze the bigger horn through. I put a 5mm-thick strip of black foam tape between the steering head and the horn itself, putting some pressure and preventing the horn from scuffing the paint.

I'm really disappointed with the Öhlins issue, just today I received the last tool I needed to that job, I've been collecting them for the last few months getting ready for this and now: not available.

It may have to do with the fact they are busy with a recall, building a few thousand front dampers for their Porsche 996/997 Turbo/Carrera 4/4S aftermarket coilover kit. A few of the original versions sheared off on the top mount interface. I know this because I'm affected and am waiting on those replacements for my car.
 

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#79 ·
Well, I had both and got rid of both.

The leather grips, the patina they gain after some time you either like that or not. In my case, I didn’t. Further, I had chosen brown and after a while I didn’t like that as well, I think maybe black would have suited this bike better.
All in all, the thicker and retro looking Ariete I have now suit the bike perfectly IMHO.

Re the exhaust wrap, it starts getting pale yellow which I suppose is the original colour of the raw material and the dye they use just burns away. The wrap manufacturer suggests high temp paint but I ended up deciding for the ceramic coat as permanent, zero maintenance solution to the chrome delete objective.

Both wrap and grips gave the bike a more ratbike/rural element to it but I think I like the retro-high-tech-sophisticated look better.
 
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