Making a bike suit your needs, not the manufacturers.

Pictures of the mad zx10 turned into a dirt bike and the black pearl have haunted my mind since i first laid eyes on the photos. This was also fuelled with an epic thread on advrider where countless dozens of people have taken all sorts of bikes from sv650's to harley's and turned them into the dual sport machines that they want, but the manufacturers did not conceive. I started getting parts together for doing this a while ago when i was able to find suitable ones at the right price (you may be surprised how much of a pain in the arse that turned out to be at times).

In any case in order to make this

resemble this

Some serious work was going to be required.

I decided to hold off on posting this here until i actually got it a fair way through the work, and i'll post a bit of a catchup to the point i am currently at (forks and shocks fitted, need a new brake line that can actually reach the significantly further away caliper).

More to follow.

The new shocks when assessing fitment


Proposed rear geometry


I will be using the fork stanchions from a TS185 in a spare set of fork lowers i bought for this exact purpose for my GSX250.


A bit of work required to get the stanchions to fit.


Plotting for a bash plate




Sorting out the swingarm & peg/muffler clearance issue.


Almost there


New shocks prior & post modifications




Rear shocks mounted


Some seriously f'd up fork seals had to be replaced


Some work required to make the fork stanchions fit, but it is achievable
[/img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5066/5831966793_868b0f7e32_z.jpg[/img]






To preoccupy myself i had at the tank. I looked like a freaking blue smurf after i got paint powder all over my clothes & face.

The rust was nowhere near as bad as i thought it might have been, all surface thankfully.


6:30pm tonight, and a month and a half after i started this little project





To do:
Bashplate back from the engineering shop, new brake line, front guard perhaps, a few other bits & peices.

full thread here.

this is gold, keep up the great work.
have you got rego for it yet, any issues?

The trick is not to have rego lapse

Nice work Mike, the GSX250 scrambler. One of these was my first road bike until an old dude in an EH T boned me Great little bike though.

The trick is not to have rego lapse

For sure. Don't even want to think what the thieves at the RTA would charge you to have that one made again.

It only cost me $30 to get it, and $50/year on top of my normal rego costs, so yeah, why not.

is that an Oxy torch? and can I borrow it???

It's great to see the art of fabrication is still living on! Hope it give syou everything you were aiming for

Nah it's a MAPP torch, but it's still capable of a flame temp of well over 2500'C, (of course i've only used it to get the frame up to a local 900'c to make bending with the scissor jack easy).

I have been planning on doing this for at least two and a half years and thus far this conversion has cost me about $450. half of which is parts, the other half is in tools i had not given myself an excuse to get until this project actually started taking shape.

A few more things to be done, like finishing off sorting the sidestand, the front suspension and brakes, adding the bashplate, a H4 headlamp setup & permanently wiring the third alternator coil on, a couple of electronic gizmo's (nothing fancy, just a relay setup so the headlight doesn't come on until the starter is released & LED lighting on the dash) and a lick of paint (absolutely last on the list of to-do's) and it is complete.


click for fullsized pic

What a beast,looks like a lot of fun.

Very cool. Nice work

Great Job
look forwad to seeing it completed.
Might try something like this myself ........one day

Cheers, It's slow progress and requires a little ingenuity, but no massive show-stoppers have yet stopped me. The biggest stopper is the fact I work long hours and that it's been great weather when i've been at work and shitty weather on my days off hasn't helped with forward progress.

A semi substantial update to come tomorrow, hopefully.

Bought a new brake line, bloody thing turned out to be same length as my current hose, that was a waste of money *sigh*. On the bright side i found a ebay seller in Melbourne selling rather long braided lines dirt cheap, so have ordered one a metre long, which will be longer than i need, but not by much.

I have cut the front springs down by 27mm and put some temporary spacers in there that are 2cm longer (107mm) than the spacer & length i cut out (87mm) while i try and figure out how much preload is needed. I'll likely take it down to 1cm extra and see how that goes.



After the front end was mostly re-assembled i stuck the bashplate on top of a jack to see how it will look, just how much needs to be cut off the front corners and try and make a more accurate assessment of how to mount it. I have a rough idea on how it'll mount up, but i need to take it out in the light of day so I can try and figure it out more accurately.


The dash line is where i *think* i will likely remove metal, this is still yet to be decided, and something i can get into while i wait for a new brake line.

With the front forks sitting 2cm high in the tree i am still getting about 18.5-19cm clearance WITH the plate sitting 9mm from the pipes, still 4.5cm+ over stock clearance.


I'm happy with progress thus far.

Also backed the rear shock down to the 2nd lowest setting, looks a bit better but still something I will finesse once the brake line is on.