Has anyone bent the lower portion of the radiator ?

[~TABASCO~]

While out in AR last weekend Karson and I took off down a really cool power line clearing. There was a huge mud hole in the middle of the trail and I road to the out side of it. It was super slick and the front end washed out.. The bike just laid over in the mud on the side of the mud puddle, I basically flipped over the side of the bike and splashed in the mud puddle... I'm sure it was hilarious.. At least my Gore-Tex gear works for keeping me dry...

Anyhow, mud was all shoved up between the crash bars and side panel on the radiator side. I grabbed a stick and poked at it and cleared all the mud out of the crash bars.. Continued on the trail crossing streams and a river... good times......

Yesterday on the way home at a gas station, I looked more closely and the aluminum nipple that is attached to the bottom of the radiator and its bent at a 45* angle side ways. Its suppose to basically be up and down and fit in the rubber grommet at the bottom. That part is pushed about 5/8" inboard from stock...... I can see that the bottom of the radiator is twisted and bent... Crazy thing is there are no visible damage to the panel, crash bars, Etc... It was just the impact of soft mud.. (im surprised it didn't crack or rip that nipple out of the bottom of the radiator)

Has anyone else bent this ? I've not had a chance to take off the side panel to have a closer look. I'm thinking of removing the radiator and trying to bend everything straight again. I know that radiators and aluminum don't like to be bent back and forth... If I don't have good vibes on that procedure im thinking of cutting the bottom off the radiator off, fixing it from the inside, welding it back on and then welding on a reinforcement 'skirt' around that pin to make it stronger.... Are there any pro radiator guys out there or guys that pro-weld in a race shop I could bounce a few things off of ya ?

Thanks

 

[snakebitten]

I want some Go-pro video. And NOT of the radiator.

 

[Dirt_Dad]

Sorry, don't know anything about radiators. But I do have experience with soft material causing bike damage. When I crashed in silt down in Baja the silt got in behind the counter sprocket and actually put a split in the crankcase. Soft stuff can do considerable damage.

I'm with Snake...video, please.

 

[Karson]

The GoPro mount location (if he had it with him) would have likely destroyed the camera in the fall, or at least broken the mount.

Pannell and Warloop Road brought back lots of Ouray memories, and were even probably more "technical" with the rock steps, just minus the elevation ::008::

Anyway, it seems like lots of advrider guys like this shop out in UT - give them a call to either bounce ideas off of or get an estimate on a repair if it's something crazy.

http://www.motorcycleradiators.com/

 

[talonboy]

The GoPro mount location (if he had it with him) would have likely destroyed the camera in the fall, or at least broken the mount.

Pannell and Warloop Road brought back lots of Ouray memories, and were even probably more "technical" with the rock steps, just minus the elevation ::008::

Anyway, it seems like lots of advrider guys like this shop out in UT - give them a call to either bounce ideas off of or get an estimate on a repair if it's something crazy.

http://www.motorcycleradiators.com/

+1
Yeah, this Mylers. I have sent a few rads to them over the years, very happy with their work.

 

[Yamaguy55]

Jaxon: the price paid for snotty mud. I'm paid up through the next ten years. :'(

I'd think most really good radiator shops could resolve this. As no doubt you can too.
I think your idea of reinforcement has merit, as AL parts usually don't like being bent, and hate being bent back. If you don't reinforce it internally, it will crack at some point. Perhaps by letting the entire lug come off, portion of radiator included. That would be fun.

Good luck.

 

[~TABASCO~]

Jaxon: the price paid for snotty mud. I'm paid up through the next ten years. :'(

I'd think most really good radiator shops could resolve this. As no doubt you can too.
I think your idea of reinforcement has merit, as AL parts usually don't like being bent, and hate being bent back. If you don't reinforce it internally, it will crack at some point. Perhaps by letting the entire lug come off, portion of radiator included. That would be fun.

Good luck.

Thanks, Yes, last night I carefully moved it back straight.. This whole radiator is VERY soft... It didn't leak or crack but you could see where part of the aluminum had stretched when it was initially bent and you could see this area when I will pulled back into place.. I carefully cleaned the black paint off and prepped the lower radiator and the mounting nipple and then applied some epoxy on that area for extra insurance... If it starts to leak in the future Ill pull the whole thing and weld it up.. Also there are two female sealed recesses in the lower portion of the radiator. Both of those where pushed in approximately 6 mm inboard. When this happened it pushed the lower fan mount in as well. That then pushed the fan into the radiator and 'had no fan'... I made a custom slide hammer and pulled both of those bosses back out to factory speck, the fan and other bits are fine now... All this and the out side of the bike has no fiscal damage, no scratches, no cracked parts, Etc.
Glad I didn't blow it off or didn't see the damage. Bent radiator and no radiator fan could have turned into a not so fun mess........ Should have the girl back up and running sometime tonight.

Just a friendly FYI to other folks, if you fall in sand or mud even with crash bars, check all your parts on the side(s) you have fallen on..... Sounds crazy but you might have some pretty serious damage even if your bike looks perfect from the out side, like mine appeared...... Its almost better crashing on rocks, then you know the crash bars took the hit... O' never mind, I've done that too. ::025::

 

[Yamaguy55]

The price you pay for too much fun........

 

[snakebitten]

Has anyone bent the lower portion of the radiator ?

The GoPro mount location (if he had it with him) would have likely destroyed the camera in the fall, or at least broken the mount.

No, you misunderstood. The Go-Pro would need to have been mounted on YOUR beast.

 

[avc8130]

Re: Has anyone bent the lower portion of the radiator ?

No, you misunderstood. The Go-Pro would need to have been mounted on YOUR beast.

You'd be surprised how durable a Go Pro is...and the perspective of crashing ONTO the camera can be quite entertaining.

As you can see from this video of a buddy of mine being an idiot, the camera is stronger than the radiator:

Being an idiot

ac

 

[avc8130]

Wow! The Tenere does not have a cheap radiator: $370.

I've been watching, but nothing ever seems to come up on Ebay. It seems this bike is too reliable, crashes too well, too rare, or just owned by responsible people. No one is parting them out.

How about some pics of the carnage?

ac

 

[snakebitten]

$370?

I imagined it much worse.

 

[Yamaguy55]

::004::

$370?

I imagined it much worse.

I agree. Unobtanium is expensive.

 

[~TABASCO~]

Re: Has anyone bent the lower portion of the radiator ?

No, you misunderstood. The Go-Pro would need to have been mounted on YOUR beast.

I should of defiantly had it on the bike.. You guys would have had a good laugh... It would have broken the mount off but you would have gotten to see the before... lol I want to get it on my multitec helmet but the only way to mount it with the flip up is DUMB... anyone got a better idea using this helmet ?

 

[GrahamD]

Just a friendly FYI to other folks, if you fall in sand or mud even with crash bars, check all your parts on the side(s) you have fallen on..... Sounds crazy but you might have some pretty serious damage even if your bike looks perfect from the out side, like mine appeared...... Its almost better crashing on rocks, then you know the crash bars took the hit... O' never mind, I've done that too. ::025::

Yeah, luckily all the fine beta testers out there helped me when I tried to ride over a berm earlier this year, but since it was made of sand gravel and dust I scored some adventure cred. Fan and rad was OK though, once I had removed the sand and baby pebbles.

I felt like writing a song after that.

"I fought the Berm and the Berm won."
Bobby Fuller Four - I Fought The Law(1966)

Good Advice Tabasco. Always check that fan if you have tipped.

 

[Dirt_Dad]

Re: Has anyone bent the lower portion of the radiator ?

You'd be surprised how durable a Go Pro is...and the perspective of crashing ONTO the camera can be quite entertaining.

As you can see from this video of a buddy of mine being an idiot, the camera is stronger than the radiator:

ac

Man, does that look familiar. I did that exact same crash in my driveway this summer with the WR. Had to do a huge falling two step to make it across to avoid my body landing on the asphalt. Even hitting the grass, it rang my bell pretty good and I wondered if it cracked a bone. The WR....? It was fine. Just the old guy had an issue. Glad I was wearing a helmet even screwing around in the yard. To bad I didn't have my camera for that one.

 

[Glenn C]

Do you mean like this?



I'm now on my 3rd set of crash bars:
1st set SW Motec. Rad side is the weeker of the 2 and will bend inboard if the bike simply drops onto the left side. Found out the hard way when bike was knocked off the side stand.

2nd set Givi. Much better than SW Motec but a slow speed drop (left side again) on a VERY wet Birdsville Track bent the left bar rear-wards and this caused the above damage. The spigot at the bottom of the rad fits into a matching retainer that is part of the left bar. As the bar bent rear-ward, it took the bottom of the rad with it! Fortunately I didn't realise the level of damage until AFTER the 5,500km trip was over. Fortunately because the rad didn't fail and I was blissfully unaware of it so didn't worry about it. We were literally in the middle of nowhere and a long way from home when this happened.

Current set Altrider. These are more expensive but I feel are much stronger and NOT likely to fail in the same way as the Givi did.

More pics did you say? OK then.

Trailering my bike past the impassable section.




Here I've been left to wait while the other 2 bikes are trailered out. Note the removed front fender. All 3 bikes had locked front wheels due to the sticky mud fouling between tyre and fender.



Cheers
Glenn

While out in AR last weekend Karson and I took off down a really cool power line clearing. There was a huge mud hole in the middle of the trail and I road to the out side of it. It was super slick and the front end washed out.. The bike just laid over in the mud on the side of the mud puddle, I basically flipped over the side of the bike and splashed in the mud puddle... I'm sure it was hilarious.. At least my Gore-Tex gear works for keeping me dry...

Anyhow, mud was all shoved up between the crash bars and side panel on the radiator side. I grabbed a stick and poked at it and cleared all the mud out of the crash bars.. Continued on the trail crossing streams and a river... good times......

Yesterday on the way home at a gas station, I looked more closely and the aluminum nipple that is attached to the bottom of the radiator and its bent at a 45* angle side ways. Its suppose to basically be up and down and fit in the rubber grommet at the bottom. That part is pushed about 5/8" inboard from stock...... I can see that the bottom of the radiator is twisted and bent... Crazy thing is there are no visible damage to the panel, crash bars, Etc... It was just the impact of soft mud.. (im surprised it didn't crack or rip that nipple out of the bottom of the radiator)

Has anyone else bent this ? I've not had a chance to take off the side panel to have a closer look. I'm thinking of removing the radiator and trying to bend everything straight again. I know that radiators and aluminum don't like to be bent back and forth... If I don't have good vibes on that procedure im thinking of cutting the bottom off the radiator off, fixing it from the inside, welding it back on and then welding on a reinforcement 'skirt' around that pin to make it stronger.... Are there any pro radiator guys out there or guys that pro-weld in a race shop I could bounce a few things off of ya ?

Thanks

 

[tomatocity]

Here I've been left to wait while the other 2 bikes are trailered out. Note the removed front fender. All 3 bikes had locked front wheels due to the sticky mud fouling between tyre and fender.



Cheers
Glenn

4th of July I had my front wheel lock up on a deep mud covered gravel road. Cost me a right rear pannier, scratched the Altrider engine guards, and gave us something to talk about. I was wondering if the Fenda Extenda was part of the problem?

 

[avc8130]

Good point about how the radiator connects to the crash bar. I folded my right side crash bar in a low speed drop. If it was the left it surely could have bent the radiator dues to the attachment point.

Does the Alt Rider bar attach to the radiator too?

Still waiting on those pics...

 

[tomatocity]

Does the Alt Rider bar attach to the radiator too?

Yes the Altrider engine guard attaches to the radiator but I don't think the guard will move that much. Sounds like Jaxon's problem was with the mud moved the radiator.