Hodakaguy's TW200 Thread - Mods and Misc

[Hodakaguy]

Thought I'd start a page to document the mods on my current TW. This is my 5th TW that I've owned over the years and I keep coming back to these fun little bikes. I think I'll keep this one....but I said that on the last one as well lol.

I purchased this one about a year ago and have already made a handful of mods....Cycle Rack, Cycra hand guards, 47T sprocket, IMS pegs, DID X-Ring chain, Giant Loop tank bag, taller fat bars, skid plate, Seat Concepts seat, Double Take Mirror.

Planning a longer distance trip with the bike this coming summer so wanted to start a few more mods in preparation.

With parts on order the first part arrived yesterday, my MT43 Front trials tire. I've ran these tires on my KTM'S and for the desert terrain that I like to ride on they work extremely well. Will be a great improvement over the sketchy OEM Death Wing.

My trusty Steed wearing its OEM tire.

And the grippy MT43 about to go on.

Scissor jack under the skid plate works great for getting the front end off the ground.

Off with the old and on with the new. Windex works great to lubricate the bead when installing the new tire.

These little pull tools make getting the valve stem through the rim such an easy task.

Mounted on the rim with the bead set.

Now to static ballance the wheel/tire.

I usually use re-usable spoke weights as they work awesome and stay locked in place. In this case I didn't have any of the smallest size left which is what I needed so I added a single stick-on 1/4oz lead weight until I set some more spoke weights. The tire was very close to being ballanced needing only that single 1/4 oz weight...nice!

Click...click and the wheel is back on the bike.

Yep...I think this will do nicely!

More to come...

Hodakaguy

 

[Hodakaguy]

More Mods....

Next on the list: Install Cogent Fork Springs & DDC's (Dynamic Drop in Cartridges) along with new tapered steering head bearings. I like to ride the little TW fast paced on occasion and the motor is far more capable than the stock suspension. I'm installing the .60 kg/mm springs (20% stiffer than OEM) which should work nicely with my weight (160 lbs). If your heavier the springs are also offered in .70 kg/mm (40% stiffer than stock). The DDC's greatly improve damping and handling.

Front wheel removed.

Make sure you loosen the fork caps while the forks are still clamped in the triple trees otherwise you will fight getting them loose with the forks off the bike.

Here I've removed the caliper, a small bungee ball works nicely to attach the caliper to the exhaust header and keep it out of the way.

Now loosen the pinch bolts on the triple clamps and slide out the forks.

Ready to perform surgery.

Disassembly is simple. Remove the fork cap, remove the spacer tube, remove the washer on top of the spring and remove the spring.

Collapse the fork and turn it upside down to drain the old oil out of the fork. Pump the fork in and out several times while upside down then leave it compressed and sitting upside down for 15-20 min to finish draining. With 750 miles on my bike the fork oil looked pretty clean, with a slight bit of metallic particles in suspension.

Here you can see the new/old springs and spacers sitting next to each other. The Plastic PVC spacers that are supplied from Cogent are the correct size if you are not installing the DDC's, if you install the DDC's you will have to cut the spacers down a bit to accommodate for the space taken up by the cartridges.

The new springs are both thicker and longer than the original units.

The DDC's. These will greatly improve damping

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[Hodakaguy]

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Oil fully drained and ready for re-assembly.

First up install the fresh oil and set the oil height. You want the fork fully collapsed for this step.

The DDC's are designed to work with 5W for oil.

Filling the forks to 5.118" of oil. I'm using the calipers to check and adjust the oil height from the top of the fork tube with the fork fully compressed. Once set I pumped the forks up and down several times then fully collapsed the forks and verified the oil was still at the correct level.

On the TW the DDC's are truly drop in, no special tool needed. With the oil height set I dropped in the cartridge.

Next insert the spring and place the washer on top of the spring.

I decided to cut down the OEM metal spacer tubes instead of using the supplied PVC pipe. Either will work fine. You want the spacer to sit about 1/8" from the top of the threads with the forks fully extended, this will add a bit of pre-load when the cap is screwed in place. I measured the length with the caliper then cut the OEM spacers to size.

Now place the spacer in the fork and re-install the cap.

With the forks back together it's time to install the new steering head bearings. The TW uses plain bearings in the steering head and they are prone to wear easily, creating notchy steering. My last TW had worn steering head bearings at 1500 miles and had very little to no grease installed from the factory. I'll be installing tapered bearings which are far more durable and smooth in operation compared to the plain bearings.

Now I need to remove everything that is bolted to the triple clamps so I can remove them from the bike.

I used a tie down to hang the handle bars from the ceiling while I removed the clamps.

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[Hodakaguy]

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Upper fork clamp removed.

Here I've removed the castle nut (This nut sets the pre-load on the bearings), then slid the lower clamp out of the steering head. These bearings had a good amount of factory grease installed.

OEM bearing setup disassembled.

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[Hodakaguy]

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Now to remove the OEM lower bearing race on the steering stem. For this I used a drift and slowly worked the race back and forth (side to side) until it was free of the stem. Go slow and don't ding or damage the stem.

And disassembled. I'll re-use the OEM rubber lower seal as it won't interfere with the new seals supplied with the tapered bearing.

The All Balls Racing tapered steering head bearing kit.

Look at the surface area compared to the plain bearings.

The seals snap tight against the bearing providing a tight water/dust proof seal.

At this point I placed the steering stem in the freezer to cool down and shrink a bit ahead of the bearing install.

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[Hodakaguy]

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While the steering stem cools down I'll remove the bearing races out of the steering tube. I used a small slide hammer to remove the races but you can just as easily remove them with a long drift by reaching through the tube. The process was repeated for the lower race as well.

New tapered bearing next to the old plain bearing.

Here I've selected a socket that just catches the outer lip of the race, I'll use this to install the new race and make sure it's firmly seated. With my sockets it was 34mm for the upper race and 36mm for the lower race.

Applying a thin film of grease on the new race.

I heated the steering head tube with a heat gun to expand it a bit before installing the race. You want it hot but not hot enough to damage the paint.

With the steering tube heated the races went in with very little effort.

The new race will stick up out of the steering tube when fully seated, this is normal.

Process is repeated for the lower race.

Now it's time to get greasy. I like using Bel-Ray Waterproof grease as I've had great luck with it.

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[Hodakaguy]

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Packing the bearings with grease. You want to work the grease through the bearing, take your time and make sure they are fully packed.

Steering tube and races packed with grease.

I used a piece of pipe I had on hand to drive the new lower bearing onto the steering stem. The pipe fits over the steering stem and just catches the inner lip of the inner bearing race. With the stem right out of the freezer the bearing went on with a few taps of the hammer. Don't forget to install the new seal in place under the bearing before you install it!

Going back together. Once the stem and bearings are in place I used the castle nut to set the bearing pre-load. I worked the triple clamps back and forth while fully tightening down the castle nut, then backed it off again. I did this several times to seat the bearings then tightened it down once again and backed off about 3/4 turn until I got the desired feed I was after on the bearings...not to loose with a bit of tension.

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[Hodakaguy]

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With the triple tree back together it's time to re-install the forks. Don't forget to tighten your fork caps once the forks are clamped back into the triple trees.

Steering is super smooth and forks feel a LOT better just giving it the garage sit test. Will take it out for a ride soon and give them a good test.

Hodakaguy

 

[Hodakaguy]

Battery upgrade:

Out with the old and in with the new. Replaced the lead acid battery with a Antigravity Lithium unit. Lithium batts have several advantages over lead acid or AGM including lighter weight, very low self discharge, higher cranking amps and will outlast a lead acid battery by 2-3x.

I went with the Antigravity over the other popular Lithium batts for a couple reasons. This unit has a built in BMS (Battery Management System) that will prevent over discharge and balance the battery cells without the need for a special charger. Another cool feature this batt comes with is a restart button located on top of the battery, basically a small reserve to get you going again if you leave an accessory on and run the battery down....built in jumper cables! Nice! This unit also has 4 battery posts, great for hooking up accessories, power cords, heated clothing etc.

This batt weights 3.8 lbs lighter than the stock lead acid unit. Since the battery is also physically smaller you want to shim it in place with foam so it can't rattle around while you ride.
When it's cold outside Lithium batts can crank slower at first, as soon as you put a load on the battery (cranking, running lights etc) they will self heat and the amperage will quickly rise again.

Install was easy, use a couple pliers to slightly bend the terminal on the positive cable to allow it to seat fully on the battery.

Nice to have a battery that can sit for months and be fully charged and ready to use when you need it.

Hodakaguy

 

[Hodakaguy]

Time to make this little TW look like a Hodakaguy Bike

Over the years I've ran 8" race lights on most of my off road rides. Are there better modern lights out there like Baja Designs LED units?...yep but I just love the looks of a race light so race light it is

.

I picked up this assembly with some damage from a previous crash so a bit of straightening and painting was in order before I could get it on the bike. It came with an aftermarket DOT legal lens that utilizes an H4 bulb and the original larger Non-DOT off road lens that utilizes a H1 bulb. I'll be using the larger single bulb assembly. I run the light angled down when on the street and up when off road and have never had an issue on the street. You can adjust the angle of the light on the fly by reaching up and turning/sliding the red knob forward/backwards. I'll be installing an LED H1 bulb in the light soon. I've ridden for hours at night with one of these lights and they work great.

A photo of the bike with it's stock front end.

Race light as I received it.

Straightening out the tweaked cage. The power coat is wild, as you heat it the black turned to green then to gold.

Removing the OEM setup. I removed the light, fairing and blinkers including mounting cage.

Test fitting the cage.

Adding some self adhesive felt to the back of the mounting brackets. This will serve to keep from scratching up the fork tubes and space the brackets out far enough for the cage to clear the upper fork clamps.

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[Hodakaguy]

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The gauge cluster needs to be moved from under the upper fork clamp to the top for added clearance. I used some stainless bolts to attach the cluster back in place on the clamp.

Here i did some sanding in preparation for paint. I'll eventually remove the assembly and powder coat it again for durability.

Hmmm...this bright shiny lens just won't do. A bit of high temp paint makes it blend in much better. The finish is satin once dry.

Painted with satin textured black and drying.

Parts dry and light is being re-assembled.

Time to set up the turn signals. Since I'm not re-using the OEM metal mounting bracket I'll need to fabricate new mounts for the turn signals. I have a set of rear turn signals off my old KTM 530 that will work great and I like the looks of these units over the TW signals. These blinkers don't have the running lights built in and I'm good with that, they will just be turn signals. More power saved!

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[Hodakaguy]

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Fabricating some mounting tabs to mount the new signals on the upper triple clamp pinch bolt. I used a piece of aluminum to make the tabs.

Painted black.

Extending the wiring on the KTM turn signals.

New mounting tabs in place.

Making a mounting brace for the brake line and wiring.

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[Hodakaguy]

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Light Wiring. I wired the new light into the low beam setting, this allows me to turn the light off by selecting the high beam function. I may eventually wire in an additional LED light into the high beam function.

And installed. LOVE IT!

Hodakaguy

 

[Hodakaguy]

Installing my Garmin Montana GPS.

I've used my trusty Montana & this aluminum bar mount on several of my past KTM's and with thousands of off road miles under it's belt it has always served me well. Time to drag it out of storage and get it installed on the TW.

The mount utilizes two extended bolts and spacers that mount into the bar clamps. The mount is powered (will be wiring it up soon) and the GPS pops into & out of the mount with a push of a button.

The bar layout before GPS install.

GPS mount and GPS.

Removing the upper two bolts from the bar clamps.

The spacers drop into the upper clamps....but in this case the clamp is a tad smaller than the spacer and the spacers won't drop in. Time to remove the clamp and fix this issue.

Yep....spacer is about .009" larger in diameter than the hole in the clamp.

Well time for some make shift machine work lol. Removing .009" was done in a couple minutes on the drill press.

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[Hodakaguy]

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Now to assemble the setup on the bike.

The Garmin mount has a rubber cover that protects the electrical connection when you have the GPS removed.

And the GPS installed in the cradle. The unit is easily viewable & accessible in this location and I can still see the speedometer in my normal line of vision.

Now bring on summer and desert adventures!

Hodakaguy