WP Dakar front-end conversion

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JAmBer

Race Dog
Joined
Jun 4, 2008
Messages
843
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2
Location
Pinelands, Cape Town
Bike
BMW F650GS / Dakar
When I realised that my entire front-end would need to be replaced following an accident last year, I started looking at options. New forks from BMW would cost over R15k (excl triple clamps which were also damaged). The Touratech kit for WP forks on the Dakar goes over R20k. This is the kit they fit to their Rallye F650. It uses USD WP 4357 MXMA forks with custom triple clamps and other goodies. It turns out that this is the very same model fork fitted to 200-500cc KTMs in the early 2000s. The early 640 Adv also used 'em, with different springs. What a versatile piece of kit! It is a nice upgrade to the Dakar: fully adjustable for rebound and compression damping (but you have to add spacers internally to adjust preload) and travel is around 250mm (std Dakar is 210mm).

This sparked an idea. I put out a request for parts on the forum and Rufus115 responded with forks and triples lying in his backyard from a 2001 KTM 250 EXC. The project was underway!

Our fantastic postal service (sorry, I forgot: sarcasm is the lowest form of wit) managed to send box 1/2 to the correct postoffice and box 2/2 to the other side of Cape Town. After retrieving all the bits myself, I did a trial fitment of the triples. There were two sizes of triple clamps available for these KTMS: 16mm offset and 20mm offset. These were 20mm... great, less twitchyness offroad!

Rufus115 had left the lower bearing on the steering stem and it seemed to mate perfectly with the BMW's outer race which was still in my frame. The forks were of similar length to the OEM Showas and had similar axle offsets (so steering geometry would't be too messed-up by the KTM's 20mm offset triples).  It looked like this was going to be the easiest conversion in history. Or so I thought...
 

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