GD
Pack Dog
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2010
- Messages
- 332
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Ladybrand - Free State
- Bike
- KTM 990 Adventure
I bought my KTM 950 on 3rd Jan, 2013. She was advertised with Scorch Pipes, but it turned out they were totally effed! So after a little Negotiation the pipes came for free with the OEM's fitted and a little project to undertake during my bonding period with this new bike. Here is a brief run-through of what I did, and a few pics. Let me know your thoughts I’m no expert on this so really it’s just the proverbial “flying f*ck at the rolling donut”
Once I had stripped the pipes down, I could see that it looked like that a previous attempt at repacking them was the issue (I think). Seemed that while drilling out the previous stainless rivets the aluminium sleeve & header piece had been damaged i.e. enlarged holes. In my mind this would be from not knowing how to drill hard steel out of a softer metal. (Use a Press Drill, @ high speed with cutting fluid) or just lack of tools. The answer was to this damage was fitting aluminium rivets with larger flanges, and the eventual result being that the vibration tore the rivets out the sleeve at nearly all of the points at the header piece and the header piece had holes thought it nearly 7mm wide. Needless to say that each pipe only had about 30% of its packing left inside.
Damaged Repair
I went to my mate down the road who has a small metal work shop, he cut the sleeve & the perforated pipe to get rid of the damage (about 10mm off each sleeve), he filled the enlarged holes in the header pieces with 12 aluminium welds and re-drilled the rivet holes in both the sleeve & header piece for R300.00
Finding the fasteners
9 different shops in Bloemfontein before I would find Steele Rivets (not even stainless). Thanks to an old school mate who gave them to me free of charge – MR Walker @ M&G thanks again!
Paint
I put a wire brush to the sleeves and wiped them down with a bit or turps to prep them for paint, I was hell bent on satin black for the sleeves and after much asking around and shopping I settled on Rust-Oleum as the choice of paint (R 120.00 a can), the high heat (ultra) variation. It went on well but remains very soft until you have heated it, in working with the sleeves repacking and replacing the rivets I nicked the new paint a few times but a quick masking and touch-up went on well again. Once they were fitted I ran the bike for 10 Min to get some heat through the paint (the heat gun measured 105* at the tail piece) let’s hope that was enough.
After a 50Km very loud and satisfying ride for a second heat cycle the paint seem to have hardened with a what I think is quite a nice finfish
Time will tell if this “can of spray paint’ will hold its own – certainly seems like a hard durable finish and has stood up to my pressure washer once already! I’ll be interested to see what a dirt road will do to it…
Once I had stripped the pipes down, I could see that it looked like that a previous attempt at repacking them was the issue (I think). Seemed that while drilling out the previous stainless rivets the aluminium sleeve & header piece had been damaged i.e. enlarged holes. In my mind this would be from not knowing how to drill hard steel out of a softer metal. (Use a Press Drill, @ high speed with cutting fluid) or just lack of tools. The answer was to this damage was fitting aluminium rivets with larger flanges, and the eventual result being that the vibration tore the rivets out the sleeve at nearly all of the points at the header piece and the header piece had holes thought it nearly 7mm wide. Needless to say that each pipe only had about 30% of its packing left inside.
Damaged Repair
I went to my mate down the road who has a small metal work shop, he cut the sleeve & the perforated pipe to get rid of the damage (about 10mm off each sleeve), he filled the enlarged holes in the header pieces with 12 aluminium welds and re-drilled the rivet holes in both the sleeve & header piece for R300.00
Finding the fasteners
9 different shops in Bloemfontein before I would find Steele Rivets (not even stainless). Thanks to an old school mate who gave them to me free of charge – MR Walker @ M&G thanks again!
Paint
I put a wire brush to the sleeves and wiped them down with a bit or turps to prep them for paint, I was hell bent on satin black for the sleeves and after much asking around and shopping I settled on Rust-Oleum as the choice of paint (R 120.00 a can), the high heat (ultra) variation. It went on well but remains very soft until you have heated it, in working with the sleeves repacking and replacing the rivets I nicked the new paint a few times but a quick masking and touch-up went on well again. Once they were fitted I ran the bike for 10 Min to get some heat through the paint (the heat gun measured 105* at the tail piece) let’s hope that was enough.
After a 50Km very loud and satisfying ride for a second heat cycle the paint seem to have hardened with a what I think is quite a nice finfish
Time will tell if this “can of spray paint’ will hold its own – certainly seems like a hard durable finish and has stood up to my pressure washer once already! I’ll be interested to see what a dirt road will do to it…
