Well, I'm looking to change things up a bit on the old airhead. I've pretty well decided that I'm going to take this thing across parts of the Trans Atlantic Trail this coming June on a ride from Chattanooga to the Ozarks in Arkansas, so there are some modifications in order to do so. All the upcoming mods will be bolt on and none of the O.G. BMW parts will be cut, so I can go back to stock road mannered Beemer whenever I want. Most of what I'm doing will be roughly inspired by early r80 G/S models, though I will be keeping the twin rear shock configuration in leu of the monolever setup.
The mod list will be as follows:
-DR650 front end (Forks, triples 21" wheel) with heavy duty springs and a fender brace
-XT250 front fender (Been taking up space in the shop)
-R80 G/S oil pan. (Identical to my factory pan, but with threaded lugs to hold a skid plate
-Custom Made Skid Plate
-Custom bolt on subframe to accept ZRX1200R rear shocks, DR350 rear fender and heavier built for panniers
-Tusk aluminum panniers
-Luggage Rack
-Solo Seat
-Dual Sport Tires
-Fatbars and bar mounted M/C (Thanks
@irk miller)
-Bark Busters
Less the tires and oil pan, most of what's listed above I already have in the shop, so it should be a reasonably budget friendly build.
Mechanically, the bike will remain the same. Not that nothing can/will go wrong, but I've ridden somewhere around 15,000 miles on this thing in the last few years, some of which were miles of dirt and gravel in stock form, so I think it'll be up to the task, especially with some tasteful and forward thinking mods.
I also picked up a R90/6 roller that will be a parts/ mockup machine for this project. Hoping that this thing will never really be off the road, just short projects fabbed on the spare frame then bolted onto the bike.
Here are a few inspirational pics.