My Burger

Standard

Modified

The Burgman is a damn fine machine but there are whole series of minor irritations with it. Here's how I dealt with them.

Riding Position

The riding position is all a bit upright and not all that comfortable as standard. I wanted to lean back more and especially to move the handlebars closer to me and lower.

Handlebars

The first thing to attack was the handlebars. These are a little unusual in that some of the early one's don't have splines machined into them. There is also a welded tab on the front with two holes that bolt into the headstock and locate a wire tidy made from thick wire. My first attempt was simply to put the wire tidy under the bracket which tilts the bars back a bit. This worked fairly well but wasn't enough.

The second approach was something I'd previously done on a Helix. M&P sell a handlebar raising kit made by Raask designed for sportsbikes. I'd bought one of these years ago and just used the C pieces to raise the bars by 1.5cm. Then I've tilted the bars back quite a bit. This requires a bit of hacking to the lower plastic surrounds so that there's clearance. In the middle picture you can see where I've cut away the bottom so that it clears the headstock.

The next thing was to add some Oxford Hot Grips. I've put the switch and LED into the left inspection cover. The system is wired into the plug blocks behind the front panel above the headlight. I just dug around with a multimeter until I found a Live wire off the ignition switch that was switched, and an earth on another block. The left bar was fairly easy and just uses the standard grip. The right bar was a bit harder because Suzuki uses molded nylon throttle barrel with ridges. I've ended up putting the heating element round this and then using the left Suzuki grip over the top. The grips are now about the same size on each side.

Back Rest and Top Box

I'm still working on the top box backrest as I'd really like it to be quickly detacheable. I plan on adding a Givi rack/box mount at the back and maybe using swan nuts to make it easy to get on and off. Right now I have a bit of bent metal plate that goes between the seat and bum stop and locates on the top bumstop bolt. This stops the box moving forwards and back. Then I've got a luggage strap from Halfords going through the box and threaded through some bungee ends. The pad on the front came off a Helix backrest.

This works pretty well and gives me some useful extra storage space. If I could get the bars back a bit more, I could take half of the cushion out of the pad and lean back properly. As it is, It provides some useful back support under acceleration.

Mirrors

The standard mirrors are ridiculously wide. The short answer is to turn them through 180 degrees on the stems so that the pivot is on the outside and the most of the mirror is inboard of this. I've taken this a stage further and replaced the stems with a piece of threaded dowel about 5cm long. (I had real trouble finding a screw in 8mm*1.25 so I took a die to a 1.5mm thread screw. Horrible but it works) The widest part of the bike is now the lever ends. The mirrors give a good view of my elbows, and I have to move my head a bit to see directly behind me, but the view is better than most sport bikes.

Screen

It's absolutely essential to replace the standard screen with a Givi screen. This cuts down the noise, turbulence and windblast significantly and also keeps almost all the blast off your hands. Combined with the heated grips, I've been riding in summer gloves down to about 5 deg C. With the other changes I'd made, the top of the screen was too high, so I've tilted it back.

First remove the black cover above the headlight and take the screen off. Take a round file to the cut out where the screen hooks over the bodywork. Once it's about right, you can put the front two screws back in and mark up the back two holes. With these drilled, you can mount the screen and check it's all straight and the right height. Then drill the middle pair of holes and screw these in too.

The screen supports will now be too high, so drill a hole in them about 4cm back. The screen is now secure, so the last thing is to modify the black cover. You can see that I've taken a wedge off the top trailing edge so that it clears the bulges in the screen.

Seat

The standard seat is too high at the back and a bit rounded in the middle. This tends to slide you forward the whole time. Take the seat off the bike by undoing the four nuts on the hinges. Then lever out the staples and peel the seat cover back. Some models may have strings that go through the foam and under the seat. These can be unhooked rather than cut. Then start hacking away at the foam. The ideal is a hot wire, but I use a hacksaw blade for the bulk and then follow it up with a sureform to get everything smooth. If you use a hot wire, do it outside. The foam gives off lots of nasty chemicals that you definitely don't want to breath. Once the cover is loose, put the seat back on the bike and take a little foam off at a time. Check it each time as you can't easily replace foam you've removed.

Unfortunately, the reason Suzuki made the seat shape they did was because the base slopes up at the back to make room for the helmet space under the seat. It may not look it in the picture but I've take about 3-4 cm out of the seat from behind the hump to the back. The very back tapers down to only about 1cm of foam. Once that's done, stretch the cover back and use a staple gun to secure it.

This mod is definitely worth doing.

Footrests

For some reason I can't fathom, Suzuki made the footrests too upright and so that they slope slightly sideways away from you. This makes your feet feel like they are going to slide off the bike. Now you can't do much about the uprightness, but a pencil duct taped under the rubber gives a useful "edge" to the foot rest area. And it doesn't look too naff!

Odds and Ends

There's something not right about the battery mount. There's too much clearance round it and over big bumps the battery rattles. An old sweat band stuffed in the top right corner sorted that one.

It's too hard to fill the petrol tank to the top because they put a cylinder into the filler hole so that there's always air above the petrol to allow for expansion. I can't be doing with that, so I hammered a screw driver through the wall just below where it's welded to the tank. Now I can get the last litre in quickly without having to rock the bike back and forth. What I really need is a 25 litre tank but that will have to wait.

A tie wrap round the seat strut with a 1cm tail is just enough to stop the seat from falling down when you're trying to pack the under seat compartment.

I've added a Halfords folding cup holder to the handlebar cover. It works well as long as the Capuccino Grande is not too full.

The 10 mph Glitch.

Perhaps the most annoying habit is that the scoot won't take full throttle from a full stop. You have to wind on the throttle or it starts moving, then dies until it drags itself up to 20 mph, then it takes off. There are all sorts of theories about this but it seems to affect everyone. It seems that there's a gap between the clutch locking up and the engine getting up to it's constant revs from the CVT. I suspect that the real cure is to fix the clutch so that it slips more, but that is going to take a kit from Malossi. In the mean time somebody in Germany suggested fiddling with the carburettor. It's possible that the CV slide is not rising fast enough at low revs. One suggestion has been to cut 30% of the spring off but I didn't like that idea as this will change the slide position under static conditions. The other was to open out the slide air hole from 2.5mm to 3.5mm. This is easy and reduces the air damping on the slide so it should open quicker.

It's pretty easy to do. Get under the seat and remove the engine/carb cover. Take the four screws out on the top of the carb and remove the carb slide cover. Lift out the spring, needle and slide being careful with the diaphragm. In the bottom of the slide, you'll find a hole to the rear of the needle hole. Drill this carefully with a 3.5mm drill. replace everything, being careful to seat the diaphragm. The slide only goes in one way round so you can't get it wrong.

I'm not completely convinced but I think it's cured. It'll take a back to back ride with a standard machine to be sure. I think it's also had the effect of sharpening up the throttle response as well. There doesn't seem to be any obvious downside.

Update: After riding another 3000 miles, it's made no difference at all. What has happened though is that I've educated my right hand to gently roll on the throttle from a standstill and the glitch is really not a problem any more.

Further work on the handlebars

I've attacked the handlebars with a scaffold pole and pulled them back slightly. I've also cleaned up the weld on the tabs that hold the cover and been able to push the controls about 2cm closer together. This meant a bit more cutting into the cover to get clearance and removing the tab in the controls that locates into the handlebars. I could then hacksaw about 1.5cm off the end of the bars. The right hand bar has an anti-vibration weight that then fell out, which meant making up a rubber ferrule thing so that the bar end could be attached. I've not noticed any change in vibration so that's a useful bit of weight lost.

So what's it used for?

I think I should tell you now what the scoot gets used for. I commute about 23 miles from home to work everyday through North London. It starts with about 8 miles of WFO dual carriageway, at 90-100 mph. Then there's 7 miles of 2 or 3 lane traffic which is all lane splitting at 40-50 mph, finally 8 miles of dense cut and thrust through traffic. This takes a lot of nerve and aggression to make time between the cars, round the 'peds and bicycles, over pavements and trying to avoid being rammed by suicidal M/C messengers. The modified Burger is the perfect Urban Assault Weapon for this stuff. Very few bikes can get away from me in traffic.

The machine also gets used for occasional 300-500 days going to things like the Superbike racing. On the open road it goes about as fast as I want to and in considerably more comfort than a sport bike.

Drop me a line at julian_bond@voidstar.com if you want further details.

What's next?

The other piece I want to do is to find another solution to the top box and back rest. Mainly because I want it to be easy to move it for pillions, and so I can get a full size suitcase on the back for trips to the airport. I'll let you know.

Honda make an air vent for their Gold Wing and Pan Euro accessory screens that looks neat and should be modifiable to fit the Givi screen. I've bought one and should have it fitted in a few weeks. I'm hoping that letting a bit of air behind the screen will smooth out the air flow and reduce the noise and turbulence.

My exhaust has broken something inside and I have an agreed warranty claim, but Suzuki haven't been able to supply one yet. I think I'm going to go for a Gianelli Freeway instead.

Another One

Here's a fully loaded Burger from "David R. Scott" badger@globalnet.co.uk

"The backrest you can see in the photo was made by P&P seating of Kitts Green Birmingham. They took the standard backroll, stripped the foam off, attached a small seat back to the base and then added foam and covered it in vinyl. It's not fantastic but it's comfortable and makes a difference on a long journey although it does rule out carrying a pillion passenger. I would like to fit the sort you see on Goldwings and Harleys on a hinged tubular frame but I haven't found anyone who makes them yet."