IKARUS GT

I 've finaly spotted the problem that every fairing has. You see it every day. And you mostly see it from his "ugly" side, the inner one. 

On the outside Ikarus is fine, looks fine, works fine. But as the weather was closing in on me for another winter, I felt that the time for project "Ikarus" to close was still away. I still couldn't find what I should do. But winter was still coming...


So I went over the internet airwaves and I asked the "F 800" boys over the net communities to shoot their minds of their keyboards. 

Most of the guys that already had an Ikarus had two questions: Can the Ikarus be designed in a way that you can unbolt the upper part and roll it up or down without having to take your gloves off and 
squeeze your fingers inside its back.  

Makes sense. Even I had at first the tendency to overtighten the bolts, and then it was hell to undone them to adjust the screen.

But it was not possible to fit bigger thump-nuts there. And there is the supporting bar. And usually there is a gps on it making things more difficult, and no one likes to take his gps off to adjust its screen. 

So I said "lets see if the upper screen support mechanism can move elsewhere... hmmm...". 

"Oh and try and make it a little bit bigger for as bigger boys said the monitor..."
  
Ok, it was obvious that a touring screen was the quest. But could Ikarus get the GT treatment? Let me sharpen my pencils... and here we go again. 
  



After test -drawing my guts out, I decided to go with a totally fresh shape. The standard Ikarus black base had to go wider from the bottom up, and its side edges be parallel to each other. The horizontal limit had to be the points where the steering bar hits the fairing on full lock position.  

Yeap I will try to get the rolling system to the outer side. Easy on paper. To see how it would look I took old Ikarus photos and messed with them on paint. You get the picture...





Back on square one. Err no we need to go a little step back to square 0 to modify the mold, so it can support a wider screen to the upper part. Other than that the procedure is the same old one. Epoxy and aeroglass layers on top one another, cutting, sanding, filling etc. A bit of spaycan love and... 



Next up another set of running rails. I modify the shape to get the clear screen a little bit higher. And I add a new piece of rail fro stability. This time I go with bigger thump nuts. But I cann't get them in vacelite, so they had to be plain plastic ones. But they give a far better grip. So a pile of cut and throw away plastic bits later, my "rail" runner looks like this...
  

Open -closed:






And unbolted to pieces:




After I test it again and again a make another one for the other side an the usual supporting bar. 
 


The new plexiglass part is another story. It had to be bigger and wider, but had to follow the lines of the bike's nose. Oh I finally found wider bolts in a reasonable price to bolt it on place!








 So a little bit later:



 and finally:




Total maximum height 49 centimeters!



Minimum height 34 centimeters (just 5 centimeters higher than the original stock F 800 GS screen).






Rolling setup: check. Bike bolt on: check. Clearence on steering bar full lock: check. 







And on to the bike. Aerodynamic testing to be done. Hmm... should we try an opening for the airstream down low on the plexiglass?






And off we go. But first I cut the old opening on the plexiglass and the base, to help equalize the subpressure behing the screen that on GT version is as big as the new screen. After that the road awaits!



Works fine on dirt roads...


In close mountain and seaside rides, even on minimum height I only got a small air stream on my helmet. Which is nice for helmet air -cooling. 


At maximum height I got a full coverage. The air passes over my helmet (I am 172 cm heigh). But I don't like seeing the road through the screen. I like it better halfway up so that I see clearly over the screen and the wind is smoother on the top of my helmet. No turbulence and less noise and my shoulders are half protected in any height. And a lot cooler with the secondary airstream -the one that runs between the two screen parts- cooling my face.  


Especially coming from the sea...


Alright lets celebrate the completion of the Ikarus GT project with some more photos:
















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