Templar X 250

[Fast_Freddy]

Originally Posted by Zooker89

During my motor re-build, I had to remove the rear swingarm, so I removed the rear shock all together. I have only 11mm left on the adjustment to "lower it". Does anyone else have the similar "stock adjustment" on their bikes?

Does anyone know how much lower it would be if I take the 11mm out of it?

Reducing spring preload is not the right way to lower ride height. Thumper did a writeup on how to do it the right way by drilling a new mounting hole in the lower shock bayonet mount. Check this thread and/or search for "lower templar" or similar.

[Zooker89]

Originally Posted by Fast_Freddy

Reducing spring preload is not the right way to lower ride height. Thumper did a writeup on how to do it the right way by drilling a new mounting hole in the lower shock bayonet mount. Check this thread and/or search for "lower templar" or similar.

I should have phrased my question better. I'm not really looking to lower it. I assumed reducing the preload would in effect lower it. I was kind of taken back that there was about 85% of the preload adjustment (to the stiffer side) left on the shock. I would think a lighter spring at the start would offer much more adjustment for the audience.

[Texas Pete]

Originally Posted by tknj99

Update: just removed the rim lock on the front and Holy Moly! what a difference, night and day from the shake and bobble before.. this change is a huge improvement in the street ride

Congratulations, welcome to the club.


I don't ride serious track riding out the desert or anywhere to need rimlocks. My off road is rural roads with horrible maintenance, dirt roads and gravel roads. That's why I also changed my sprocket to taller gearing.


I run no rimlocks, the Japanese rimlock hole plugs mentioned above earlier and fully balanced front and rear wheels. Even with the full knobbies I have never experienced any of the vibrations people have been sharing. When I convert to Shinko 705's or similar 80/20 street/offroad tires I am sure the difference will be even more smooth than it is right now.


Every RPM, Every speed from 1 to 76 mph has been smooth with less wear and tear on the bike.


Edit: I also run my valve stem nuts halfway up the stem to butt against the plastic valve stem screw on covers and help lock them in place. That's all the valve stem free movement I need to help prevent any stress or tear outs.

[buzz]

Run stock battery,mine going on 3 years/

[Mikd]

Originally Posted by Fast_Freddy

Welcome! Which Templar did you get? Base, M or X?

Ordered the X

[TemplarM250]

To those that installed full wrap handguards; did you have to drill out the handlebar ends to fit the bolt into it? Bought a set of universal handguards but the bolt and lock nut don't fit into the handlebar.

[Fast_Freddy]

No, you should never have to do that.

[tknj99]

Ugh.. went to start the bike and nothing, found the fuse blown and swapped in the spare and instantly blew.. now im chasing down an electrical issue.. so far i dont see anything out of the ordinary. Will be buying a pack of fuses as well as an inline circuit breaker as ive already used up spare i had laying around. It will ofcourse light up with the fuse wires connected but then starts getting hot and smoking :(

[TemplarM250]

Originally Posted by jc3

The set that I got from amazon for my Templar came with 2 different size expanding nuts. I have seen people that have used a tap on the bars but I didn't need to. The bigger issue was the shape, where the wrap around bar wasn't quite formed right so I had heat them up and fix it.

Ok. Thanks for the reply. Mine only came with one set of expanding nuts that are just slightly too big to fit into the bars.

[TemplarM250]

Originally Posted by jc3

If you like them and the only thing is the nuts, there are tons of different ones on amazon. I forget the internal size but maybe that is something that needs to go in the resource post. Maybe something like this would help

Yep. Like the Acerbis set I bought. Ordered this hardware kit. Cost more but comes in 2 days versus 3 weeks.

[Fast_Freddy]

When I installed mine I found it worked better to pre tighten the expanding nuts until they were a snug fit in the bar end before tapping them in.

[Thumper]

Originally Posted by tknj99

Ugh.. went to start the bike and nothing, found the fuse blown and swapped in the spare and instantly blew.. now im chasing down an electrical issue.. so far i dont see anything out of the ordinary. Will be buying a pack of fuses as well as an inline circuit breaker as ive already used up spare i had laying around. It will ofcourse light up with the fuse wires connected but then starts getting hot and smoking :(

It has got to be a ground fault. Good luck locating it.

[GypsyR]

Originally Posted by TemplarM250

Ok. Thanks for the reply. Mine only came with one set of expanding nuts that are just slightly too big to fit into the bars.

I used a drill to slightly enlarge the hole in the bars. Since I didn't want to make it too big, I kind of snuck up on it. Used three drill bits before I got it opened up just barely big enough. If I had done like Fast Freddy and tapped them in I bet the second drill bit would have done it.

[GypsyR]

You guys helped me order a good replacement headlight so now I can see at night.

But...even though I'm kind of against adding a bunch of bolt-on BS, I had the urge to add a couple of driving lights. Because they had be had cheap and... I don't know. So they came in a couple of weeks ago. I bolted them on using their little brackets and the bolts on the side of the headlight surround. I feel like for actual trail duty I need to fabricate an actual mounting bar. But in the meantime and on road I think they will be OK.I had the urge to simply tie them into the headlight but resisted. Ordered a nice-seeming handlebar switch. It came in last week.

Stole some time this morning and wired them up. Again tempted to make my life simpler with the wiring and again resisted. I went ahead and dug up a Bosch relay and wired them more correctly. They came with just clipped wires. To make them removable I used crimp bullet style connectors on them. A little slack in the wire in case I needed it for later repositioning to a light bar. Relay behind the headlight. I didn't even realize I had ordered a lit switch until I saw it had three wires instead of two. So I wired that up correctly too. Seem alright to me and don't look too out of place.

Aiming is currently just to either side of the headlight beam. Shown with headlight off. My one cheat with the wiring was that I did not wire through the ignition switch. I can turn them on without having the key in it.

[tknj99]

Yay! Figured out the short.. Was the wire bundle under the rear fender. I had originally electric taped around the existing rubber sheath that enclosed all of the butt connectors and when i was investigating the wrapped bundle looked fine until i decided to remove the electric tape and inspect and thats when i found the burned mess.. I separated all of the touching wires and connected the fuse ends and it lights up the dash and no smoke or hot wires anymore, previously the wires would get hot immediately.. have some 10amp fuses on order but im confident ive resolved the issue and will disconnect and fix all of the connections individually and wrap them. I also took this time to wrap and butt connectors on the bike that could pose a problem later on as well as re-route the throttle cable while the tank was off.. happy times! This should serve as a PSA for anyone else that runs into this issue, to look there first and ensure its connected properly and with no risk of burning together later on...