Round Australia on a 400?

[Leo.CMember]

On the 9th of October a good mate of mine finally headed off for his round Australia trip. A sort of bucket list come opportunity, the trip idea started off very suddenly as a ‘plan b’ of all things :huh:

Some of you may have seen Brogan at Seaview on a white bike that sort of looked like an XR400R. What it really is:
1997 XR400R
440 Kit
Polaris CV carb (that works surprisingly well)
Electric start conversion with a high output stator
Two battery electrical system
2007 CRF250 forks and front end
Rally Raid font fairing with a Baja Design headlight
Acerbis 23lt tank
Custom Whipps alloy rack

The best part is he’s done most of the work on it himself through his own trial and error or research and design apart from machining work (one of those sickeningly clever bastards) .

At the moment I don’t have any photos but I’ll update soon and show you exactly what it looks like, and in my opinion it looks the goods. I’ll also encourage him to put up some happy snaps of it on his blog site http://www.motopacker.com .

He’s north of Bris-vegas now on his way to the cape via the Creb track and Cooktown. He’s not an Oldbull but he’s heard me blow on about it for a few years now and has been silent observer for a while. Anyone who wants some more info or just to send a msg of support or ‘WTF?’ can leave a comment at http://www.motopacker.com

B.W.

[Dwayne OMember]

G`Day BW
Yeah, thanx a lot for this heads up mate,,,
I will be watching his progress and I see he is loading his tracks onto the blog as well , he may get sick of that after a while when service is poor or unavailable between legs on the trip :laugh:

I will drop him a message of support here & there too
Good on Brogan & best of luck to him I say, “Livin` the dream”
Cheers

[BroganMember]

Thanks for the kind words Eagle – I had a bit of time up my sleeve so I figured I’d finally register. I was actually at the OB Birthday ride on the white XR400 – it’s taken me a while to get around to registering :blush: I’ll be saving all of the tracks and uploading them when I can get reception, so updates may get a bit sporadic :laugh: I think I’ll also keep a log of fuel economy and prices in case anyone else wants to use it as a reference to plan their own trip later. I’m currently getting just under 4.7L/100km (just on 50mpg) and paying $1.55 for 98 octane in QLD so that’s nice

The list provided by B.W is pretty much spot on with a few (…or a lot) of additions which I’ll cover in a post about the bike soon. Basically the only thing left of the original 1997 bike that is untouched is the swingarm, rear wheel and shock linkages. The engine is based on an updated 2003-spec bottom end, the frame has been braced (as has the subframe), I’ve redone the entire electrical system from scratch with no remaining OEM XR parts. All in all it’s a bit of a hybrid bastardisation of an XR but it works fairly well and didn’t cost much to build up so I can’t complain.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, keep an eye out for video uploads soon. I’m just waiting on a skeleton case for the Gopro and I’m all setup for posting video from the road including commentary (I’ve got an external mike setup in the helmet). Keeping it all charged from the bike took a bit of figuring out..

Photo just for the hell of it – here’s how the piston looked at 260 hours when pulled down for a freshen up. Not bad for a 9000rpm tractor

[Nick JacksonMember]

Good luck with your trip it sounds unreal , it’s been a dream of mine for sometime now and it’s great to see someone doing it

I’ll be following with interest and can’t wait to see the bike , sounds the goods !!

Nick

[Leo.CMember]

This is about all I’ve been able to scrounge up so far but there are 4 days of write ups and photo’s at http://www.motopacker.com now and more adding every couple of days, check it out !

[Leo.CMember]

XR Pilot, aka Motopacker, is off again. After cooling his heels waiting for the end of the wet season on the Atherton tablelands he’s back on the throttle (not that he ever stopped, clocking-up some 5000km of trails alone). Sounds like Atherton is a bit of a haven for dirt bikes. So drop in and have a look at

http://motopacker.com/

Say g’day or just have a look at some of the pics.

Stay up-right Brogan!

B.W.

[Author]

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