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T-Rex Racing Skid Plate Install

3K views 7 replies 7 participants last post by  Alvinator 
#1 ·
I recently ordered:https://www.t-rex-racing.com/2015-2019-Kawasaki-Versys-650-Skid-Plate-p/n54-15sp.htm

Installed it on my 2015 650 LT over the last two days. I'm a decent shade tree mechanic, but found the install moderately difficult and time consuming. The issues I found:
1. There doesn't appear to be instructions, just the video posted on the above link. I had to replay the video numerous times and thank God for YouTube's ability to set playback speed as I had to review numerous scenes in slow-mo.
2. As shown in the pictures, the right rear bracket is too short by about 1.25 inches. I ended up going to the hardware store and buying a 6by1by1/8 piece of steel bar stock, already conveniently painted black and drilled with slotted holes where needed. I rounded off the edges on my bench grinder to get it to fit. The other brackets are about 1/4 inch thick, but the 1/8 inch bar stock in back looks plenty hefty to me.
3. As shown, I already had the Givi engine guards installed, so had to work around those. This required loosening the 3 bolts (hex head, allen head, hex head) holding each engine guard in place, and completely removing the front one and the 1/2 bushing behind it. I replaced the 1/2 inch bushing with the T-Rex bracket and 5 or 6 flat washers to make up the difference in thickness. Then re-tightened all 3 bolts.
4. The plate clears the pipes and bottom of the engine with room to spare, but is touching the exhaust pipes in front.
5. The skid plate I installed does not look like the one shown on the link page, which I am guessing is the one for a Gen1 or Gen2 Versys. It does seem to match the one in the install video, minus the too-short bracket of course.

T-Rex customer support seems to be fairly good, I sent them several emails and always go response within 12 hours. But without an install manual install is unnecessarily complicated, and I spent probably an entire hour simply reviewing the video in slow-mo over and over. It doesn't help that most of the video is filmed in fast-mo. I'd say I spent 6 hours total, including trip to the hardware store.

I should mention that my main goal with the skid plate is not log crossings, but just to protect the pipes and oil filter from rocks being flung at them. If your try to cross a log you are going to take out the muffler on a Versys anyhow. I don't care much about cosmetics so I will let someone else opinion as to whether the skid plate looks better or worse than the factor lower fairings that it replaces. I think it does make a lot of stuff on the bottom of the bike more accessible than the factory fairings, which is a plus for maintenance.

At the end I was checking everything and found my headlight was burned out, leading me to blow the entire rest of the day on that. Subject for another post....
 

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#2 ·
Sounds like a painful process, but loving that you took the plunge on the skid plate, and, because I'm all about cosmetics, I think it looks great. Also liking to read/hear that it's keeping things roomier for maintenance needs...bonus.

Nice work, DB!
 
#8 ·
Sounds like a painful process, but loving that you took the plunge on the skid plate, and, because I'm all about cosmetics, I think it looks great. Also liking to read/hear that it's keeping things roomier for maintenance needs...bonus.

Nice work, DB!
I don’t know how good it looks... looks like bad design with vertical front, any off roading will ram the skid plate rather than “skid” over the plate.
 
#4 ·
My T-Rex skidplate install on my 2017 V650 went on easy and smoothly.

I found T-Rex customer service to be really helpful. I had an issue of a bolt being slightly too short and spacer slightly too thick (I could have ground/filed it down) in my application. They sent out replacement bolt and spacer in just a few days. I'm glad to see a company with good customer service.

I installed their engine guard, skid plate, and center stand and I wanted to be sure they would all fit together.

Glad to hear you got it figured out in the end.
 
#6 ·
My experience is also that T-Rex has good customer service, however it is always in the face of an issue, which sucks. I would rather them have higher quality product design and production than shoddy products which need good customer service to keep us from returning everything. Skid looks good though
 
#7 ·
So far so good with the Givi crash bars. Given their design, I doubt that they are the stoutest protection you can buy, but I was willing to trade that for the easy install. They definitely are goot enough to protect things during a "drop", not sure about an outright crash, but then I'm more worried about me.

-dm
 
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