History of my xt660z, Mods, Faults, Thoughts, Ideas. If interested only in mods or faults follow the link here: “xt66z Mods” or “xt660z Faults” or keep reading – the list of mods and faults at the bottom of the page!

Ooo yeah! My lovely TENERE!

It’s a Yamaha Xt660z Tenere! to be more precise, its 2009 model, with over 60k miles! and it is not quite a standard one too…

Let me tell a story about it. I bought it as a project, for basically peanuts, it had already a few miles on it, horrible engine noise, cracked front wheel hub and few more problems.

Apart from aftermarket exhaust, Kev mod (kev mod is basically a adjustable resistor hooked up to air temperature sensor that helps to trick ECU into thinking that temperature is lower and that way it makes it to deliver more fuel), dark high screen and high fender – the rest was standard and in its original White colour.

Front wheel was replaced with the Xt660x one, the only difference was that it had only one disc, the rest was the same.

Instead of rebuilding the engine, I managed to get another one from MT03 with fairly low mileage. Swapped engine, at the same time got rid of the AIS system, drilled a hole in the air filter box for easier access to the top bolt of the rear shock, and also had to weld the exhaust link pipe (the Y piece) as it was cracked.

After it passed MOT with flying colours, and the only advisory for loud exhaust, I was very happy with it, however, modifications didn’t stop there…

First thing i noticed that original bash plate was a bit of the weak point, so got a B&B one, all the way from Australia and i was happy with it till the end, then AS3 aluminium crash bars, that turned out to be the worst thing ever (dropped once in Italy and they bent like they were made out of cheese, causing more damage than protecting something). Handguards – tried to save on that, in the end it also was a false economy, and they also went straight in a bin.

Crash Bars were replaced with the ones from company Heed – super strong, and with few modifications they lasted me forever, Handguards were replaced with Barkbusters, and after million crashes they are still fine.

What concerns navigation, since i had an Ultimate addons case and charger for my phone already, i used that same thing on xt, but had to get Touratech gps bracket as i couldn’t mount phone on original xt bracket – it simply was sitting too low even with mirror mount. Obviously me being cheap – bought it used on ebay. Later I had to make some changes to that as the Ultimate Addons bracket started making rattling noise and charger stopped working. At some point nearly lost my phone as the case got detached leaving my phone hanging on wire. When I was in Germany for some mysterious reason water got into the case, and my phone’s charging port failed too. Now all setup is slightly different: Touratech bracket on top of original xt bracket, and Ultimate addons case was glued with epoxy glue directly to the touratech bracket… For a charger – Cheap charger from ebay that i took apart and filled with dielectric grease and its mounted on a L shape profile in between Touratech bracket and original xt bracket. Phone itself lives permanently glued in the case too… Many many miles with that setup – haven’t failed me yet.

Mirrors got replaced pretty much after the first off, and I picked folding ones, not double take mirrors, just folding.. and they were good… still managed to break them somewhere in Peak District, but with a bit of Epoxy they were fixed in no time.

Replaced original handlebars with Protaper adventure Evo, or something like that, brilliant handlebars, at the same time lifted them up by 3cm with the rally style clamps from OffTheRoad.de. That was a little bit tricky as throttle cables were a bit on the short side, but by rerouting them on the other side of the frame managed to get just about enough slack to make it work.

It is very common for xt’s dash to start squeaking, so my solution was a clamp type of bracket that i made out of bits i had – that squeezed dash and its bracket together and that worked really well.

Exploring Dry Violets lane - Yamaha XT660Z Tenere — Exploring Dry Violets lane on Yamaha XT660Z Tenere

XT’s have a very weirdly shaped tank – at the front it’s almost like a spoiler that lifts the air up and straight into the rider’s helmet. So my solution was to extend the front piece (that sits under the headlight) down a bit by fitting 2 almost triangle shaped plastic bits, and also fitting another bit on top of the tripple clamp bottom bracket to close the gap. Together with a folding screen extension that was facing slightly forward – i could ride at 70mph with helmet open, and no wind would hit my face – awesome! shame i lost that extension in Peak District, it was handmade and hand shaped too!

Obviously as it is very visible, it was repainted in black colour, with xt writing on the side and some reflective chevrons – safety first, right? All Plastics were painted with truck bed liner paint, should be chip resistant – however it did start chipping away after some time, so i wish i have never done that to begin with…

Seat – Original has a very annoying hump that keeps rider in the same spot – on a long run super uncomfortable as it give no room to move and off road – if back end goes up, that hump hits the rider right in the week spot – yup.. you know it! so one day i took the cover off the seat and just shaved it off with kitchen knife…oh that made a huge difference! Looks Good Too!

What concerns suspension and power..

It didn’t take me very long to understand that Kevs mod was a bit of the precision guesswork, and in order for engine to work properly it had to go, so i picked up Dynojet Power Commander V that was made for XT660x or so (Same engine anyway). PCV did fit with no problems, it just had to be sorted by specialists and that’s what i did, also replaced paper air filter with foam one (first Pipercross – that disintegrated after a first wash and was replaced with OffTheRoad.de filter), I didn’t asked to tune it for performance/power, as its not performance machine, but local guys on a Dyno did a really good job sorting it out, and bike felt so so much better, it was hard to believe it was the same bike!

Suspension… It was very clear that old suspension had some hard time dealing with off-road riding, and without shed loads of cash there was not much that could be done to improve it… So what i did, i simply replaced springs with slightly stiffer ones, front with Ohlins 6nm springs, and rear with Hyperpro progressive spring (they do not mention Nm rating for that one), but after playing around with all the settings (all i mean preload only, haha..) and setting up static sag at around 10% of the overall suspension travel – it felt a lot better! I had to use lowering links too… in the end lowered the rear by 2.5cm, front by 1-2cm and the shortened side stand by 2cm or so.

Had to replace all the swingarm and linkage bearings at some point, and noticed that Mr Yamaha cheaped out on bearings and instead of fitting nice 4 bearings on the swing arm, they fitted 2 bushings and only 2 bearings, so later that was changed by me- fitted 2 bearings with bushing in between on each side.

Also at some point I had enough of all the wires under the seat, so I made a separate wiring loom for all the extras, with seperate fuse and relay box under the seat and switch controls on the dash. Dash took some time to do, as not much room to fit switches there, also it gave me a nice scar on my leg – ill say nothing about it…anyway, everything switches on with ignition now, including PCV maps.

Few more things that i have done to it: fiberglass under seat storage big enough to fit 2 wine bottles, first aid and tool box on the side, shortened rear brake pedal with anchor and welded folding tip from another bike, extended clutch actuator arm (i believe MT03 comes with longer than xt’s – as standard) and shortened brake and clutch levers, and fake pivot pegs that had to be slightly modified to fit!

Huh, and that’s about it! I will add more info about each and every modification with time, hope that will help at least someone!