After finding several dings in my oil cooler I decided that
I HAVE TO do something to protect it and the radiator
NOW. There are great, solid, and professional looking solutions out there, but I did not have it in me to cough up ~$170 for something that I can make for less than 10 bucks, so here’s what I did:
Parts Used:
1) Rust-Oleum flat black spraypaint ~$4 at Menards
2) Roll of ¼”metal wire cloth ~$6 at Menards (I only used a really small part of the roll). NOTE: They also sell different designs, including the horizontal diamond look, but that one cost more ($25 bucks), and the holes were actually a bit bigger because they were not squares, so I opted for the simple one.
3) Wire cutters (even the small ones will do, but I happened to have the big ones around as well)
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First I removed the 14 screws holding the lower front fairing on. There are 7 on the left and 7 on the right. Remember to get the two all the way on the bottom behind the front wheel that hold the two fairing halves together. Once all the screws were out, I pulled the top of the fairing section forward to the ground, so that the front wheel was between them. I didn’t have to take it all the way off, just move it out of the way. I measured the oil cooler and radiator and cut out the shapes in the wirecloth. Check the dimensions in the picture below. I made them about ¼” larger on top & bottom to make sure I have a way of securing them. When you look at the completed pics you can see that there’s about ¼ inch on the bottom of each that can be trimmed off. I may end up doing that later if it bothers me. The wirecloth roll was wrapped with a pretty long single wire strand to hold it together, so I also cut off about a 2 foot long section so that I can use it to mount the guard. I then spraypainted both sides of both cutouts and the single wire with the flat black paint and let it dry.
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Once the paint was try it was time to install everything. Using the single wire from the roll, I secured the guard directly to the oil cooler at the two top corners through the gap and small hole that are along the left and right sides. I also secured it to the bottom center bracket. It will help to first loosely secure it at each anchor point to get it in the exact position you want and then gradually tighten the wires being careful not to snap them or damage anything. It was solid and had a natural curvature away from the cooler due to being rolled up, so it does not make any contact with any cooling fins.
Here’s a picture of the upper left corner.
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Here’s a picture of the bottom center bracket before I twisted the wire around it.
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The top radiator guard was a little bit more difficult because of the size, but still not a big deal. I secured it in 5 locations:
1) Top left corner around the plastic bracket (don’t cover or go through the hole, the front fairing pin actually goes inside)
2) Top right corner around the plastic bracket (don’t cover or go through the hole, the front fairing actually goes inside)
3) Lower left corner around the bracket
4) Lower right corner around the bracket
5) Lower center to the bottom center bracket
Just as with the oil cooler guard, after I got all the anchor points loosely in place and the piece positioned just the way I wanted, I twisted them more securely. Be careful not to overtwist as you might break the wire.
After everything was nice and secure I noticed that the paint scratched off a few places on the screen near the anchor points, so I used a Q-tip to touch them up just in case they were visible after the front fairing was back on.
Here are all mounting points for reference:
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The $10 solution to protect your radiator and oil cooler
. The flat black paint blends in with the bike and for 10 bucks, I couldn’t have hoped for better results.
Bruce (Campbell)
2011 BMW 
S1kRR
Linear Mode
