This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

FS 550e (2007) – By OldMan from Portugal

Joined May 2013
167 Posts | 47+
Portugal
I've had this bike for a year now and there is still plenty of room for me to learn from it.

Will try not to overload this thread with pics so I'll have to sum things up a bit.



On March 2013 I went down the road, 250km away from home, along with my father to get this Berg. We rent a van, put it in and bring it home under heavy rain.

Photo-09-03-13-15-17-47.jpg


As soon as we got home I took a few pictures of it for posterity. It had 2500km on the clock at this point.

_MG_6030.jpg


_MG_6031.jpg


_MG_6033.jpg



First impressions were: lots of power, handles amazingly well, feels a bit lighter than it really is, the brakes!! Outstanding brakes!

Here's the first video I've done with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQqVxzFbejM

You can see I'm clearly not used to this power. Previous bike was 1/3 of this power for the same weight.



Soon after, there were a few "must have" mods for me to being able to use it on the road: axle slider and ignition key.

_MG_6071.jpg


_MG_6138.jpg


_MG_6140.jpg


_MG_6143.jpg


_MG_6147.jpg




A few months after (May 2013) and after roughly 500km (now with 3000km) bad things happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xzuEBZA0vg

Turned out to be a crank bearing failure which ruined piston and cylinder.
All in all, the bike was back on the road after taking 900€ out of my pocket.

A month later and I was already being pulled over by police officers that were just really curious about a dirt bike with street tires. No issues what so ever!

969112_150301178509504_1257451214_n.jpg




Did some cosmetic changes on the wheels replacing the solid blue rim tape for a striped yellow rim tape

2013-08-24-18.23.17.jpg




I then changed the already dying grips for some Husaberg themed grips. And... handguards! A supermoto deserves a good pair of these.

_MG_6288.jpg


_MG_6291.jpg


Reduced the size on the plate not to get burned by the exhaust as the older bigger one was.

_MG_6299.jpg


_MG_6287_HDR_1024.jpg


Protect your eyes! ;)



During the winter I decided to get a bit of color on the front of the bike and designed a sticker for the front fender.

guardalamas2.png


2013-10-06-17.28.jpg
 
Also ended up with a rear fender sticker from printed experiments.

2013-10-06-17.28.55.jpg


Still in the winter decided to get rid of the 7 year old tires and get brand new stickier ones. Went with the Bridgestone S 20, not a single complain until now.

2014-01-15-11.49.00.jpg


2014-01-28-22.03.jpg


2014-01-28-22.06.jpg




Police officers keep inciting me to do bad things :p

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1QNVJkubyM



And then, most recently, bad things happened again.

2014-07-06%2018.01.27.jpg


Turns out the previous guy that rebuilt the engine when the crank bearing failed didn't read the F*ING manual and mounted this cap the other way around. Tiny oil leak was enough for me to notice it.

A few weeks ago it went in for a service again.

This time I went with a trusty friend to replace a few things on the bike and deal with this cap. Here's a list of what was done:

> Underbar mirrors
> ZETA clutch lever
> Headlight from a KTM 530 EXC
> LED blinkers
> Renthal R3 chain
> Renthal 40T rear chainwheel
> HEL brake lines
> Brake fluid
> Denso IXU 24 iridium spark plug
> TWIN AIR filter
> Oil filter
> Engine oil Motorex Power Synt 4T 10W/50
> Engine cap mounted the right way (thanks Taff for the 0770291016 o-rings :cool:)
> Suspension adjusted
> A well deserved bath!


Fresh pics as it is at the moment.

42_IMG_5592.jpg


45_IMG_5580.jpg


38_IMG_5581.jpg


18_IMG_5584.jpg


19_IMG_5585.jpg


08_IMG_5591.jpg


07_IMG_5586.jpg




At this moment I'm just finishing the designs for some new stickers. Let's see if all this goes well. Here's what I've got until now:


Screen%20Shot%202014-07-13%20at%2012.24.35.png

Headlight

Screen%20Shot%202014-07-13%20at%2012.24.26.png

Fork guards

Screen%20Shot%202014-07-13%20at%2012.24.43.png

Forks

Screen%20Shot%202014-07-13%20at%2012.24.50.png

Hubs

Screen%20Shot%202014-07-19%20at%2019.16.27.png

Swingarm caps


One last note about the overall transmission. Originally it was with 16-38 which, as some users said around here, was ridiculously long. At this point it is with 16-40 since the front sprocket was wrongly listed. And I'm now waiting for a 14T to arrive.

Maybe in the future it will be 14-40 :D

That's it for now!
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 people
well done on ya purchase Old...
Spending alittle time on her & sharing ur ideas... very smart little gear thats for sure
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
Lovely FS you have there! What exhaust are you running? Doesn't look like an Akra.
(Let's pretend there was no talk via PM so other people with the same question might get some help as well)

It's a Doma slip on.
Here's their website: Doma Racing Shop

If anyone can get a response from them, I'd say to consider yourself lucky!
 
Looking mint OldMan! Nice work and cool story! I'm enjoying all your posts.

I recently sold my 650 :cry: Very sexy beasts. I loved all the metal and steel on them, so left mine pretty nude. Here's some pics of it before I sold it attached.
 

Attachments

  • 1.jpg
    1.jpg
    90.6 KB
  • 2.jpg
    2.jpg
    92.5 KB
  • 3.jpg
    3.jpg
    76.1 KB
  • 4.jpg
    4.jpg
    73.2 KB
  • 5.jpg
    5.jpg
    40 KB
  • 6.jpg
    6.jpg
    73.6 KB
  • 7.jpg
    7.jpg
    80.1 KB
Also, if you want to try a free mod that goes a LONG way, try dropping your front shocks by 10MM to 15MM (start out at 10MM and be sure to set the 'Ride Sag' correctly, too). It changes the way the bike handles significantly and doesn't cost a cent :)

P.S. I know you're a camera guy, too; these were short on my 5D3 with the 24/1.4 - my fav lens by far!
 

Attachments

  • 8.jpg
    8.jpg
    62.7 KB
  • 9.jpg
    9.jpg
    24.9 KB
  • 10.jpg
    10.jpg
    39.2 KB
  • 11.jpg
    11.jpg
    85 KB
Oh wow! I'm jealous now :eek:

That is actually the version I like the most. All black with golden forks. You did a great job there mate!

f/1.4 lens... oh well! I love my 50mm f/1.8, the camera is an old 350D. I don't use it all that much now, I guess I can't justify getting a 60D or 70D just to shoot the Berg from time to time. I would love to, but money doesn't stretch :cool:

Looking forward to see the progress on your 570!
 
Nifty Fifty is a cool lens too! I have that ;)

I was lucky to work at Canon and get a bunch of cheap lenses!

Can't wait to start a 570 thread. Seems like a bunch of dudes have already done it a few times before, (with money cash and skills than I'll ever have!) but for most of us, it never gets boring just to check out what our fellow Berg-lovers are up to! :)

Enjoy the FS & Ride Safe!
 
Nice documentation! I wish I can do the same soon, when I am less busy.

Keep the updates coming!
 
Wow, this is awesome! I really like!

Where in Portugal are you?

Last year, I spent time in Faro, Porto, and Lisbon.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
As expected, today I received the 14T front sprocket I had ordered back when I figured out (with your precious help) what should be the sprocket for these bikes.

The good thing about it is that the Renthal supplier where I ordered it from was gentle enough to understand it was not my mistake and since the shipping costs to send it back would probably be higher than the price of the actual sprocket, he sent me a new one at no additional cost.

Happy customer here!

Here's a pic of the actual sprocket with their banner in case you need it.

2014-08-06-14.25.12.jpg





Today was also a good day to clean the exhaust headers.

Here's a 1 year old pic where you can see how dark it was.
_MG_6036.jpg


And here's a pic during the process (didn't remember to take photos before, my bad...):
1_2014-08-06-15.11.10.jpg


With front faced flash:
2_2014-08-06-15.11.27.jpg




In the end (at least the end of the day) with flash:
3_2014-08-06-16.29.30.jpg


Without flash:
4_2014-08-06-16.28.15.jpg


5_2014-08-06-16.28.23.jpg


6_2014-08-06-16.28.31.jpg



I honestly wasn't expecting such a difference, it turned way lighter. This was all done without taking off the headers but tried to get to every corner. It's not as even as I would like though, I should do a second try but am still to figure out if all this work is still worth it after I turn it on again.

Anyone wants to suggest a product to avoid it from getting dark again? I'm not sure but it could be due to the previous owner living very close to the sea.
 
Last edited:
Hey,

I'm not sure if there is a way to stop them discolouring over time. Once they are cleaned up, running them hot and often seems to be the best way to keep the rust off!

To clean mine, I took my pipes off completely, then used an angle-grinder with a steel brush attachement to polish them. I then used a wet and dry (light sand paper) to get into tricky parts. Finally, I put a steel brush back on them, and brushed them all the same direction (around the pipe) to give them a tidy look. At the end of the process they were super clean, and had a great brushed steel look.

Use VHT gasket sealer when you put them back on the head. Well worth it.
 
I'm not planning to take them out just yet.
Might use some more sand paper on that, especially on the front!

Will make sure to give it some scalding as well :D
 
Take 2:

7_2014-08-07-10.20.39.jpg

Brush

8_2014-08-07-10.20.03.jpg

Sandpaper

9_2014-08-07-10.53.09.jpg

In the middle of the process, can you see the difference from the top to the bottom one?

10_2014-08-07-10.40.15.jpg

Still in the process

11_2014-08-07-11.46.38.jpg

End of the proccess

12_2014-08-07-11.46.46.jpg

With flash

13_2014-08-07-11.46.06.jpg

Way better than it was in the last week

14_2014-08-07-11.45.51.jpg

With flash
 
And here's another take at kick-starting the beast. I'm getting better :D
The new iridium spark plug may also be helping.

YouTube

I've tried with boots by the way, as someone suggested, and it sure felt easier, but for the sake of comfort while dealing with the exhaust headers I was wearing some running shoes.




Here's PT.2 (https://youtu.be/cbz4LJ5xbRQ) and PT.1 (https://youtu.be/bKE0yEFadZc) in case you're curious to see how badly I was doing it at first.
 

Register CTA

Register on Husaberg Forum! This sidebar will go away, and you will see fewer ads.

Recent Discussions