Larger windscreen for C650GT

Lee

New member
Steve … you are so right about that!


Lee, I’m 5’10” w/Calsci medium & fully up I’m looking through it. Like you, I like looking over the top, so I keep it a little lower. But with it raining in Daytona this past weekend, and at low speed, it was certainly nice to have it fully up :rolleyes:

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Thank you for the feedback!! Any Aeroflow users out there? Or maybe I'll just give the Aeroflow folks a call.
 

SteveADV

Active member
How to sell more BMW C bikes....Use pictures from this forum. Really good stuff Bornfree and Lee.
 
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JaimeC

New member
I'm 5'10" and LOVE my Aeroflow shield. Best thing I've added to the scoot (the Corbin saddle is second).
 

Lee

New member
I'm 5'10" and LOVE my Aeroflow shield. Best thing I've added to the scoot (the Corbin saddle is second).

Jaime, when you have your Aeroflow fully deployed to its maximum height, are you looking through it or over it! TIA!
 

dukdukman

Member
Hi all, I wanna chirp in and perhaps - especially as a newbie - risk some roughing .... I am 6'3" and just bought a 2017 C650Sport. I know, noise and airflow behind any screen depend much on one's upper-body seat-height and noise produced by your helmet. I tried larger, broader windscreen on my 1150GS. All had pros and cons, and each cost quite some dough. Finally I settled for a 'flap'. It's a small-ish device, screwed on top of your screen. It is half-moon shaped and sometime comes with a horizontal gap to assist airflow. This worked really well for me and didn't break the bank. Mine come from Germany from MV Verholen, a small company making BMW accessories. I just ordered one for the scoot as the 1150 is still parked in Germany after a long solo overland journey (Vladivostok - Spain)
 

Bornfree

Member
Hi all, I wanna chirp in and perhaps - especially as a newbie - risk some roughing .... I am 6'3" and just bought a 2017 C650Sport. I know, noise and airflow behind any screen depend much on one's upper-body seat-height and noise produced by your helmet. I tried larger, broader windscreen on my 1150GS. All had pros and cons, and each cost quite some dough. Finally I settled for a 'flap'. It's a small-ish device, screwed on top of your screen. It is half-moon shaped and sometime comes with a horizontal gap to assist airflow. This worked really well for me and didn't break the bank. Mine come from Germany from MV Verholen, a small company making BMW accessories. I just ordered one for the scoot as the 1150 is still parked in Germany after a long solo overland journey (Vladivostok - Spain)

Post pics when you can so we can take a look.
 

CC650GT

New member
One of the first farkles for my 2016 GT was an AeroFlow tall. Fitment was spot on and low speed, back road stuff was bliss. I'm 6' tall and always rode with the oe shield all the way up. AF can be set much lower and still provides superior protection. First slab run was in stark contrast as I thought the AF might tear loose from all the turbulence of truck traffic. It bucks and bounces as it moves thru the dirty air. High speed in clean air is much better. Stock shield does not move much at all, traffic or not.

This has me concerned enough to consider changing to the CalSci. I've read at least one report of that shield not fitting properly on the 16+ scoots. Are there 16+ GT owners out there who've purchased the CalSci and had it fit w/o the need for any modification?

Thanks!
 

Bornfree

Member
One of the first farkles for my 2016 GT was an AeroFlow tall. Fitment was spot on and low speed, back road stuff was bliss. I'm 6' tall and always rode with the oe shield all the way up. AF can be set much lower and still provides superior protection. First slab run was in stark contrast as I thought the AF might tear loose from all the turbulence of truck traffic. It bucks and bounces as it moves thru the dirty air. High speed in clean air is much better. Stock shield does not move much at all, traffic or not.

This has me concerned enough to consider changing to the CalSci. I've read at least one report of that shield not fitting properly on the 16+ scoots. Are there 16+ GT owners out there who've purchased the CalSci and had it fit w/o the need for any modification?

Thanks!

As previously noted, I did need to modify the mounting holes on my CalSci. But once mounted with the rubber washers, it is very stable just as stable in high wind as the original was.
 

Grample

New member
The first thing I noticed about the C650GT was the lack of wind protection compared to my Givi-Air-Flow screened Honda ‘Wing. So, off I went to Givi for a venturi-style screen for the C650GT. Or not as it happens. Not only did Givi not offer an Air-Flow screen but they have also discontinued supply of any screen for the C650GT.
So with my thanks to Bornfree, JaimeC, TwoPort and others for the excellent info’ supplied here, I decided on the CalSci Medium screen and after checking by email that they (CalSci) were re-dimensioning the fitting holes on the screen for the 2016 model I forked out my $240 plus $85 delivery charge plus an added $50’ish for the UK tax charge. Not exactly a cheap option compared to now defunct Givi version!
After a three week wait it has just arrived, beautifully wrapped and protected, and the holes are no longer 3.5mm out: they are now 7mm out! The photo shows the misalignment for the left top hole when the right-hand-side top and bottom holes fixed to their mounts and the bottom is similarly misaligned. It seems that JaimeC’s reported error of 3.5mm has been corrected in the opposite direction. I am now awaiting input from CalSci and will post results as I get them.
CS 01.jpg
 

Bornfree

Member
The first thing I noticed about the C650GT was the lack of wind protection compared to my Givi-Air-Flow screened Honda ‘Wing. So, off I went to Givi for a venturi-style screen for the C650GT. Or not as it happens. Not only did Givi not offer an Air-Flow screen but they have also discontinued supply of any screen for the C650GT.
So with my thanks to Bornfree, JaimeC, TwoPort and others for the excellent info’ supplied here, I decided on the CalSci Medium screen and after checking by email that they (CalSci) were re-dimensioning the fitting holes on the screen for the 2016 model I forked out my $240 plus $85 delivery charge plus an added $50’ish for the UK tax charge. Not exactly a cheap option compared to now defunct Givi version!
After a three week wait it has just arrived, beautifully wrapped and protected, and the holes are no longer 3.5mm out: they are now 7mm out! The photo shows the misalignment for the left top hole when the right-hand-side top and bottom holes fixed to their mounts and the bottom is similarly misaligned. It seems that JaimeC’s reported error of 3.5mm has been corrected in the opposite direction. I am now awaiting input from CalSci and will post results as I get them.
View attachment 1902

How dreadful. My holes were too far to the center and now yours are too far towards the outside edges. Wow ... just wow. :confused:
I did not even bother contacting them until I corrected the error and fixed it to work on my 2016. Obviously they made a change ... but not a proper one. I hope they come up with a satisfactory solution for you.
 

Grample

New member
How dreadful. My holes were too far to the center and now yours are too far towards the outside edges. Wow ... just wow. :confused:
I did not even bother contacting them until I corrected the error and fixed it to work on my 2016. Obviously they made a change ... but not a proper one. I hope they come up with a satisfactory solution for you.

Hmmmn.
I have received a reply from CalSci.
It turns out that CalSci have not modified the drawings/spec of the screen for the C650GT to match the 2016-onwards models, citing the earlier reports of misalignment as believed to be probably due to damage to the customers screen supports. They claim that after my report they will now make the change - but I think that this is the same as Bornfree originally reported.
Quite why Bornfree had a 1/8” difference (1/16” each side) between screen and bike but I now have 1/4” difference (1/8” each side) was not explained.

Bornfree - the holes in my screen are too close together the same as yours were - but even more so!

I guess that either I wait for umpteen weeks to try for a return with costs for non-compliance or I get out my high speed mini drill and try to modify the screen without generating stress-cracks. Moving four 14mm dia. holes sideways each by 1/8” doesn’t feel like a trivial task on an item that cost me a total of $375. And carving acrylic really isn’t a place where I have any experience.

I think it would be wise to sleep on it at this point.
And yes, using a plastic screen as a mattress may keep me awake even more than worrying about it!
 

CC650GT

New member
The first thing I noticed about the C650GT was the lack of wind protection compared to my Givi-Air-Flow screened Honda ‘Wing. So, off I went to Givi for a venturi-style screen for the C650GT. Or not as it happens. Not only did Givi not offer an Air-Flow screen but they have also discontinued supply of any screen for the C650GT.
So with my thanks to Bornfree, JaimeC, TwoPort and others for the excellent info’ supplied here, I decided on the CalSci Medium screen and after checking by email that they (CalSci) were re-dimensioning the fitting holes on the screen for the 2016 model I forked out my $240 plus $85 delivery charge plus an added $50’ish for the UK tax charge. Not exactly a cheap option compared to now defunct Givi version!
After a three week wait it has just arrived, beautifully wrapped and protected, and the holes are no longer 3.5mm out: they are now 7mm out! The photo shows the misalignment for the left top hole when the right-hand-side top and bottom holes fixed to their mounts and the bottom is similarly misaligned. It seems that JaimeC’s reported error of 3.5mm has been corrected in the opposite direction. I am now awaiting input from CalSci and will post results as I get them.
View attachment 1902

Hate to hear and see that Grample. For what it's worth, my phone call to CalSci left me convinced that they are very much customer service oriented. Life is short so a delay is a delay but I suspect you'll be taken care of to your complete satisfaction. Hopefully that results in a CalSci screen that fits the 16+ GTs like a glove.
 

Grample

New member
Hi, I’m really grateful to all the folk who published the original reviews on, and guides to fitting, the CalSci screen to the C650GT. I will add in my two-penneth (cents) worth on the assumption that having the same info’ more than once can’t do any harm - I hope!

After worrying and fartling around doing nothing for days I finally just went ahead, modified the screen holes and then fitted the screen. And it was that simple and straightforward.
The what to do and the doing are simple: the reasons for the doing are less simple. Some nervous folk like me might prefer to know a bit more of the why before they get to the do - so those of you who are more practical (and therefore wiser) should nip out for that coffee now.

When you look at the bike you see two black strips each held by two screws that seem to hold the screen in place. In reality, when you remove the screws and strips you see that there are two more holes in the screen and that these fit onto lugs/bosses that are actually controlling the position and orientation of the screen. The outer screws and the brackets simply hold the screen against the positioning lugs. This third location is good when fitting the OEM screen but both good and bad when fitting the CalSci screen.

Another thing to note is that the screws are not just screws but are shoulder screws. They are screwed down until they reach a shoulder on the screw. You could tighten the screw until something breaks but the pressure applied to the screen would remain both constant and low and therefore so will the stresses in the screen. That’s neat.

The final thing to note is that the OEM screen is an aspheric or a spheroid which is nerd-speak to say that the screen is curved from side to side and is also curved but by a lesser amount from top to bottom. This means that the fixing points on the supports must also lay on an aspheric curve.

Now the CalSci screen is not aspherical but rather is cylindrical: it is curved from side to side but is ruler straight top to bottom. That is where the third location shows as ‘bad’. Without the central lug of the mount you could put a ruler between the top and bottom fixing points with no problem. But with that central lug you find that when the ruler is on the central point you get around a 3mm (1/8”) gap to both the top and the bottom fixing points. And it is the same with the CalSci screen: you end up with a 3mm gap at the screw fixing points and this is why you need to pack the gaps with something (like a hose washer) around 3mm thick and with a bit of ‘give’ to accommodate the differences in curve between asphere and cylinder.

That is not quite the end of it because now that the screen is packed out by 3mm at the fixing locations then it means that the well-defined gap set by the shoulder- screws needs also to increase by that 3mm. I did that by fitting several washers onto the shoulders. It is perfectly acceptable not to pack the shoulders of the screws and simply to use the torque recommended by CalSci to tighten things up but, to me, that removes some of the elegance of the BMW design where the stresses are kept low by dimension rather than by ‘feel’.

So, now onto the ‘doing’.

The CalSci screen is still supplied with holes to suit the pre-2016 model and so the top and bottom holes in the screen are too close together by up to about 3mm or 1/8” per side. This is where the ‘good’ bit of the central lug comes in. It is quite simple to hold the new screen in place on the lugs and to then mark (just roughly) the centre of the fixing screw threads onto the screen (I used a felt-tip) at each top and bottom hole positions. I then used a washer of approximately the same size as the holes to draw the outline of the new hole. None of this needs to be very exact because the controlling central lugs and holes do not get altered and the holes that are being modified are basically just to allow the arms on the black brackets and shoulder-screws to pass through the screen. And of course, these holes can’t be seen once the black brackets are put back in place.

There are umpteen ways to carve out the excess acrylic. The recommended way is to use a Dremel but I had no Dremel-bits long enough to cut all the screen thickness at one hit so I used a 6mm (1/4”) dia. rotary rasp bit in a mains hand-drill on full speed. It took just 30 minutes to carve out the excess material on all four holes and half of that time was down to clamping the screen to my bench. I covered my bench with an old towel and wrapped another towel around a piece of timber then G-clamped the screen (curving up) between the two. This was straight-forward because the screen is cylindrical.

To generate the 3mm of packing I used a shower hose washer backed by a large metal washer with almost identical inner and outer diameter. Then the fun started. I could find no way of getting these two items to stick to each of the four mounting points on the bike. In the end I gave up and used standard double-sided sticky tape to fix the rubber washer to the screen and then the metal washer to the rubber one. I used the black brackets as a guide for the positioning. It is worth noting that the hole in the centre of the main packing washers needs to be bigger than any washers that you end up using to pack out the shoulder-screws.

That is another doosie - multiple washers on the shoulder-screws that are facing down when you try to fit the brackets. I didn’t want to use grease (on the reduced number of threads) on the fixing screws and also I didn’t want to use anything sticky that might act as thread-lock. And, unless you are very lucky the washers you end up using as packers will not fit through the holes in the black brackets. So it is a case of pushing the screws through the brackets then fitting the packing washers to the shoulders then finding some way to avoid them falling off during re-assembly. The screws have sharp pointy ends so I forced a strip of electrical tape onto the point and past the threads to trap the washers. It is all so very high-tech! For me, the only 5mm washers I had in my workshop were the split-ring spring type but these have very small outer diameter and have relatively high thickness and so worked rather well.

Anyway, I reckon that once you have sourced the rubber washer and any backing washer and also the packing washers that fit through them, then it would take less than an hour to remove the old screen, open up the holes in new screen, then reassemble the new screen to the bike. Truly.

I chickened out for nearly a week but in the end found it very easy to do. If you are thinking of doing it then just go for it!

In (my so far very limited) use I have found the screen to be much better than the OEM one but I think that the sweet spot for me will end up with the (medium) screen above the mid-point of travel. I now wish that I had opted for a taller one so that the optimum travel would be below the mid-point and therefore the screen wouldn’t be zooming up and down every time I switch the ignition: I still haven’t figured out a sane reason why BMW made it so.

Thanks again to everyone who helped me take the decision.
 
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Bornfree

Member
Well Done! I mistakenly (didn't look close enough at your pic) thought your holes were too wide when mine were too narrow ... but now I see you had exactly the same issue I had.
Congrats for getting it to work!
 
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SteveADV

Active member
Ok. I gotta figure out how to work "aspheric curve" into a conversation. Probably wouldn't pass HR muster so can't do it at work. Maybe at poker tomorrow when we start talking politics.:rolleyes:
 
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