dual sport site

[Steve Rolfe]

I will never understand the economics of mass production. Years ago, I read about a fix for airhead BMW's. Splines used to seize in the tranny, making clutch replacement difficult. Preventable with a little dab of high-quality grease during reassembly. I remember wondering why on earth they didn't take care of that at the factory. What would it add to the price of the "BMW of motorcycles"? 50 cents? Maybe even a buck? Fast forward to today- While removing my brand-new KLR 650's sidestand safety switch, I notice that the cable is dry as a bone. No lube on it. That gets me wondering about rest of the bike. Sure enough, the clutch cable, swingarm pivot and two out of three suspension linkage bolts came up clean as a bone. The remaining bolt had a smear of low-grade grease on it. Kawi's manual calls for specialized, high-grade lube. Worse still, two of the bolts came out dripping with trapped water, although the bike hasn't seen any water crossings yet. Of course, there isn't a grease fitting in sight... This, by the way, is after I paid my dealer (the Ottawa Goodtime Centre) $160 CDN for the 800km service. The resultant premature wear won't affect the performance of the bike until years after the warranty is out. But why allow it to happen at all? You can bet I'll be checking the speedometer cable, steering head and wheel hubs next. So, if you've got a late-model KLR at home, don't assume that factory-fresh means "no maintenance needed". If you've got the mechanical know-how, grab a service manual and some tools and hop to it. After all, an ounce of grease is worth a pound of replacement parts... Steve Rolfe srolfe@... '02 A16 Your clicks can feed the poor- visit http://www.thehungersite.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[gregpaul]

WOW! Nice site Swampy!!! When will you have the Dallas site done? Greg in Dallas

--- In DSN_klr650@y..., "Swampy" wrote: > Hi gang, > > Just got this dual sport site updated, please check it out and tell us what you think! It's for the WDSRC, a dual sport club here in the South Eastern US. > > www.wdsrc.com > > Thanks, > > Swampy > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]