broke clutch cable / good fortune.

[Mike Peplinski]

Sounds like you got a "Friday" one-perhaps that one should not have left the dealer floor in that condition.

>From: "Eric L. Green" >To: Mike Peplinski >CC: DSN_klr650@yahoogroups.com >Subject: Re: [DSN_klr650] Sloppy Manufacture??? >Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 09:03:10 -0700 (PDT) > >On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Mike Peplinski wrote: > > In a current thread one of the readers refers to the KLR (my beloved >KLR) as > > sloppy manufacturing" and I've seen other references to "cheap" and >such. To > > which ``-+I say 1/ bullshit 2/ why aren't more of you up in arms. > >Fine and dandy. Want to swap fairing brackets? You see, my fairing bracket >was built with too much clearance between its mounting plates when it was >welded together by busy Filipinos. So the handy dandy Filipino assembly >workers, upon receiving this bracket, simply bent everything to the point >where it could be secured to the bike, and voila! Nevermind that my >fairing goes down the road cockeyed, with one side higher than the other, >I'm sure you won't mind. So since the KLR is built with such high build >quality, I'm sure you wont mind swapping fairing brackets with me, because >surely it's just a peachy-keen deal . > >And let's take footpeg mounts. One of mine was happily pre-stripped by >those smiling workers at the KLR factory for me, so that I didn't have to >do it myself! What a bunch of helpful guys! > >And of course there's that odd weldment ("doohickey") for adjusting the >tension on the balancer chain. Some of them fit the shaft well. Others are >sloppy and break after the corners of the shaft hammer on them for a while >(the dude from Eagle Mfg. suggests that 5% or more are so sloppy that >they'll eventually break). > >And of course there's that odd weldment called a "gear shift lever"... > >While some parts of the KLR seem to be better assembled than others (KLR >engines in particular seem relatively bullet-proof other than the balancer >mechanism), there's just way too much of that kind of sloppiness. > >As for why we aren't up in arms: The bike costs $5,000. Not $8,000 >like a BMW F-650, the closest competitor sold in America. $5,000. And >many of us got it far cheaper used, you can get a 5 year old KLR for >$2,000 in some places. So even though pieces are falling off left and >right as you go down the road because Kawasaki wanted to save a few >cents on thread locker and thus the helpful gnomes on the KLR assembly >line don't use any, and the KLR has all the build quality of a 1970 >Chevrolet Impala, we just grumble about it and cope with it, because >unlike the Yugo (another vehicle famous for poor assembly quality), >the KLR does generally work mechanically well. But darn, I wish my >fairing wasn't cockeyed! > >-E

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