DR350SE questions...

Frustrating would be the word choice the past two days....

Rusty and I had it running - well short of that idle to roll on bog Ed talked about above.

About six or eight weeks ago I was getting a bit more brave getting farther from the house. Call it a 'testing the waters' for reliability. Well, it left me a mile from the house with a dead engine and wouldn't restart so I pushed the thing home. Tried to get it started again and no such luck. Just wouldn't fire.

There it sat for a month, made a move, and yesterday I decided it was time to look at this 'project' again. So off come the panels and gas tank. I dumped out the fuel from the tank and drained the bowl. Off to the airport for five gallons of non-ethanol AVGAS (it's blue of all things...) and put two gallons in once it was all buttoned back up.

Hammered the starter a bit and got it to fire - a good sign. I could get it to idle, but anytime I tried to roll on the throttle, there's that bog. Never could get it past an idle without it trying to die. There was one time I got it to spool up but it wasn't consistent at high RPM. So it idles, but that's about it.

So I'm at a crossroads.....
Do I take it off again, clean it and have the same song/dance?
-Seems like this really won't accomplish anything new/different in the big picture

Do I just buck up and find a stock carb, throttle cables, manifold and airbox connection and get that installed back to stock?
-How involved is it to change out the throttle cables?
-Where would you source a stock carb? I'm guessing the dealer would be uber-expensive

Do I sell it and buy a sweet little '12 KLX250S with 1300 miles?
-Very tempting, but I don't know how this shakes out in the plus/minus column for either in a comparison. It's new school vs old school and the old school has some suspension that probably needs to be addressed as well for my size.
-Is one just simply a better bike than the other?




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eBay is a good source for used OEM parts. Check that the seller has sold a few things/has a good rating. I've found a lot of '84 CR500 parts there that are no longer available from Honda at reasonable prices.

To fix or sell, that is up to you. I would find as many stock parts on Ebay as I could, if I was choosing to fix and not sell.

The manifold is stock, as is the boot for the air cleaner. Probably worth the price of a stock carb just to be able to ride the thing. It has the push/pull cables still, so the cables might also be stock. I know the throttle assembly on the bars is stock.

ed29 said:

The manifold is stock, as is the boot for the air cleaner. Probably worth the price of a stock carb just to be able to ride the thing. It has the push/pull cables still, so the cables might also be stock. I know the throttle assembly on the bars is stock.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Ed. That fills in more holes for me.

Do you recall how the front/rear is sprung for what wgt rider? And if I take the lowering bones off, does the front need to come up as well?

All that was done up front was raise the forks in the clamps. The suspension was set up by the seller prior to yours, so I don't know the spring rate. Can't remember his screen name, too many years ago but he was a member here.

Roger that!

I've located a new OEM carb from Partzilla for $419. p/n 13200-14EP0 or 13200-14EP1. Can't figure out what the real part number is for a '96SE, but I'm getting close.

Again, thanks.

So there's the cable issue to solve going back to OEM which makes an existing carb replacement more attractive in light of the history of issues with this one.

I'm however confused to what I actually might have installed in the bike. From the documents I received upon purchase, there is a parts listing with a diagram of what mine looks like and at the top it has "TM33 Parts" with many of the line items highlighted yellow. Then I also have another document which appears to be from a manual in a table format and under Carburetor it shows Type Specification as "TM33 SS". And finally I have another document which appears to be out of yet another manual and it's titled "Fuel and Lubrication System". It's from Chapter 4 of some manual. Handwritten on the front is "Mikuni TM33SS 'pumper' carb installed in owners DR350SE (1996)"

Poking around the internet, are these the same carb or different ones? The closest thing I can find on the 'net to an actual part number is a Mikuni TM33-8012. Is this the same as a what the documentation above points to?

I do know it has an alum spacer block on the head side and a push-pull cable system.

From conversations with the two previous owners, they both had issues with a bog of idle and I'm led to believe the carb on the bike is actually from some flavor of a DR but don't know which one.

Is it a fair assumption I'm looking for a TM33-8012 and that would just bolt right in place of what's there with no required mods?

the TM33-8012 is a single cable flat slide carb ($207.98 on amazon uses twt link)

trick aftermarket carb. the dr350se for 1996 used a single cable actuated CV carb and the off road only DR350 used a flat slide carb with two cables but not the TM33-8012

in this picture the stock won't bog dr350se carb is on the left and the straight dr350 dirt carb is on the right.


the TM33-8012 is a popular upgrade carb that will require some fiddling with jets and needle positions to tune.

Thanks Leon. I have the one on the right and it's a push-pull cable, not a single cable.

So what do I have then? Still confused.....

arg! I hate "stock picture is not representative of actual carb" the carb on the right in that picture IS a TM33-8012

the stock carburetor for the dr350SE is a mikuni CVK

All-righty..... I've been following a thread on ADVRider about a couple DR350 builds and the owner confirmed it's a TM33-8012 with 127.5 Main and 37.5 Pilot jets straight from Amazon.

Looks like I'll be surfing for one of those shortly and hopefully get this next problem solved!

I punched in that number on Amazon and one popped right up, good price

New carb (TM33-8012) came in Saturday, so Sunday evening I pulled the tank, made room and got the new one installed and the tank back on. For giggles, I turned on the petcock, waited to fill the bowl, pulled out the choke and hit the starter. Within a second, it roared to life. WooHoo.... Let it run about five seconds since it was late and in the garage and shut it down.

About 30min ago I did the same thing.... Pulled the choke on, turned on the fuel, hit the starter and immediately it fired right up. Ran a minute on full choke, then dropped to half choke and at two minutes no choke. Super throttle response, no lag, no bog and responsive. Hmmm.....

Against my better judgement and personal rules, I donned just a helmet and took off to the pasture and played around a bit. That was a lot of fun just tearing around. Brought it back to the garage, shut it down, waited about five minutes to see if it would start easily hot and sure enough, fired right up and I played some more.

I'd say in my best Gene Wilder voice "It's...It's....It's A-L-I-V-E"!


Thanks for all your help on this one.


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Ooooo-Rahhh!

no video no proof!

The video won't upload.... bummer.

On to the next thing to solve (with pictures!)

The blinkers are on thin alum tabs and I've fixed one already. Doesn't take much to bend/break. So whats a good solution other than removal? Thinking a plyable yet stiff rubber 'tab'.

Go!

Stainless tab

My thought would be to weld some recessed tabs onto the luggage rack so they don't stick out so far.

Both above suggestions are good. One other is use a small angle aluminum instead of flat.

or loose the aluminum tabs altogether, those turn stalks originally mounted directly to the steel mounts.

focus frenzy said:

or loose the aluminum tabs altogether, those turn stalks originally mounted directly to the steel mounts.

Click to expand...

Very true. I think they were relocated to accommodate luggage a little better.