• Welcome to the Two Wheeled Texans community! Feel free to hang out and lurk as long as you like. However, we would like to encourage you to register so that you can join the community and use the numerous features on the site. After registering, don't forget to post up an introduction!

I'll be riding the Acadiana 400

OK - full story... My brother (JMQ2) and I went to participate in this ride. JMQ2 sometimes lets his DR650 sit too long, and it needs to have the carb cleaned. So Thursday he had the carb cleaned and bike was running OK. I got to his house Friday and adjusted the fuel screw and it was running well. I was planning to ride my new to me XR400, but I brought my KLR650 just as a backup.

This turned out to be a good/bad thing, as the DR650 would not start and run on Saturday morning. We spent 20 minutes on it and gave up, as we had a spare anyway. So it was JMQ2, not me that was riding the KLR. I was on the XR400.

He was doing well on the KLR, the back end was sliding all over, but he didn't get stuck or fall, so we were doing well............ Then he came up to a large puddle, and he didn't think he could hold a line around the outside, so he went through it. This was a mistake.

The hole was around hip deep, and he hit something in the middle which pitched him over to the right side, placing the airbox intake (and possibly the CDI) in the water.

We pushed the bike out, removed the filter, drained the airbox, removed the plug and got a little water out of the cylinder, checked for spark, and it still wouldn't start.

Went through several iterations of drain carb, remove bowl and look at float, clean spark plug, etc, but never got any response.. After 45 minutes or an hour we gave up and decided to tow/push back to the road. We borrowed a tow strap (THANKS!), and the mighty XR pulled the KLR back through the mud, etc. It took us 30-45 minutes to get back to the dirt road, which included quite a bit of mud and a couple of hills where JMQ2 was walking and pushing while I was pulling with the XR.

During this time, the bottom of JMQ2's riding boot came completely off (and it must have been all at once, because he didn't notice until later when we were washing the bike and decided to wash the boots as well!)

Also, the XR has an Acerbis tank on it, with a fuel line from each side, meeting in the middle and going to the carb. The right side hose was too close to the exhaust and melted, pouring gas onto the header. That was easy though, as we just turned off one petcock and shoved a stick into the hose that used to go to that petcock.

So we went into town and had lunch, washed the bike so it would be easier to work on, and went back to camp. Instead of messing with the KLR any longer, we tore down the DR650 carb to see if we could figure out what was wrong with it. We didn't notice anything in the float, jets, etc - but the O-ring for the vacuum port was missing. We replaced that and it still didn't make much effort to fire. After a couple of hours of messing around, we said screw it and decided that maybe we had run out of luck, and we skipped day 2.

Post mortem DR650 - we got back home and were going to quickly spray a little carb cleaner in the intake of the DR and try to start it, just to validate a fuel problem - took the airbox door off and the airbox was full of fuel! So THAT would have been an easy fix - we probably would've caught it Saturday morning if we hadn't had the KLR as a spare bike.

KLR650 is now blowing the fuse when I try to start, so I will have to do more diagnostics on it - haven't even unloaded it yet as I have been busy with other things..


So all in all, it was a good weekend. ?
 
Thanks to Justin ,Jason? Joel and our guide/cajun translator Kerry.Yous guys made this a real adventure ride.Thanks again.
 
The KLR and the mudhole jokes write themselves.

so i won't bother.
 
A shame to have two bikes down at one time. With the huge four wheelers and jacked up trucks out there those mud "puddles" can be quite treacherous. Explore every option.
 
Positive side was....
.you didn’t have a flat [emoji41]


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
as the guide/interpreter I should put 2 cents in. It was a good ride for all up to that point. It was a concerted effort to get the KLR going. I was glad to offer what help i could, tools and ultimately a tow rope.
that is the first time to use my home made tow strap. Glad it was there and came in handy. But wish we could have all rode out.
The rest of the ride went well for both days. if you don't mind riding in the rain a little.
I want to thank my two riding partners for sharing the fun on the rest of the riding. They are great guys to ride with.
Look forward to seeing ya'll again.
 
A little rain, says the guy without rain gear...
 
Our group.
bf08a5872f809630afe24689cba24852.jpg
 
Finally got down to the root cause on the KLR - I hope! Haven't had much time to tear down lately..

First off, I again verified spark and fuel - I tried a little starting fluid, new plug, etc just to confirm. Still no go, so I decided it was way past time to do a spring cleaning.. I pulled everything off except the radiators, wiring, and engine so that I could clean up some of the wiring and clean the bike in general before pulling off the valve covers, etc..

It was during this that I discovered what is likely my root cause... The KLR airbox has two drains. One on the dirty side of the airbox, and one on the clean side of the airbox. The purpose is for if the airbox is filled with water, gas or oil, you can get it out. I have never noticed that there was a drain on the clean side.

The drain on the dirty side has a very short rubber piece that will open when you squeeze it to let fluids out. I've seen that on many different bikes.

The drain on the clean side has a hose that goes down to the bottom of the bike and the hose has a plug in it. Or at least it does when Kawasaki sells it. I have no idea how long mine had been gone, but I just had a hose hanging down under the bike sucking dirt and water into the engine. Yay! Due to this, I also had about 1/8 or so of dirt caking the inside of the airbox, on the clean side of the air filter. No clue how much has gone through the engine.
 
Last edited:
So - first things first, check valves - both intakes are out of clearance - one is really zero clearance, the other is not touching, but I can't fit any shims in (I could tell it isn't touching because I could rotate the shim underneath it.) I had a couple of shims and was able to rearrange things enough to figure what sizes I needed to put things in spec, so I ordered up some shims.

Got those in, buttoned it back up, and I got it to pop a couple of times, mostly with starter fluid, and not even close to running. Time for some actual diagnostics...
 
The KLR has an automatic decompressor built into the exhaust cam, so a regular compression test doesn't work very well. So I bought a cheapie Harbor Freight leakdown tester.

Set the piston at top dead center on the compression stroke, hook up the leakdown tester, and pressurize the piston. You get a readout of what % of the air is escaping. If you are losing much, the next thing is to determine where it is going..

In order to tell where it's going, you have to listen/feel (or I've read to strap a rubber glove over the openings). If the air is coming out of the exhaust port, you have an exhaust valve problem, out of the intake port (carburetor), you have an intake valve problem. Mine was all coming out of the oil fill hole, which means I am leaking past the piston.

So yesterday I finally yanked the head and cylinder off to figure out if I had royally fubar'ed it or not. Turns out the rings were stuck in the grooves on the piston and were not able to expand, therefore not sealing. Unfortunately the cylinder doesn't have any crosshatching and needs to be cleaned up prior to trying to reseat rings. Since I'm in there and need a head and base gasket anyway, I have ordered a full set of rings, exhaust header copper gasket, and a ball hone to clean up the cylinder. There is no damage, just need to cross hatch it again.


I should have all this by the weekend and maybe, just maybe, it will start then.


Also - I have a simple rubber cap on the airbox drain now. If I need to drain it, I will just pull the cap off. I don't need the convenience of an easily accessible hose hanging under the bike.
 
My guess is that I had a lot of buildup on the piston/rings from sucking dirt in, and when a little water was ingested, it got loosened up and wedged into the ring grooves on the piston, sticking the rings in place. It's probably not a bad thing that we couldn't get it started- eventually it would've done damage to the cylinder, piston, or both.
 
I'm sure you will have her up and running in no time. I'm always amazed at how much abuse an engine can take. I would like to know how long you sucked dust in on the clean side of the air box.
 
Kerry and I are camped at the Loran Campground in Forest Hill, ready to ride trails in the morning.

I told him less than 30 min ago that I thought you had water in your gas.

It is just starting to rain and I'm sleeping in this stupid tent I built yesterday with leftover house wrap and good intentions.
4f2478a2d10f9e0b0c276a38393c211e.jpg
 
My guess is that I had a lot of buildup on the piston/rings from sucking dirt in, and when a little water was ingested, it got loosened up and wedged into the ring grooves on the piston, sticking the rings in place. It's probably not a bad thing that we couldn't get it started- eventually it would've done damage to the cylinder, piston, or both.
What's the oil look like?


Kerry and I are camped at the Loran Campground in Forest Hill, ready to ride trails in the morning.

I told him less than 30 min ago that I thought you had water in your gas.

It is just starting to rain and I'm sleeping in this stupid tent I built yesterday with leftover house wrap and good intentions.
4f2478a2d10f9e0b0c276a38393c211e.jpg
that's my kind of tent!
 
Last edited:
[emoji1303]

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 
I was hoping you would share the autopsy on the KLR J. Quite the mystery.
 
She lives!!! after new rings and honing cylinder..

Started easily and idled well. Only ran it about 20 seconds because I haven't refilled the radiator, hooked up the radiator fan, etc.. just got it back together enough to start.

If I get around to the rest of it tonight I'll heat cycle it with a couple of rides to work, and I'm good to go!

Sent from my KYOCERA-E6820 using Tapatalk
 
Made it to work today, so everything seems good.

Pro tip - if you just throw all the "common" nuts and bolts into a big bowl that already has nuts and bolts in it, you won't know how many extra you have left at the end, and your stress level is way reduced!
 
Made it to work today, so everything seems good.

Pro tip - if you just throw all the "common" nuts and bolts into a big bowl that already has nuts and bolts in it, you won't know how many extra you have left at the end, and your stress level is way reduced!
I'm going through that now! Plus I bought a bolt kit.
No idea of what's missing.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 
Back
Top