Motorcycle Maintenance Monday!

Unfortunately during this last trip I could hear some faint clanking or thumping sound on the bike. It wasn't constant and seemed to come around most often when I was accelerating at low rpm's. I'm afraid to find out what it is. I don't know if the doohickey has been replaced on the bike. I'm at least the third owner of it. Doesn't seem too hard to check it or to replace it entirely. Just need the special tools and parts to do it.

After some google research and calling around I couldn't find a shop in the Tacoma area that carries parts for the KLR. It's either just off road or harley and street bike shops. Amazon has the stuff but I was hoping to do some good maintenance right then.

I figured I could at least check the doohickey to see how it's hanging in there hoping it wasn't hanging at all and still in one piece. So I watched a bunch of youtube and determined they were all saying and showing the same thing so I should be safe to do the procedure.

Dirty, Dirty Taquache

Taking bolts out was time consuming. Had to remove the bash guard, front sprocket cover (that was NASTY inside), and the gear shift. While moving around the bike I noticed one of the stickers that was on the panniers was an eagle mike sticker. I got rather excited thinking maybe the doohickey had already been replaced.

When I lifted the alternator cover off I had two different parts fall into the crank case. This caused my stomach to fall as well. I saw the right thrust washer and bearing for one of the little gears came out. But they slipped along the starter gear and stayed on my side of the gear.
Once I got the deal exposed I was able to look down in there and was pleasantly surprised to see a big solid doohickey in place. It appeared to be an aftermarket one but couldn't be totally sure when all I could see was about 10% of the part. I started looking for the coil spring but it was nowhere over there. I could just barely make out over the top of the doohickey was a beautiful torsion spring seated around it.

Let All Rejoice! No Special Tools Needed!

So I gladly slapped it all back together while only needing to reference my Clymer's manual a couple times. Happy day it was to know I don't have to deal with that. The bad part is that the noise I was hearing is coming from somewhere else. Maybe I'll check the clutch next and see how that looks.

Pretty good indicator that's it's an Eagle Mike product.

There's plenty of other things that need to be taken apart and checked out for wear and given generous amounts of lube so plenty of material for Motorcycle Maintenance Mondays in the future. And yes, this was in fact all done on a Monday.









Please leave a comment down below or send me an email about where else you would like me to ride. Whether they're scenic roads or particular trails I'm willing to go take a look and post it up. Remember to like my facebook page to get notifications of when I post up here. Thanks for stopping by and be safe out there.

 ADVhero, out here.