tntmo

If you’re looking to buy a good 450 size dual sport, I know that Tim @Goofy Footer has a Honda CRF450L that he should sell.

You should be able to split the cases without removing that, but it will have to come off to replace that bearing. Once the case is out of the way, I would think that almost any sort of spanner wrench would be able to remove it. Something like this? Some of these kind of spanners are available with a square drive to put a torque wrench on them so you could reinstall it and get the proper specification on it. Otherwise we have some pretty good fabricators in this group, you could see if someone could make something for you since you said you are lacking in tools to make it yourself. I think starting with a piece of pipe with the same diameter of the ring and then filing/grinding/milling out the "teeth" would be what I would do. I'm glad to see that you're moving forward with this project and taking on the challenge.

What is the seat height on that thing?

Early DR350S (90-93) rear wheels had cush drive on an 18" rim. DR650 has it on a 17" rim. Or you had an aftermarket rear wheel set. Anyway, solid deal on these wheels!

You can tell from the picture that it's not a cush drive. DRZ never came with a cush drive.

Let’s try to get some of us out there. I wasn’t able to make it to the last one, but been to a few recently. Coffee and donuts at the start, lunch and a raffle when we finish and helping keep our trails open and maintained.

Thanks to @Zubb for reminding me, this is coming up this weekend. See ya there??

No milk crate, pass.

Did you swap out the super thin tubes in the tires? I've seen lots of stories about how crappy they are.

I don’t know if I could pick a favorite. It was neat to see an Ariel Square Four and a Vincent Black Shadow. Not as big of an event as I expected but it was a nice day to look at bikes.

I have an extra CamelBak backpack if anyone needs one. Free is a good price. A cold beer in hand is acceptable also.

That’s awesome. Definitely interested to hear from someone in this group about these bikes.

I was about to say something similar. Unfortunately, it’s a complete engine disassembly to replace that bearing. With almost 50,000 miles on the engine it probably makes sense to replace lots of other parts.

You’d be surprised, had a Honda that sounded a lot better than that with a wiped out cam, rockers and cylinder head. Still pulled second gear wheelies, too!

Yeah, I was being sarcastic which doesn't come off too well in a forum. With a bearing cage busted off like that you have possibly wiped out your top end as well. The cam rides directly on machined surfaces of the cylinder head, having debris running through the engine could destroy those surfaces along with the cam and the rockers. Every bearing in the engine should be replaced to prevent further damage. The parts bill is going up. Sad to see an engine get destroyed like that, no way to tell without complete disassmebly. I didn't read all the pages of the DR Rider link until now, I hope you didn't try to ride it the 20 miles you were discussing? Have you removed the oil filter and looked at that? If it's full of glitter that's no bueno, and I imagine it will be.

I looked on the Suzuki parts diagram and didn’t see those parts.

Here’s a pretty cheap bike not too far away. Could pull the engine and part it out? https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1073297961154211/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Some motorcycle engines have a "rebuild kit" available that comes with a new crank, bearings, seals, gaskets, etc so it's simple to figure out parts costs but a quick search online didn't show anything like that for the DR650. Without digging through the entire Suzuki parts file, I'd guess it would be around $300 for gaskets, seals, bearings, etc. Probably about the same for a crank, maybe more. If you are looking to replace the piston and cylinder as well, looks like ProCycle has the piston kit for $270, getting the cylinder re-Nikasil'ed is only available at a few places (Millineum Tech is the place I've used in the past) and I can't recall how much but probably over $200? Then if you need machine work, like getting valve seats cut or the cylinder head surfaced that all adds up. Replace the clutch? Cam/rockers all in spec? Transmission gears? You might be looking at upwards of $1500 just in parts and machine work. I've gone through engines like this before, it doesn't take long for it to add up. If you're doing it yourself, then the labor isn't a big deal but if you're paying someone it's a lot of man hours. It's 2-3 hours just to remove/replace the engine, the last time I had someone with a blown up DR650 that's what we did. Found a reasonably priced used engine and swapped them out. My son had a Yamaha R6 sport bike with a bad engine, the main and rod bearings were going out. We found a used engine and swapped it out, then I took apart the old engine and sold individual parts on Ebay for twice what we paid for the used engine. That's an option, although it does take time and some work. If you're free next weekend, try to bring it to the tech day like Udo said. I will take a look at it and we can have a cool drink and discuss options.

Looks like you're already finding some of the local stuff, lots more to explore. Anza Borrego desert is "in season" now so it's a great time to get out there to put that T7 to the test. Welcome to the group, see ya on the trail.

It’s my anniversary, I will see if the wife thinks this is where we should go for the celebration. She still surprises me but I’m dubious about her response.

Some are open for green sticker, most are street legal only.

I always like to take new off road riders out to the desert. Superstition BLM area has a lot of big dry lake beds that are great for this kind of thing, flat and not much besides small bushes occasionally. If you're not familiar with the location you can message me and I will give you directions. It's about two hours from San Diego, but there aren't many other nice big flat places that I can think of.

My wife said she was going to take my van out to the campground so I didn’t pack my gear up. At the last minute she bailed, so I was on a tight schedule. Loaded up my bike and drove to the campground, five minutes later I had unloaded the bike and got my gear on. Hustled back to Ramona and was there with 15 minutes or so to go time. Kelly (Zubb), Udo (Mr Jaja), Tom and Tony (maybe both from FB?) were already there and Alex (A2) and his wife Denise showed up a few minutes later. Udo and Denise drove to the campground, the remaining five rode out. The sky was looking a little dark, and soon after we got our tires on the dirt we got some rain. Not too much, just enough to get us cooled off more. The trail is in nice shape, but you can’t really go too fast with all the blind turns. We had a few vehicles come around the corner but no issues. Mesa Grande was wet with a lot of leaves on the surface, I was extra cautious. We stopped at the gas station for a minute but nobody needed anything so we continued on. The road to the campground is really fun but also narrow with blind corners. Be careful! We made it to camp and Pauly (PaulyPickles) was parked there but no bikes. He and his brother in law said they were going to stage there and do some practice riding for the LA/Barstow/Vegas ride. It wasn’t long before we had a campfire going. Cooked some tuna steaks thanks to Alex, had cold snacks and enjoyed the warmth of the fire. Pauly and John came back from their ride. Mike (SanRider) showed up too. Tony rode home for the night, Udo and Mike drove home and the rest of us tried to stay warm. It got below freezing overnight but everyone survived. Coffee around a campfire is always good. A few people decided to do more riding, I loaded up my KTM and drove home. A nice simple ride with an overnight camp out, still a lot of fun. I didn’t get many photos so if anyone did please post them here along with your words of wisdom.

Over a year ago, I spotted an ad for an 86 Kawasaki Concours with a trailer for $250 on craigslist. No photo, not much info except that it had been sitting and there were non-op titles for both. I was in the middle of a trip myself, but I sent the link to a good friend of mine and he drove up to Orange County and picked the deal up. It was everything I had expected and more. Old tires, yellowed windshield, dead battery, rusty tank, gunked up carbs, etc. What else would you expect for that price? It had a 1980's era communication system with corded connections to two old crusty Arai helmets, a 1980's era CB radio, about 200 yards of extra wiring all over the bike. The trailer had dry rotted tires that at least held air and inside the trailer were a few really old heated vests. Those worked! Looked like some of the first ones from back in the day. Now if you're not familiar with the Kawasaki Concours, 86 was the first year and they produced almost the exact same bike for 20 years. It's a 1000cc liquid cooled, inline four cylinder sport touring bike with shaft drive and detachable hard bags and a 7.5 gallon fuel tank. Good for long miles, available pretty cheap these days. Here's a video link of getting the bike going. I did several videos on this bike, if you're interested in them you can find them on my channel. Many times when I find deals like this, I have an idea of what I'd like to do with them. I don't often buy anything just to flip it anymore, when I see a deal I dream of taking it on some kind of adventure. The main appeal of this was the trailer, I had never pulled a trailer behind a motorcycle. I figured if I could take this cheap bike on a multi day trip, that would be pretty fun....especially since it cost less than an upgraded tank emblem on a new BMW. My friend who picked the bike up used to go on trips with me 20 years ago, usually up to Laguna Seca to watch motorcycle racing but he has never camped off a motorcycle before. I told him that I'd take care of fixing the bike up, he had to get a week off and we'd go.....somewhere. He agreed, so I was in fix it mode. In order to keep the cost low on this bike, I traded my partially skilled moto labor for parts. Valve adjustment on a Honda: battery. Tuneup on a Suzuki: Front tire. And so on....I bought a few things here and there, but mostly my riding buddies helped "sponsor" this build. I went through most on the bike and had it in pretty good mechanical condition and even detailed it a little bit. Then I waited for my friend to let me know when we were going. He set a date, then said he had to cancel. Again this happened. Finally he agreed that October was it, no matter what. So here we are, almost at the beginning of this trip. But let me take you back about one week.......