Team KLX's KLX650 Rally Conversion

Credit: FoGo72



Lots will be happening in the shed at KLX central for 2013.

Bike 1 will get the Frankenstien engine pulled out on boxing day and stripped to find out what damage was done after the front sprocket shaft seal popped out again on the Longest day ride and pumped the sump dry, resulting in a loud knocking noise coming from the bottom end which I shut the engine down on the side of the road 20 klms out of Bourke. The engine in Bike 1 is called the frankenstien engine cause its been a rock solid engine for a few years now which was originally a KLX650R model engine which was barstardized to run a lot of different parts from different model bikes. Its got a different head on it, Cams out of a GPZ900 road bike, Cast iron cylinder instead of Nikisil.
No decomp mech, manual cam chain tensioner. It runs a crank out of a different model bike which enabled the electric start conversion and a different CDI. The cylinder has been bored out to 102mm which takes it out to 680cc and I run a Wossner piston kit. Apart from the sprocket shaft seal the engine is bomb proof. So I have decieded to rebuild it the same way again.

Bike 2, is Juniors bike, being 17 and more intrested in chasing pussy at the moment his bike came back from Thrashers with a blown head gasket, easy fix. Junior rebuilt his engine himself last year unsupervised and I think he may have tensioned the head down to the wrong torque settings. Once that is done his bike will be a goer. trying to con him in to coming up to Birdsville next year to be part of fairwelling Bill at Big Red with Phil.

Bike 3, will be stripped back to a bare frame and sand blasted and sheding its 97 model colour scheme for the 2002 colours the match bike 1 and 2. The whole bike will be rebuilt from the ground up and the subframe mod will be done so it can hump a load. Bike 3 wont be rego'ed until my son Mark is ready for his first Poon trip.

Bike 4, well there is no bike 4 but this year I will find it somewhere, prob another wreak or failed engine job going cheap.

So as for now thats about it, I'll keep you all posted.

Cheers Fogo...

I had a few spare hours today so I thought I better wash Bike 1 and get the donk out and strip it to see what damage its done.
I removed the bash plate and drained what oil was left in the crankcase. I my suprise about a litre of coolant came out. oh.:eek1 I put the bike up on the lift and Junior and I got to removing the engine, which took about 1 and 1/2 hrs.

We got the donk up on the bench and took the head and barrell off. Thank god the cam tunnels are fine, how I dont know. The front sprocket seal had popped out draining the oil and the cylinder grabbed the piston.





The barrel is rooted, wouldn't be suprised if the cylinder liner is cracked cause I couldn't see where the coolant was coming from. The head gasket looked fine.



The crank looks fine, If I wasn't doing trips into the outback in remote area's I would reuse the crank and bearings. But its not a helicopter.:lol3




The rest of the bottom end looks fine too, trans gears ect.

Cheers Fogo...:huh

Hi Fogo,what causes the countershaft seal to blow out fail?,read a few of you posts etc is it the 2nd time this has happened?

I'm not sure mate, but I need to get it sorted, I have been using good quality aftermarket seals not genuine Kawasaki. I removed Juniors seal yesterday and nearly had to distroy the engine to get it out as it was glued in with 3 bond. One of the guys from the KLX650 thread said that once there was an engine that kept blowing out the sprocket seal and it was due to overfilling the engine with oil. I myself also like to run the oil at the upper level due to the engine only holding 1.5 litres of oil.

The safety net.

Right the plan is that when I get this engine back together I am going to rig up a new wiring loom and fit an engine oil pressure switch that is normally closed and hook that into the kill switch circuit. If I get a engine oil pressure switch that will close at less than 8 psi oil pressure the spark will be cancelled and the bike engine will come to a stop before failure so you can at least find the fault and fix it before it was too late like this years Longest day ride. In my spares I had a sprocket shaft seal but the oil comes out too quick, 2 minutes and its all over.
So I hear your mind ticking over, how do you start it up when it has no oil pressure? Well I will put a push button spring return switch on the LHS handle bar that will be normally closed and in series with the oil pressure switch so when the oil pressure switch is trying to shut the spark off durring start up and you push the button in it will cancel the kill switch earth wire going to the CDI.
Should work and no chance of anyone stealing your bike at the servo, crikeys, Lentel couldn't even start it with instructions the old way. :lol3

Cheers Fogo. Feel free to leave coments

I will have too post a pic of the counter shaft seal removed,cause the outside of the counter shaft bearing is sealed and an oil feed steel tube feeds oil to a port that comes out in between both the seal and the counter shaft bearing, I could understand that if there was no inner seal but that would cause no restriction for oil pressure, maybe the inner seal is designed to leak a certain amount to lube the counter shaft bearing.

Big day in the shed yesterday, I have got shit everywhere, anyway, my main work bench that I could hardly see from all the crap on it from the last minute jobs just before the longest day ride. There was a big hole in the middle of the bench where junior threw his engine up on it last year and it just about fell threw the chip board. so it had to go. I went up to bunnings and bought two sheets of marine ply, that's the shit. Got the old crap off and screwed the new ply down and routed the edge and the 300mm off cut along the front got put up the back to use as a back board. Heaps better, looks great.


Now I have 4 KLX650 engines to build.
I have changed my mind about bike 1 's engine, this will be the end for the frankenstien engine, I have proven to the world that you can convert a KLX650R engine to electric start with a C1 crank and a few mods that does work and is reliable so no need to prove this point again. All this means is that I have a perfectly good C1 model electric start engine under the bench as a basket case getting damaged every time someone rats through the box looking for parts. So I am going to build that engine to put into my bike, it will just have R model cams and a STD bore and a wossner piston.
By doing this that will give me a complete spare R model engine to put on the shelf for junior and Marks bikes.
My bloody lap top bloody shit it's self so I am using my kids iPad,

Hey Quirky, quess what, ya know the other day when we were loading up the bike at Bourke, and you gave me my UHF, and I sat it back down on the tail gate, I forgot about it, goneskis, and I never took the keys out of the bike, gone too. :lol3
So someone maybe lucky enough to find a brand new GME TX3100 on the road.

Cheers Fogo.

Just emptied out my basket case,it looks like I have a little bit of cleaning to do.




Found out where the coolant got into the engine sump. The cylinder liner was cracked, when you bore a cylinder out 2mm overseize the liner ends up very thin. Thats why I am going back to a STD bore and will sneek some HP back by making it breathe better with cams and a 41mm FCR carbie. I will take the cylinder into work tonight on nightshift and press it out. With a 100 ton press it will have no choice but to let go. :lol3



Just remember if you pull an engine apart to spray everything with CRC Soft seal which is a wax that protects metal surfaces from rusting and washes of easy with petrol.




Take your time and organise your engine rebuild, I put everything in plastic tubs marked for each location of the engine, eg when you remove everything to get the engine out, put all the stuff in one tub labeled Frame.
Then when you dissassemble the engine have 4 tubs marked Top end, LHS, RHS and Bottom end which will be the bare cases and everything inside eg crank and transmission.



Waiting for my crank to turn up from the US. I have found a good source of parts at Kawasaki parts house in the US and I am currently talking to them about getting stuff shipped over. cheap prices.
Anyway better get back to it.

Cheers Fogo..

Well you bunch of bastards, while you were all getting on the piss last night cause it was new years eve, I was at work slaving away in a coal mine so we could keep coal up to the power stations so you could have ya fuckin party lights on. Jey.

So anyway I thought I might treat myself to a little foreigner and press my liner out of the cylinder.




100 ton press is a little over the top, but hey that all we got at work, so thats what we used.
Oh and she was a little tight, tighter then a Nun's naughty. We sent the ram down until it touched and gave it a few little taps until the press bed took the load and that it did. The pump note changed and the pressure rose quickly on the gauge as I chickened out and back it off. As all my employees looked at me and said "Fogo you sure that is spose to come out?".
"I dunna know". I replied in a dumb voice.
Ok everyone behind the wire. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, Fark, Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, I'll just get a bit more behind this coloum, Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

BANG.


Crikey, that was tight. Liner fell out and landed on the ground. All looks pretty good. No electrolises on the inside of the barrel. So I can get new STD bore OEM liners from the States for $90, what a bargin. To recoat a nikisil bore is about $450 to 600. So this is the best way to go for Team KLX. The cast steel liners seem to handle the lugging of a heavily loaded bike better than the chrome bores. The steel liners dont seem to use oil.





Anyway I'm going to bed, and if your reading this post at this hour of the morning it must be cause your a soft cock and went to bed early last night.
Cheers Fogo...

Nice work Fogo! I was wondering if the 680cc kit would leave the liner too thin.
I'm on the lookout for an FCR41, supposedly they bolt straight on. (I've got the stock KLX650C CV carb.)

FCR 41mm is on my wish list to, but big $$$$, about $700 for the kit. But saying that the old CV carbie is a bloody good carbie, good on fuel and gives little trouble if you dont try to adjust everthing when you dont know what your doing. My bike on the HWY runs at about 17 klms to the litre, happy with that. There is a few tricks on the slide to do but, to get the "R" models into Australia LAMS approved and under the noise limit , kawasaki drilled two small holes in the front side of the cabie slide which only allows the slide to get to 3/4 open then the holes start to let vacuum pressure of the top of the diapham. These two holes need to be sealed up with liquid metal to get full Horsepower. You may want to check yours. If your not sure I can send pics on another day.

Cheers Fogo...

Been snooping around on ebay lately and was lucky enough to pick up that "C" model crank with 6000 miles on it.
Well guess what, last night more snooping and I found the guy I bought the crank off had just put a set of cases on ebay with a note saying he has to get rid of all this C model engine bits laying around. Matching cases to the crank I just bought and farking get this -

Buy now, $19 :clap

Yes you heard right, $19, couldn't hit the button quick enough. Real nice looking original cases, bearings look real good, still lubed up and all been wraped up in a towel. Hit me pretty hard for postage over here, but thats just the way its going at the moment with stuff coming from the States. Anyway matching crank, bearings and cases, choise.
I went this way cause to pop all the bearings out of my old "C" model cases and replace them would cost me about $400. Went snooping around some bussinesses the other day and found one that would give me free access to the use of their Glass bead blasting cabinet. Scrapping engine cases can be done but bead blasting makes the mating surfaces turn out much nicer than gouging into them with a wood chisel. Can't wait to bead blast the cylinder and see how that turns out, you have to be very carefull around the top counter bore area, no scratching or scrapping around that area, If you don't know what a counter bore is, its the area at the top of the cylinder where the recess is machined into it and the top flange of the liner presses into. there is no seal there just a very small amount of high temp black silicone. When I press the new liner in I will put up some pics of how to do it and how to check the liner protrusion height so you dont blow head gaskets, if the liner is too high the fire ring area will have too much crush, it won't blow there but there wont be enough clamping force on the water jacket area and you will get a external coolant leak. If the liner is too low which can be caused from a sunken counter bore, the clamping force on the water jackets will be good, but you will blow a head gasket through the fire ring area into a water jacket.

Anyway more of that later, I'm off to the beach for the day, so you who are working ,, Suck shit.

Been a bit bored waiting for parts for the engine , so I thought I would attack the wiring behind the headlight as it was a mess, everytime I added a new accessary I would just wire in another inline fuse and it was a bloody shit fight.
So I cut everything out and rewired in an 8 fuse Narva fuse box. Turned out alot tidier.

So back to build of bike 1, Got the engine cases, mint condition but I have decieded to rebearing the whole thing, One of the main bearings had a mark in it that you could catch with your finger nail, so with the price of the build climbing, I mose well do it right. Went down to the local CBC bearing dealer with Junior and they can get all the bearings bar 1 RHS Main bearing which is $63 out of the USA through Kawasaki.


I priced all the parts in Australia through my local motorbike shop minus the piston and they wanted near $1000. Online through "Kawasaki parts house" in the USA they wanted $468. go figure. I love to support the local shop but this shit is gettin outta hand. But the catch, $500 postage for an engine gasket kit, cylinder liner and 2 cam chains. I did some snooping and found "Reship.com" you sign up for a small fee, get an American address to send your stuff to and then when it arrives they post it to you in Australia for 1/4 the price. It will cost me $70 postage for that stuff. I'll let you know if it works in a few weeks.



Took my barrel into my mates business and bead blasted it, came up great, especially around the oring grooves that seal the bottom of the liner.

All my parts are ordered, getting up around the $1600 mark. great $1600 of new engine bits for a $2000 bike. makes sence, should of just burnt the fucker, and the couple hundred dollars I spent to pay Quriky to come rescue me.

Anyway Kermits new heart turned up from Germany yesterday, Wossner piston, almost to pretty to put inside him and abuse the shit out of, but he will have to get used to it again

There’s trouble in the camp.

I need to learn to leave shit alone after nightshift.

This is how it went, Quick flick through the manual, revove the valve guides, yes, knock the guides out from the top after heating up the area with a butane torch, Ahhhhh shit I’m tired, yep done that now for the tapping, Tap Tap Tap knock bang belt flog ping, oh there it is, well half of it. oh fuck that looks ugly. Just read this book again, yep thats right. I might just tap it out the other way, somethings not right. Tap Tap ping, theres the other half. Oh shit the book said knock it out from the top, but they meant knock the guide from the bottom out the top. result fucked head. I knocked another guide back in and the valve is now on the piss. Took it to two engine reconditioners today and they both said throw it in the bin. Looks like I'm up for a new head


Oh that’s right THEIR DISCONTINUED. This may be the end for Kermit.
Anyone want a KLX650 frame to push their kids around the back yard on.

Cheers Team Shitbox,

Fogo, What year model barell will fit that?

They all mix and match, "R's" fit "C's", "C's" fit "A's", "A's" fit "R's" 1993 to 2002.

If we could only retro fit roller bearings to the cams. If I had a lathe and mill I'd give it a go.

Does the cam run in the alloy head or slipper bearings ?

Just alloy.

Look after 20 years there is not much that we haven't got right on this engine. The next engine in Kermit should be a good one. So many KLX's over the years have picked up and distroyed the cam tunnels. If you use car oil and heavy duty clutch springs thats a thing of the past. The auto cam chain tensioner used to shit its self and skip a tooth on the cam sprocket and valves used to hit pistons. We all now use custom machined manual tensioners. The Decompression mech on the exhaust cam used to fly to bits and root everything. I smashed mine out of the cam and threw it in the bin. KLX's have allways sucked fine dust through the airbox and carbie boots, so seal them up, the nikisil bores don't like fine dust or heavily load bikes, seemed to slobber oil out the breather into the airbox for recycling, Fit a cast iron (steel) liner in the barrel, Fit a magnet sump plug and your away

So what happened to Kermit on the Longest day ride reveiled.

I ended up in an argument with the local CBC bearing store yestrerday, they admitted that a less experianced salesman sold me a seal that was the wrong one, It was a $5 dollar dust seal rated at 10 psi back pressure.
The proper seal that I gave him was a Kawasaki seal made by NSK with the NSK part number on it. He asked what it was for and I told him. So he gets me a dust seal. I have been a diesel mechanic for 25 years but not a seal expert. Thats what he is for, thats his job.
It looked the same. Its like when you go to the chemist to get your Viagra script and they say " Do you want our generic brand sir" NO I want what the doctor prescribed for me. I dont want to lay in bed for 3 days with a rageing hard on. So I want the bloody seal with the same numbers on it OR a seal that is rated to the original.
So I just told the salesmen what it meant to me. $5 wrong seal, stiff shit, 6 months at the gym getting ready for the longest day, the pre running, the dream of not being there with Boris and Dan at the end. Being stranded on the side of the road at Bourke in 43 deg heat, the humiliation and embaressment that my bike never gets out there. The fact that a good mate drove 7 hours to come get me, the $2000 rebuild of an engine in a shit box bike.
But thats allright mate it was only a little fuck up just a little $5 seal, I will sell you the right one next time

Fogo, Good reason for buying genuine parts?

Yep, you right there Podge.

Live, sook and learn.

Well, It all seems to be working out so far with the cheap postage from the States. The Kawasaki dealer wanted $500 postage to send it all to Australia, I got it sent to Reship in the States and they relabeled it and sent it to me for $60. :clap
Just got to get a cylinder liner made from LA Sleeve in LA. $116, not bad. I bead blasted the engine cases the other day and I'm getting ready to put the bearings in so I can at least get the bottom end together. The cylinder barrell is at the machine shop getting 20thou machined of the bottom to take the compression from 9.5 / 1 to 10.5/1.
I purchaced another old style wet liner steel cylinder barrell off Fleabay for Junior.
So its gunna start to get real busy at KLX central in the next few weeks. :evil
Birdsville, here we come.

Hi Fogo,

I'll send you some pics once I pick it up which will probably be this Friday. It will donate the front end and maybe a few other little bits and pieces to the BEEMERNATOR, my bike for the Scrapheap 2013 ride.

Ok, just back from the shed, removed said front end for fellow inmate hopefully leading to the purchace of cheap parts bike. :evil

Stem length, 237mm
Top of stem dia where bearing sits, 25mm
Bottom of stem where bearing sits,29.5mm
Top thread 22mm
Bottom thread 25mm
Top bearing cone bore in frame, 47mm
Bottom bearing cone bore, 55mm

Now lets talk $$$$$.

How much for this spares bike? :ear

Cheers Fogo..

Righto, I've spent the last few months kickin rocks around so now its time to get into it and start to put Kermits engine back together.

First thing, knock an engine crank case stand up.

Wash out RHS crankcase with hot soapy water and get all the bead blasting grit out. Then blow off with air and blow out all the holes and check all the threads.

I have never bought all genuine parts before for a rebuild. $1500 spent so far.:eek1 gaskets, bearings, timing chains, valves. Wossner piston bringing the bore back to 650cc from 680.

Right, time to get this RHS crank bearing in, Put the bearing into the freezer for 30 mins and heat the case up until hot with a heat gun.





Pull the bearing out of the freezer and place in the case and presto, slid straight in, like a finger in a bum.



Make sure all internal bolts and screws are loctited in, you don't need any loose bolts inside there.

I have put many cases together in the past, but dont be a hero and try to do it with out a service manual and a parts book. There are just to many little washes and spacers to put in the wrong spot. Plenty of places on the net to download a parts book.



Better not forget to put the oil screen in, I think I'm gunna need it for the next longest day ride.

Lets get this crank and balance weight cleaned up and fitted.
An atomizing gun full of petrol does the trick and the CRC Softseal comes straight off.




Timing the crank to the balance shaft.