Manitoba to BC on a dr650- BCBATR and more

Hey inmates, tomorrow I leave on my first long voyage by motorcycle. I'm heading to kamloops for the bc big adventure ride, there's a thread on here about it, and I might also head out to the island after the ride and climb some mountains around the Vancouver area. I'll be on the road for 2-3 weeks, and I'll chronicle my journey here with pictures from time to time.

So follow along if you're interested, I might post something interesting.

Best wishes from BC to another DR650 owner. Looking forward to pictures and reading about your trip. Have a great ride.

i left russell manitoba at 7:45 am on august 31st, in the distance were dark clouds. not a good sign.


it started raining on me after an hour. it let up for the majority of the trip but continued at swift current. i hid the bike under a tree while i used wifi until it let up.


after swift current the weather was almost perfect. i ended up camping in a field just off of hatton road, 10km from the alberta border.


all in all, i put in some solid mileage on day one. better to get as much out of the way as possible.

today i made my way to lethbridge where i'm hanging out for a day. i'll make my way to kitchener bc on the third, and then to kamloops on the 4th.

Hi there,

What is BCBATR?

Route map?

thx

MZ

the bc big adventure trail ride. went last year, had a blast, going again. here's the thread: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=871033

Okay, i'm back. And i'm sure beat. Yesterday I rode from Lethbridge to Kitchener which is 10 clicks east of Creston.

Here's the weather leaving lethbridge:


it cleared up later, and i came across this giant truck:


I stayed at Rider's Ranch motorcycle campground, which i highly recommend. Very friendly owner, showers, coffee, hangout spot, lots of space, and a great price. I rolled in after dark and was greeted immediately, some places wont let you in after a certain time. Here are some pics:





This is the chillout shack called the saggy sack saloon iirc:














This morning i left Riders Ranch and went past creston, but missed my turn and ended up leaving highway 3 west and going 35km in the wrong direction. Got this great picture though, and it was a great road, nice and twisty.



Later, i got stung by a bee that went up my sleeve. Luckily i had antihistamine pills, popped two and had no reaction besides local swelling.

As i headed north to kelowna i passed two guys on sport tourers going the opposite way. A few miles later i came across a brand new pair of motorcycle gloves im guessing one of the riders dropped. I was so tired i drove right by before realizing i should grab them, so i turned around and picked them up. Beautiful gloves that must have been worth a few bills. I was too tired to chase the bikers down, so i shoved them in my bag and left an old pair of my own gloves with a note inside with my phone number in case they came back to look for them. I'll gladly mail them if someone calls me about it and describes what kind of gloves they are. Anyway, that really picked up my spirit today.

As i type this, i lay on a bed at a friend's place in kelowna while eating boston pizza; a great end to a grueling day.

Looks like a great trip. You're inspiring me to get a tent and get out into this amazing province. Have a good weekend ride......organizers sound really sensible.

Subscribed!

Hi Jessie, I hope your making some progress with that seal... Let me know if your going to make it up my way...

Well they found some seals close in size, a littlebig, hammered one in but it was damaged in the process. It still didn't leak so I jbwelded it in there. After a 20 minute test ride it was leaking again, so were going to try to get one from kamloops.

It turns out that Suzuki apparently makes a retainer now as well. I have the part number for that and we'll try to get one in

Suzuki should be supplying that retainer to all DR 650 owners free of charge including shipping as part of a recall... I hope your not stuck there too much longer...

The proper seal will be in tomorrow, and the retainer will be in Vancouver on Thursday. Hopefully I make it there without it popping again.

Tried two different types of seal in the mean time along with kneels, both failed.

Hopefully you have better luck than the 2 Kiwis: http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=789269&page=11 :Their seal troubles start at post #159

I made it to Vancouver and to the bike shop with not a minute to spare. Traffic here is ridiculous. Anyway, got the retainer and installed it in the parking lot. That should be the last I hear from that oil seal.

Hi. Could you tell a bit more about the seal please.......I guess something happened on the ride last week, but those of us not there don't know much about it. Maybe Gunnerbuck could talk about it as he seems familiar with the problem. Those of us with DR650's would like to hear more about it....I'll look at the reference to the 2 Kiwis too. Thanks, and good luck with the return trip!

This breakdown has pretty much eaten up his adventure time, I'll post a couple of riding pictures once Jessie gets things sorted and can get back onto his RR timeline..


The problem with the counter seal popping out on the DR 650 seems random, but once it does the problem becomes chronic as the replacement seal will no longer stay in the case... Another problem comes into to play when the seal pops, and that is a rapid loss of your engine oil which could spell the end of your engine... In Jessies case four of us were riding on muddy roads toward Clinton when he pulled up and complained about rear brake fade... When we looked at the back the whole rear end was covered in oil and right away it was easy to figure out what happened... Upon pulling the sprocket to check underneath we could see the seal hanging out on one edge, problem is that it went back in way too easily... The other problem is the engine pumped out over half it's oil in less than 20 minutes so we scrounged enough from Fastlane to get to Clinton...

First look at the seal


We made it in to Clinton and being a small place we just ended up buying some bodge repair stuff if it happened again, which it did, 20 minutes out of town... This time the area around the seal got fully cleaned so the seal could be bonded back in..



This seemed to be more of a permanent fix but as the seal issue was starting to slip from our minds it popped again about 3 hrs later in the hills above Lillooet...

Jessie popped the seal back in again and by the time we made Lillooet it was leaking again on a Saturday night, no parts... Sunday morning we made arrangements for Lordco to bring in a seal and we had to leave Jessie behind as the rest of us had to return home to our jobs...

6 days after we left Jessie his replacement seal popped again in Nanaimo and it was too shagged for the retainer to do any good...

So even if your seal is still good buying and installing a retainer would be a good measure to stop a potential catastrophic event from happening..

Simple to install, 2 bolts

Thank you. That's amazing. So does Suzuki sell the f'ing retainer? I would like to prevent this problem!

Yes, I got the retainer from Suzuki, but I had pushed the seal in too far and it was leaking all-around the edge, and I damaged it trying to take it out in order to reseat it.

Is it sorted now? I read the Kiwi's seal problem as well. They had to come all the way from NZ for it to fail, and you from Manitoba, and both let you down in BC. I hadn't heard about this before though, and really appreciate the information from you and Gunnerbuck. I hope you're back on the road, or get back very soon.

Futher on they had more problems, wasn't just the seals turned out into complete transmission rebuilds and new cases. Under warranty in Kalispell Montana. I know was with them when they picked up the bikes and saw the invoices.:eek1:eek1:eek1Probably would have been cheaper for Suzuki to put complete engines in them bikes instead considering that Andi's bike was still making transmission noises as soon as he picked it up and had to be rebuilt again later.:eek1:eek1:eek1

I am looking for a DR, when and if I find one I'll ask Andi for his toughts he has another one down in NZ and certainly expertise with their possible problems.