the DR650 thread

I make 18/hr. New harness is like 300 bucks. Best bet is to just buy and replace it myself?

Can we get a picture of what your wires look like? If they're all totally trashed, then yeah, you might have to just buy a new wiring harness (check ebay and local wrecker yards first), but if it's only one or two problem wires, soldering and shrinking is going to be fine.

In between studying for some IT exams at work, I finally got the top off my carb again, which would be vastly easier if the seat, side panels, tank, throttle cables, and choke cable didn't have to come off with it. Thanks to all the helpful folks on here, I realized that my white spacer was in the completely wrong place, and I had an unnecessary washer shimming things up as well. I pushed the spacer up to where I had the clip (position 3), made sure everything was snug, and set the washer aside. I put everything back together and let it idle for about 5-7 minutes in the garage just to get up to a temp where it didn't need the choke to maintain smooth idle.
After that, I started playing with the throttle position to see if there were any quickly detectable rough spots. The thing revved like it wanted to be a sport bike and sounded much, much better. There didn't seem to be nearly as much of a hesitation in the throttle, either. Assuming that this fixes the bogging, surging, and extremely poor mileage I've been getting, I'll call it a success. I'm definitely expecting to see some mileage improvements, since the spacer was essentially simulating a needle with the clip at the 75th position or so

Here's to hoping I'm done posting about carbs except to say "hey guys, I finally ordered that TM40"

my specs:
-12,500 miles on carb and engine
- K&N air filter
- Stock exhaust
- Cut airbox
- Non-USA OEM needle from motolab with clip on third position

It can be difficult to get replacement metric smoke because its so rarely needed, but the Imperial Lucas product is readily available at your local British bike or car shop. It just needs to be suitably massaged to adapt it to the metric application.

You make 18 an hour and will be paying 600 dollars if you dont find the problem the FIRST time.

i've replaced a few wiring harnesses myself in cars.

if it turns out the charging system is what melted the wiring harness in the first place you run the risk of not only burning a few wires.

but setting the bike on fire.

your choice. But if you set the bike on fire. can i have your foot pegz?

The harness is all melted together in two places, I can take pics this weekend

Yeah I'm just gonna take it to a dealer ._.

Ah Lucas, Prince of darkness!

I ride a mix of true offroad trails and gravel roads. 80 -90% And the rest tar. I typically trailer my DR650 to the area I'm gonna ride. I get about 2500 miles out of the Kenda Trakmaster rear and maybe 3500-4K from the ED-03.

I also had a wire harness fire. ended up putting in a used harness. (check ebay or other DR forums first) It was not to hard, but a bit of advice. I started at one end of the bike and worked my way to the other end unhooking and re-connecting as I went, so I could replicate the routing, which is important because of things like where the tank goes etc. best of luck. you can do it!

Bring plenty of lube....

You should at least investigate whether those two spots are completely melted together or the sheathing is just melted all up due to one or two wires overheating. Could be an easy and far cheap solution to splice in some new wires and connections.

There are several DR650 wire harnesses on ebay. Ex: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wiring-harn...Parts_Accessories&hash=item1c2f020ca2&vxp=mtr

You have comp on your insurance? Fire is a covered loss in most policies. The original individual part that failed likely won't be covered but all the resulting damage would be.

+1

I hate to kick up a contentious subject once it's started to calm down a bit but in catching up with everything I've missed over the past couple weeks while work took over my life, I noticed that there was talk of Derek looking for a local candidate for some DR650 tuning tests. In case my reply was missed when this was discussed in December:

"I'm not sure what tests you'd like to run, but I'll offer up my bike in the name of science. I live only a short drive away in SF and I have ~16K miles on the odo, GSXR exhaust, Kientech midpipe, stock header pipe with ground weld, open top air box with K&N filter (also have the stock filter on hand), relatively fresh spark plugs, fuel filter, DJ kit, and only ~1500 miles on the slides in the carb. I bought those from you just a few months ago Derek at the same time I did a complete carb rebuild. I also have on hand an mx_rob FCR that I've been trying to find time to install. I could bring that along or come back after I install it to see what numbers change if that interests you."

The only thing I'd add based on recent discussions is that I do not have a non-USA OEM needle available.

-Mike

I've finished my header grind, GSXR muffler conversion and my stock carb Procycle jet and needle kit with air box cut out, oh yeah and a K&N filter. What are the stock numbers for the bike and what should I see typically with these mods? A better carburetor is on my list for the future but out of the budget for know.

I'm still snowed in so I can't go out and do my "seat of the pants dyno" ride I usually do after work like this and the suspense is killing me!

Thanks to all the info on tires, I've decided to get the Metzeler Unicross and keep the Bridgestone as a backup plan.
I appreciate the help and will be posting soon...I hope!

Any DR guys know what happened to Dual Star motorcycle parts from Washington? Their website is still up but the phone number is out of service, just wondering, i bought lots of good quality parts from them in the past.

You can find many threads on various forums going back 5-6 years about Dual Star not answering phone calls. Maybe they finally decided there's no reason to pay a phone bill if they're not going to answer the phone anyway. :huh

This is a topic that does interest me, but with my current work load I don't think it would be in the cards anytime soon.

Regards,

Derek

While I've only taken off the cap on my carb once, and it was over three years ago, to fix the overly lean mixture endemic to the DR, I recall leaving the tank, seat, side panels and all cables attached to the bike. Just loosened the carb boots, maybe loosened a carb cable or two, and rotated the carb so the cap was accessible from the left side of the bike. No sense making a big production out of an easy task...

Lex

According to these graphs: (Procycle, I hope you don't mind, if you do just PM me and I'll clean up the post)



And



You should be seeing around 36 hp and 32 ft/lbs. when I uncorked my dr, and jetted it properly, (stock exhaust, cut-top air box, KNN filter) it felt like it ran crisper with more low end power. When I did the carb upgrade, that was the most noticeable increase in pep. It almost has that fuel injection, instant power feel. I recently did the hayabusa muffler upgrade, and I haven't been able to ride enough to pin point my jetting properly, so I can't comment on how much different that feels. The exhaust note is much better, I can tell you that!