Well, after a nice long off-road trip to the San Felipe 250 I have come to a couple of conclusions on My KLR650. The front fork swap was totally worth it and I need to get My arse moving on the rear suspension. Actually, it needs to move without My arse moving, but whatever....... I want this thing to ride like a 73 Caddy Fleetwood on the street and still be able to hit the whoops like My KLX 300. So, to that end I got a White Power PDS shock from a KTM for a transplant. Wussy stock shock, meet your replacement! Wait, the reservoirs in the wrong spot? Hold on a second, there, this should fix that...... More later.......... P.S. I'm just using this shock to watch the KTM guys twitch <!-- / message -->
NICE! i can't wait to see what you do next.... i've kinda gone over to the dark side--i bought a GS. i know, i know.... but man, it rides like a dream and 90hp is sure fun. i'm not sure if i'll keep the KLR or not: getting around the country with 3 bikes and 2 cages is pretty complicated. are you thinking of getting into the engine? i believe Eagle Mike claims 10+ additional HP from the 705 kit and big pipe. that would be enough to make the KLR move quite a bit better. evan
Coming from a KLX300, power is not the problem. As long as the engine is running, I have no plans to tear into it. I'll show you the darkside! Just for that I'm going to find a Beemmeer part and frankenstien it on to the KLR.
Oh, you ain't seen nuttin yet OK, first off, the new links..... I made these about .625 longer to slow down the motion ratio a little for more travel, but it also yields a little better curve.... I was going to make the center cut-out say FYYFF, but it would have cost more Next was re-clocking the compression adjuster to clear the frame. It also got a AN weld on fitting for the remote reservoir. The AN fitting cost more, but it was worth it........ Since the inconsiderate WP engineers didn't make the bottom of the shock long enough, the bottom needed to be extended a little to keep the larger OD spring from fouling the swing-arm Lucky I had a donor shock laying around The longer links also helped with this...
Way back in 1992 When I blew the stock shock out of my 1990 KLR650 I ordered up a White Power replacement shock for about $500. It diddent have the remote resevour, but worked great just the same.
Holy Crap!! That is a lot of work to get that sucker on there. Let me know if you need some ideas for the guts on that thing. It might be a big improvement on the KLR. One thing to consider is the PDS system in the shock. It is made for a bike with no linkage so it gets its progression internally. With the linkage on the Kawi it will need to run a pretty soft secondary piston to not hit a wall of damping and mechanical progression as it gets deep in the stroke.
Do you know how much a KLR wieghs? :huh I don't think I'm going to have to much damping. But yeah, I've got a bag full of shims (not the shemale kind) if I need to.
Something seems to be missing..... Besides My common sense...... I'll teach that tube to get in My way! As I was grinding down the welds on the frame from the cross tube I thought to Myself " Self, this would be a lot easier with the motor out" Which brought up the next thought " How the fuck did a simple shock swap turn into Me contemplating pulling the motor?"
now we are getting serious ,it looks like a no turning back stage in the old jobbie here ,this should be interesting ,maybe your next project should be whacking a klr donk into an 04 640 adventure ,that i would like to see
man i need this kinda time. i can barely work and have time to change the oil. keep the dream alive for me.
Or, you could have just had me (or done it yourself) build your stock shock into this: You get a shock that will perform as well as the WP, with less effort, and no hacked up frame. All the internals are are replaced with high end stuff. I also have a stage II where I turn the stock shock into a true cartridge shock with floating piston, Race Tech gold valve and full rebuilding if the shock above is more than you need.
I could have done that to My old shock quite easily. But if you think it would work as well as the WP unit, you are sadly mistaken. Also, this shock has about .500 more travel and has a larger piston (piston's)...... I have worked on many Showas and KYB's and the quality and design of this shock far exceeds anything I have seen from an OEM Japanese bike.
