Post CMSP Tales
513 days post CMSP class training pass, my motorcycling life has been rather interesting.
The first thing I did a few weeks after passing the CSMP retest was to sell the KLX and buy a used 2009 Buell Ulysses XT and this Buell machine turned out to be quite a revelation and at the same time quite a reality check in terms of getting parts for it and the Buell servicing angle that comes with every Buell.
The bike itself handled like a scalpel and had a lot more than the 103 horsepower it had come from Buell with when new.
The previous owner had adorned it with a Buell racing pipe and it had been tuned with an Erik Buell racing ECM to match the racing pipe.
It was egregiously loud.
The previous owner gifted me several sets of ear plugs to wear when driving it and I had to ride it like a granny near any CHP folk.
It was glorious!
We did a rough test at SoSo in Concord and it recorded 119 ponies at the back wheel.
For a bike of that weight, this was a very good power to weight ratio but the front brake on this machine was not adequate for that sort of power and that sound was actually a serious problem.
I bought a spare front brake rotor from a company in Spain called Galfer and set about understanding the floating pin setup that required getting another kit from a bloke in Germany to mount it with properly.
I also realized that moving from a six-piston caliper to an eight-piston caliper that later models came with was not a suggestion, it was mandatory if you were going to ride it with that pipe and ECM tune.
I also bought a spare fuel pump and was planning to take the old one out and fit the new one fairly soon as I suspected it had some indeterminable issue.
It had sat for years without daily use and that is never good for a fuel pump past 48,000 miles on it with California fuel.
This pump malarkey introduced a nightmare scenario because I needed some way to lift the rear of the machine up to drop the swing arm to get at the fuel pump location in the frame in front of the swing arm.
In the picture above it is dropped to allow access.
The above link to a YouTube video how to that I copied.
Oh, did I mention the bike's actual frame is the gas tank? The Gas tank is actually where the air filter is located...Oh and the engine oil is stored in the swing arm! Very interesting engineering ideas indeed in most Buell's.
I had devised a way with a wooden ladder and some serious straps to do this, drop the wheel down and drop a motorcycle work cover under it while I was doing all the messy fuel pump upgrade work per the YouTube video guide.
It looked very "Boer maak n' plan" (farmer finds a way) as the Afrikaners I grew up with would say, but I could not say it was ideal or safe.
She who must be obeyed did not like this idea much because I may have had this setup in the garage stinking of gasoline for the whole time I was working it and for this reason held off on the job until the problems with the existing pump made it a no brainer.
I would have needed to drain the frame tank when pulling that gas pump and it was gonna stink the garage up with a strong smell of benzine.
I had also quietly bought all the SAE spanners and wrench sets I would need for the Buell which amazingly used both Metric and SAE bolts and nuts!
This was where I found the allegedly American Buell was actually not very American at all!
The frame was actually Italian and hailed from the efforts of the Bimota guys working with Erik Buell, the braking system was Erik Buell's patented invention but components were made by Nissen in Japan and are to be found on a lot of Japanese Superbikes and the RIMS and wheels were Italian and are a big problem bearing wise.
Later Buell Ulysses models had switched from a 2-wheel bearing setup to a 3-wheel bearing setup in their final year of manufacturing, but you needed the new rear Rim, 3 bearing axle and 3 bearing axle spacers with the new RIM.
Most Buell owners just changed the rear wheel bearing with every other rear tire change but this was also a serious PITA.
I was plotting buying the 3 bearing rim kit with axle and spacers on the Interwebs when She who must be obeyed had a sense of humor failure with all these parts I was acquiring for it.
I could not guarantee her it would end there either, but I believed I would have been good for another 50,000 miles and I had spare belt drive, brake pads and that engine self-adjusted its own valves so all I had to do was change oils in the gearbox and engine every 1500 miles or so.
I had already switched it from mineral oil to Full Synthetic and had done it all 3 times to flush it out properly every 600 miles.
I also had new tires sorted when the Dunlop Missions it had on eventually wore out.
Before I got the KLX, I had determined the KLR 650 may have been the better starting point for my return to motorcycling, but I am glad I went with the KLX, in hindsight.
We should also have kept faith with the Buell though….
In any event, after sharing my Buell upgrade schemes with my good wife, she marches me off to Contra Costa Power Sports to buy "any" new machine on the floor and I unfortunately spotted the KLR 650 Adventure and when I found out all the side cases and stuff that it came with was included for a mere $5879 MSRP, I fooled myself into thinking it could be made to work at a reasonable price.
Unfortunately, my weight nixed that idea pretty severely and I had already trimmed down from 248lbs to 225lbs for my motorcycle riding purposes on the thing.
But I did make a serious effort to make it work while saving cash!
To cut a long story short, I left without the Buell and with the brand-new KLR and set out on a brave new journey and adventure hoping it would be the solution long term.
Over the next 8 months this was to prove out my suspicions and fears on the weight front and the fix for that problem was not cheap as well as highlight some realities when working with these various Power Sports outfits in the USA from a hours to do mechanical work stuff on it, perspective.
The KLR 650 Gen 3 series has a water-cooled single cylinder 652cc engine that has 4 valves in a DOHC configuration.
Getting the valve cover off to shim the valves needs doing every 15,000 miles and the shops all quoted me $1200 to do it!
That translates to a quarter value of the motorcycle with every valve check!
This is totally bananas!
I also quickly learnt that it goes through chains and sprockets like no tomorrow and spent some of the cash I made selling the many Buell parts I had inherited on a new set of sprockets and a better chain with an Eagle Mike Doohickey kit.
This Doohickey thang is a balancer chain tensioner system that has been decreed a weak link based on Gen 1 KLR’s.
I determined that was all bollocks for Gen 3 KLR’s by the way.
Fitting this Doohickey kit is also a very serious PITA.
I had discovered an outfit in Utah called Cogent Dynamix who could fix the front and rear suspension problems for about $2700 in parts. I would need to do the spanner works for the back and the front and add a serious fork brace while at it.
While contemplating the Cogent path I was also mulling trading it in on something else.
This was a serious consideration because I do not think I was going to solve the KLR 650 issues and the realities of the mods I would have to do to it would still leave me short of where I wanted to be.
I had sort of decided the Moto Guzzi V85 Strada model was probably the best deal in motorcycling with the shaft drive and easily set valve system and I liked the look of the V85 TT as well.
It was also an ergonomics bonus like the KLR 650 was, only better.
I was not new to Guzzi V-Twins, already having owned three of them while living in South Africa, so changing oils, filters and setting valves on these engines was a piece of cake for me.
MG bikes now had a throttle by wire system and a fairly complex 5 mode computer control unit for Rain mode, street mode, sport mode and off-road mode as well as custom mode.
Of course, the dealer I bought it from had a less than stellar reputation with Indian motorcycle fare they sold but I could find no issues online with any Guzzi fare they had sold.
Half the bike fell off on the ride home and I had paid $995 for the "setup" at purchase which really pissed me off and at the same time answered all my questions about their abilities and reputation on that front.
They also over filled the engine oil and the gear oil was short of the 700 ml it was supposed to have and the final drive unit oil looked like it had done 200,000 miles already due to molybdenium additives someone had squeezed into the unit at the factory.
The tire pressures were also wrong, so fuck knows what they actually did apart from overfill the engine oil for the alleged setup they never did!
I ordered the fallen off parts from AF1 racing online and am still waiting for the dealer I bought it from to send me the parts, but Mandelo takes August off every year so it will likely be October by the time I get those parts.
Either way, I am certainly never letting that dealer touch this machine, ever, and I am sharing my horror story with all the Indian, Aprilia, Enfield and Guzzi wanna be owners up the yin yang!
They actually had the temerity to suggest a $4000 service deal package for 4 services!
I laughed at their money bunny at the very notion.
Boy, they must sell to a lot of idiots out there with that insanity to contemplate for the wannabe motorcycle owner.
The dealer money bunny then offers the 4-service package to me at the "staff" discount level of $2500, further insulting my intelligence.
The work his team do is actually worth about 40 Mexican pesos and I may be over inflating what you get for your 40 pesos worth there.....
They say they have to pay their mechanics $205 an hour but as I said I would not pay them anything and would actually get bums off the street to twiddle the spanners for a buritto and a cup of coffee if I was them...
I am pretty sure bums with a burrito in their stomach would do a 2000% better job than that crew of clowns!
Maybe because I used to be a bike mechanic, I find it easy, but considering the costs I would advise most bike owners to invest in a bike bench and an air assisted power tools setup to do all the work themselves assisted by YouTube if they get stuck.
Anyways, I am 735 miles into the 932-mile phase 1 run in phase, and she is enjoying the up and down break in I am doing and she is loosening up very nicely.
I am waiting for Elk Grove to call me back with a suitable date for the break in service so I can whip in there with my other half to get the job done!
This is to satisfy the Moto Guzzi warranty claim thing if anything goes wrong with it down the road.
I will continue this adventure on Sequrux.com after October 5th by the way as this site is going away.
I was also looking at armored motorcycling pants that had more aeration the other day and ended up purchasing a pair to try and some helmet communication goodies in the bundle they offered.
I saw some videos of the damage guys took sliding down the asphalt wearing jeans and this reminded me I always rode in Bates leather jacket and pants way back when and that this saved me once or twice from 6 months tar rash recovery, even in that green and yellow motorcycle suit I had then made me look like a banana.
In a way I guess I am bananas...
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