Actual Doohicky Failure Experience ???

[RF_R_US]

I'm sure that this mod has taken on "legend" status. I've seen the youtube videos on how to do it, and actually saw one where the stock tensioner seemed to still have plenty of spring left. Has anybody actually experienced damage from the stock setup w/o the Doohicky ??? Just curious....

John

[theotherbigjoe]

Nope.. nobody.. never happens.. eaglemike is the mastermind of all this trumpted up "Legend".. he's been perfecting it for years....


Come on !!.. you dont have to be a dillydang rocket scientist to figure out the damn part Kawi puts in there is weak, dont work 90% of the time. and has failed....

Do Us a favor. leave yours in and tell us what happens for doing that.

These guys that go " Well it's still under warrenty"... how much is that warrenty worth when you have a grenaded motor while your doing 65 on the interstate... then your bike is in the shop another 3 weeks because 2 guys in a canoe are bring the parts from over seas.... Oh and Dont forget the ' I told you so's ' ... Most of those guys that think it's a myth or decided to "borrow time" wont even eat the crow to tell us that something happened..WHEN it happens.

My God..... dont read/listen to the storys then Question it's validity...

dont be one of those guys.

[RF_R_US]

...funny but I'm just asking. I used to race CB750's back in the day and there was the "required" upgrade to put a KZ900-type cam chain manual tensioner in, "....otherwise that bicycle chain" they put in the Honda would slip and blow the engine. We raced a couple of Superbikes with the 836 engines with the Kawasaki upgrade, not problems. We also raced an old '73 totally stock, other than the pipe, carb jetting, and K&N pod filters in the WERA Endurance Racing series. We put about 3000 miles on that stock Honda engine with no cam chain problems at all.

I just read through the service manual on how the stocker does it, watched a few videos, and YES, I believe it could be improved. I'm just curious if anybody actually has suffered a failure.....insurance is a good thing and I plan on doing the upgrade but probably not until this coming winter as I've already got plenty of other things to do to the bike prior to Spring.

John

[theotherbigjoe]

Ok... sorry. The short answer is yes.

[DonD]

http://www.klrforum.com/showthread.p...ghlight=kaboom

[DantesDame]

Both the spring and the 'doo were broken when I opened up my 1994 KLR with about 10K on the clock. No other damage, although I was pulling metal bits out of the oil filter for quite a while.

No broken parts when I replaced the 'doo on my 2000 but glad I did it anyway.

[RF_R_US]

...wow, thanks for the input. My newly minted '96 has 5K on the clock and YES, YES I will install this soon, but so far no odd noises, like chain slap or anything like that in there. Amazing that if this is a real problem that over the extraordinary years that Kawa has made this bike, the $0.50 bill of material upgrade has not been put into production. Now as an engineer who deals with management BS all the time I guess they figure if the bike grenades at ~10K miles the warranty is long gone and by then you've bought a ZX10 right ?

Thanks for the feedback, so where is a good place to buy the flywheel puller, I think that's all I need to put the 'doo into my bike.

John

[RF_R_US]

...that's amazing albiet you did have 64K on the engine, jeez, I hope to get a mill to last that long that has a bearing bottom end! Guess I'll figure out which one to get, purchase the flywheel puller, gaskets, etc. and do it. Maybe it'd be cheap insurance to put a new balancer chain on as well once you're into the inards!

Thanks to all for your inputs!

John

[tomatocity]

RF, whats you been smokin' dude!

Mike probably has enough broken levers to cover the average table top and another with broken springs.

Here is another: the Gen2 KLRs stand the chance of a starter idler gear failure. Actually it is the shaft that could slip out of the case and inner leftside inner cover. Mike also has the "fix" for this problem.

[eaglemike1]

Find the post on here by RidgeRunner. His 2007 (I think it's a 2007) had the piston hit the valves a few weeks ago when some of the parts (most likely the spring) went through the cam chain and sprocket interface..... This is very rare, but never pretty. (disclosure - I make aftermarket parts to upgrade in this area).
all the best,
Mike