recommended modifications on XR650L?
 

I have a 1999 XR650L, that I'm an planning to pick up from storage in Germany and take it for a trip to the Middle East and or Africa.

Currently I'm on a trip touring around Central/South America on my Kawasaki KLR650. Before leaving for this trip I did all the research and prep work on the bike. It was easy to find out what was recommended to do, such as the balancer doohicky upgrade, and the rear subframe upgrade, etc. Since these bikes have been basically unchanged for the past 18 years, all the problems that will crop up have been pretty well documented.

What are the items on the XR650L that typically fail that should be replaced / reinforced before leaving?

Modifications I've done so far:
Large Plastic Gas Tank
Acerbis Rally Pro Hand Guards
Bash Plate
Headlight kill switch

Modifications I plan todo:
Heavy duty innertubes
Remove Rim Locks and Balance wheels
Dip motorcycle in Loctite
One tooth up on the front sprocket

Any other recommendations? I always favor preventitive work on the motorcycle over road side fixes.

[This message has been edited by TerryMoto (edited 28 May 2004).]

what's your riding style and luggage set up? I spent yonks testing and trying suspension settings including springs and oil weights and for full-on riding off road, its a great set up. having tried rainsing the gearing, I went back to standard cos its fine at 60mph through africa and overgearing doesn't help any on fuel burn.
Rich

Gear setup will probably be a Givi 50L bag on a Happy trails top rack, and a dry duffle bag on the passenger seat. Thus am wondering if there are any rear subframe upgrades, or upgrade kits.

Riding style is road, highways, bad roads, dirt road, gravel roads, but tend not to do the full off-roading. I was reasonably pleased with the stock suspension setup (especially compared to the KLR650).

The different gearing (one tooth up in the front) is mainly to have it rev a bit lower at highway speeds.

From further reading it seems that the basic failure piece of the XR650L is engine internals. One guy in South America had to have a new piston and cylinder sleeve put in, and then there was there recent post from the PanMed guy who had problems after a valve dropped.

Guess these aren't so preventable, other than picking another motorcycle.

the XR650L engine is the same as the Dominator and it has done millions and millions of reliable miles. statistically, you can forget about Honda singles blowing up or wearing out. I stripped my engine after 37000 African km out of interest and rebored it. I also replaced some clutch parts, but no big deal.
the engine is great. don't sweat it.

I am interested in why you are removing the rimlocks and balancing the wheels. Do you expect significantly longer life out of the tires?

I had rim locks in there from a previous trip. I was attempting to go from Germany to India, but only got as far as Turkey, because I couldn't get an Iranian visa.

The rim locks required a ton of balancing weights to counter balance them (or two rim locks making getting tires on a real pain). Eventually some of the weights came off, and it cause it to be very out of balalance, causing more of weights to come off.

This caused excessive vibration at highway speeds and lead to additional problems on the motorcycle, such as the Big Gun exhaust seperating into three distinct pieces, and bolts migrating of their sockets.

Now I realize I don't ride with extremely low tire pressures, or typically ride on routes requiring extremely low tire pressures, so the rim locks are un-necessary, and caused a lot more problems than they solved.

XRL's do sometimes have serious engine problems. I personally think it's because they are jetteed WAY too lean from the factory. Rejet and you have no problems (and a LOT more power).

See my website for all the mode I did-
sopgear.com

One thing not mentioned in the website is the need to reinforce the subframe- especially the right side of it. Must do if you carry a lot of weight and/or pound the off-road hard as I do.

Enjoy

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Back on the road again.

sopgear.com

One more thing- I never had rim locks in 50,000 km in South Am and it was never a problem. I think it's better without because the local guys who change tires are not used to them and they can screw things up if you have them.

------------------
Back on the road again.

sopgear.com