Hi
Can any one help, my girlfriend has a 1997 DR650, when its running after about 3kms it starts to die but if you flick the starter button it runs fine again but then after 3kms it will do it again, i have checked most of the electrical connections, but still i can`t find the problem. This happens when the bike is hot or cold and in dry and wet weather, could this be the CDI unit breaking down or maybe something obvious i have over looked. Skip

Check the resistance of the wires from the ignition pick up. Wires exit the engine fron the l/h side in front of the front sprocket. Follow them up to a connector block beneath the seat. If there's 3 yellow wires in the block also, they're for the charging system.

Put a multimeter set to Ohms across the two wires & check resistance reading against that specified in the manual. Is it also hard to start?

Could also be a bad connection somewhere in the coils, plugs or leads?

Funny that: my other half rung me yesterday with exactly the same problem. As she was several hundred km from home she called the assistance (we get our money's worth from our expensive insurance).

She's not the only one, read the same story on the German DR forum. Seems a common fault.

It's not electrical, but fuel starvation, as indicated by the fact that the bike starts again shortly afterwards.

Things to check:

Fuel filler cap, is it letting air in?

Fuel filter in the carb. To get to it, pull the fuel hose off the carb. You can see a small pieco of plastic on top of the inlet pipe. Lever and pull it out carefully. It's a tiny filter that easily clogs. If this filter is missing the dirt could be in the needls valve.

Fuel filter in the tank. Although, it's reasonably large and visible with a torch through the filler hole, I think.

Other causes are possible, but less likely, like Steve's hint at electrical problems, bad connections, etc.

Good luck, shouldn't be hard to find.

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Salut from Southern France, the bikers' paradise,

Peter.