superhawk996

There's some clown on CL asking $4k for one, I assume he'll have it forever unless someone just as dumb doesn't look at new prices.

What's your cutting plan? I've had a few car/truck tires I rotated and re-seated to get a better balance, it was fairly easy since I had machines.

Home made tire balancer. It's a little fiddly, but it works fairly well, it's super compact, and was 'free'. It took time and stuff that I had lying around, but no money was spent on it. 4 small ball bearings, 10-32 screws and nuts, and some angle iron. It's fairly easy to detect 1/4oz., below that it gets dodgy. Being that 1/4 is as precise as balancing usually gets, and I don't plan to do any 200MPH rides on this sub-100 MPH bike, I decided that it's good enough. Interestingly, the rear had no weights and is only 1/4oz off with the new tire. The front had a 3/4 oz weight about 2" away from where it now needs between 1/2 and 3/4. I had marked the heavy spot of both wheels without the tires, but the shop cleaned off my marks.

I'm glad you're far away or I'd be tempted to do something stupid.

That totally makes sense. The machine has a plastic spacer thing, but it rests on the bottom so it's probably not very helpful with such a heavy item. I'll try suspending tomorrow and see if it works better. Thanks, I'm surprised I'm still going at it. Today I briefly thought- the smart way would have been to commit and completely disassemble it, but I'm 99.999347% sure it would have become a pile of parts for eternity. Much of the motivation is being able to ride it and show it between stints of working on it.

I get that with some vehicles that may not be 'special', but are too nice to not want them to go to a buddy.

With free shipping you say? SOLD!

Rabbit hole? What's that? Since the rear wheel was off I might as well tidy things up a little, a few hours later there's probably a couple more to go. The chain spent the day in the ultrasonic being moved around every 8-10 minutes. It only effectively cleans right around the transducer, I think because it's so heavy, and so grungy. While it was being cleaned I pulled and cleaned the chainguard, sprocket, etc. Got the inboard sides of the mufflers, the swingarm, and other stuff that'll be a bitch with the wheel on. The sprocket carrier is being stubborn, it might need to be sanded and then polished to be nice, but I'll probably not go that far for now. The brake carrier will probably be about the same. The aluminum is spotty and darkened; I tried steel wool, a fine wire wheel, aggressive compound, and the discoloration is still there. But they're cleaner and smooth. The left case cover will have to come off to install the chain so I'll probably give it a squirt of black paint to de-ugly it some. The new tires are a fair bit taller and fatter despite being labeled the same size. It's a little easier to get onto the center stand now, I don't know why Yamaha made it so damn high.

I know you don't like to rely on other people's toys, but you/she are welcome to ride mine, someone's gotta do it. I plan to bring it, but don't plan to ride it much. On the off chance that I fall in love with it you guys get a Talon to drive, plus there's likely to be a spare RZR. And there's spare beds.

That somewhat makes sense, but I was stuck thinking more of how it would go for me. I've not put enough time on dirt to get over being scared of it so for me it would be the difference between falling over a lot at under 20MPH vs. taking flight. It'll be interesting to see if the 400 is less scary. Speaking of which, Ocotillo this weekend as long as the weather isn't shitty.

Your XR identifies as electric. It saw the direction your life was going and it's trying to turn you back before it's too late.

Imagine how pissed you'd be if you spent 90% of the money for a bolt-on solution to the problem that merely became a new set of problems. Researching your carb problem lead me to solving mine. The carbs on the R5 intermittently dribbled, polishing the seats mostly cured it. I hope to not go into them again 'till I decide to pull the cylinders for restoration, at that time the carbs will get new seats and needles.

I'm guessing it's because these rims have very little relief in the center. I don't know how common it is, not something I've ever paid attention to. And the tires are stiffer than I expected. There are several parts I've restored that are still available. A couple negatives on new stuff, cost and they'll stand out. I've mostly gotten over the "stand out" issue as everything becomes nicer. Cost: If I were to only replace everything that's available I'd probably be thousands of dollars in, and many more hours or dollars for labor. The rims and spokes can be replaced, not a whole lotta money, but a fair bit of work that I've never done before. I spent less time cleaning the brake lever than I'd spend trying to find a new one. There's also the satisfaction of restoring stuff and keeping the bike original.

Here's my guess: the bike is tall and heavy so it needs a lot of gyroscopic force to stabilize it. Fill the tires with water instead of air and it might become docile.

But heres the catch of this bike and the xr650L, faster you go, better and more planted the bike gets. I mean it gets very drastically impressive once you absolutely commit to it. That's what I was guessing. Just gotta get over the fear and send it, something I'd be unlikely to ever do, but the reward is very tempting.

...or become a helicopter ride. No biggie, a Life Flight ride is usually under $40k.

The beads were super easy to break, they damn near broke on their own. Probably because they're tube type wheels so they don't 'need' the bead retaining bump that most tubeless wheels have. Zipties were a fail. The recess in these wheels barely accommodates one bead, both together is an absolute no go so I cut the ties off and went traditional. Holy fuck that was a battle. Even when there was only about a foot of tire bead under the wheel I still had to use tools to keep prying to get it the rest of the way off, insane. I got the front tire off and pondered how much worse the rear would probably be, at that point I said fuck it and took them to a shop, but the guy was out. After waiting for over 1/2 hour I went back home and figured I'd just work on de-rusting the rear wheel. It would be easiest to work on it mounted to the forks, but it would't fit with the tire on so I decided to have a go at removing it, way worse than the front. I was finally able to get one spoonful of bead pried over the wheel, no way to get another in. I held it and used a die grinder to cut through the tire bead, then it was only a 'normal' battle of stretching it over the wheel. The rear rim was super rusty, some of the chrome is gone, but it cleaned up reasonably well. I didn't take photos of the wheel, but here's the rear brake lever. I had already done the ends when I thought to take the before photo. If I decide to make it better I'll dab some chrome paint on the bare spots to hide them better, but it's vastly improved. It took about 5 minutes, most of the work was done with a fine wire wheel on the bench grinder. I wish I'd tried wire wheels sooner, it does a great job and does't scratch up the chrome as long as it's fine wire. I used two different ones on the rear rim being driven by a cordless drill and die grinder. I had a small one that was able to fit between the spokes fairly well. I took a quick stab at mounting the front tire, fuck that, they're both going to a shop with a machine.

How does it compare to the KTM?

I rode a DR350E right after being on the XR650R, it made me really appreciate how supple the XR's suspension is. I didn't realize how bumpy the area was 'till the DR smacked my butt/spine. My understanding is that the DRZ has better suspension than the DR, but the XR seems hard to match. The suspension 'should' make it easier to ride without getting knackered, but the killing part is still there. Having the magic button of the DR/DRZ is nice, but luckily the XR starts easily....as long as it's not flooded from a crash and, most importantly, you put the piston in the right spot before kicking it over. The previous owner is pretty buff and tall, he always had trouble starting it. Long before selling it to me he brought it for me to do some work on and said he'd come start it when I got done, he was very nice about not saying "you ain't got this you little weenie boy." He showed up carrying his right motocross boot to start it up, as he was walking up the driveway I fired it wearing normal shoes. He and his son are both tall and yoked, they froze staring in amazement. I told him how to set it up to start without it trying to kill him, I think he appreciated that more than all the stuff I've fixed for him. All that said, part of the reason he sold it is because he was afraid it would kill him some day.

I rarely have matches so I just hold the lighter in front of the quick start nozzle and blast a fireball at the tire to ignite what's in it. Plus it's more fun to use a flame thrower than to toss a match. I did that to re-seat my friend's motorhome tire while it was on the rig. He was a little concerned, but was happy it worked since it was going to take over an hour to get a tire service guy out to us.

God damn that thing is tall. I already knew it, but wow.

Sweet! I was guessing/hoping that the bike is fine and one just has to allow it to feel squirly and drive through it.

Or just use flammables or explosives, more fun.

I think it's about letting the rounded side of the tire bead 'guide' the opposing bead off and on. I only watched two videos on it and they were able to dismount and mount without tools.

Check that the rear tire isn't out of alignment, I didn't think to.