I am sitting in a hostel in San Diego, while Jon jams outside on the guitar with fellow musos. San Diego is a great city, one I knew nothing about. There’s a laid back

The trip so far has been trying at times but has been a good shakedown of our kit. When our camp stove failed it left us very cold on a night that eventually reached sub-zero temperatures. Such technicalities have hopefully been worked out now and I will no longer have to cuddle Jon to keep warm.

I have at last taken care of the infamous ‘doohickey’ mod, a couterbalancer tension system. Anyone interested in the KLR650 knows about this, the one weak point of Kawasaki’s bullet-proof do all tractor of an engine. In acquiring the part, I realised that it was not available on short notice. Thankfully the one man I now know of that machines the part, Mike Cowlishaw lives in San Diego and was willing to help me install the part in his shop in San Francisco. Although I have been advised that the fault doesn’t affect all Kawasakis, it was lucky I took the time to install this. While the part wasn’t broken, the spring in the system had snapped meaning that when I adjusted the tension on the chain I would actually create more slack in the system potentially causing problems with the timing and leading ultimately to potential engine failure.

Also Mike taught me about the engine system while I worked and asked how well I knew the bike had been broken in. When he found out I thought but didn’t know the valves had been set recently he took the time to check the clearances and show me how to shim the valves. This was lucky as the valves were towards the lower limits of their range and needed to be adjusted. This is a major job and I’m extremely lucky to have had his help and patience in exploring the bike. He has also given me advice on the jetting of the bike as it was becoming very hot when stationary or stop-start traffic. Once down, this work on the bike should see me through the rest of the trip with only basic maintenance and breakdowns to worry about.

Mike and his wife Geneva have joined the long list of people who’ve extended their hospitality to us already on our trip. They have given up their time to help set my bike up in shape to make the trip.

In terms of problems with the bikes I have had some minor but time-consuming issues. So far I have had a blown headlight fuse, several screws vibrate themselves out (especially when I have just screwed them back in) and nearly a major problem with my luggage. The luggage problem occurred after I dropped the bike in sand (while riding on a trail near Death Valley I ran off the road), dropping the bike had inadvertenly bent the luggage against the hot exhaust pipe which began burning through the protective foam on the luggage and eating it’s way towards total soft luggage elimination! Stopping to take a photo of the dramatic scenery, I turn around and my bag is well on the way to being a pyromanic’s delight. The eventual fix was made by Jon finding a bolt to space the exhaust from the luggage guard giving me a little piece of mind.

So we’re ready for Mexico. I will write more about our travel times soon and the best is definitely yet to come.
Sorry I’m having trouble getting photos online. I will get them soon!

Posted on Sunday, January 28th, 2007 at 8:41 am in Uncategorized.
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