While my friend Ed serves a tour of duty in Iraq, he left me with his 1993 KLR650. It needed lots of maintenance and a new rear tire and because I enjoy that type of work I gladly took it on.
Over the course of about two months I replaced the rear tire and tube, changed the oil, flushed and replaced the coolant, flushed and replaced the front and rear brake fluid. I took some time to have a little fun on it in the snow...
I decided that the bike should get a valve check, which I've never done before. The valve check was an interesting job and I found the two exhaust valves a bit tight so they received new shims.
During the job, I learned the hard way that the cam cover is held in place with steel bolts going into a soft aluminum head. Naturally I stripped the threads of two of the bosses.
I can't say enough good things about Heli Coils! After a tense hour, I had the head fixed with steel threads - probably stronger than new.
The bike went back together and still ran great, which was a wonderful thing after digging so deeply into it. Next on the agenda is heated grips...
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