Yes it has been a long time. Spring time is an interesting time of year, everything outside wakes up and demands your attention so there is not much time to spend in the shop working on those winter projects. The good part is I can spend some quality time riding the dirt bikes that I work on during the winter. That is after all the maintenance is complete around the property. Funny thing about owning enough land to have your own practice track, you spend more time working on it then practicing on it. Enough about that.
Since the last post there actually has been a few things happening, I was able to purchase a new front tire for the KX
And Yes I found time to put it on. I went with Bridgestone 404/403 combo front and rear. |
| This is the very worn clutch basket, you can see the grooves next to the plates in the vertical slot. |
I also was thinking a lot about the clutch because the basket is very worn and was concerned that it would not work correctly, as well as when I put the clutch back in from the original inspection I didn't torque it down because I knew I would be back in there before starting the motor. Another reason for concern was when I took the clutch out of the CR125 (www.cr125project.blogspot.com) that I am also working on it had a bend over lock washer on the clutch nut and I did not recall seeing anything like this in the KX and thought that there should be one. I looked at parts details on line and to the best of my reasoning I figured one of the two washers that was in the detail would be the lock, the one closest to the nut would make sense. Right? NOPE. Yes I took it apart again before ordering said washer and there were two washers already in place, one was rather concave the other flat, I ordered the washer in the parts detail anyway, only $3. It was the concave washer and that is supposed to lock the nut with 60 ftlb of torque, OK. So when I got it I thought huh, I have this already, I used the new one just cause I bought it so why not. Here comes the bad part. Upon putting the clutch assembly back together, (still with the old basket) I went to torque it down almost getting to 60lbs and the nut gave out!!! Stripped!!! Turns out that I think it was stripped before and had just enough thread to get about 40 to 50 lbs on it then pop off. There were no shavings or any popped threads on the spindle, this is why I think it was already half gone. Any way, this nut is not available from Kawi any longer so I went a searching, It is a 16mm x 1.0 jamb nut. Its not impossible to get but you do have to special order it from a hardware dealer, I used Tacoma Screw products. Cost only $3.5. It is not the jamb nut size but there is plenty of room on the spindle plus I will have extra threads to grab on with.
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| Photo of the clutch side of the motor, the spindle with the new nut sticks out of the center. |
Alright well I have ordered a new to me used clutch, the photos look like the wear on the basket is minimal compared to mine especially, so when that arrives in the next week or so I will carve out a little time one evening and try to reassemble this half the motor. I have also ordered a new expansion valve cover that showed up today and was in worse condition then the one I had, hate it when that happens, also an ignition cover, hopefully that is in good shape and I can replace the squished one that I have on the bike now.
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| A Shot of the ever growing fleet, YZ450f, RMZ250, KX125, CR125 on the bench in the back. You can see my Trey Canard Jersey hanging on the back wall on the right. AAHHH that's what I call a Man Cave. |
