Planning progresses for leg-2 (AR to CO) of our TAT
adventure scheduled for early August 2016. A number of events have happened or
will happen in the near future that are worth mentioning.
1 - Our new member, Jeff, who is also my oldest son has
been hit hard with the adventure bug and is in full upgrade mode on his
recently purchased 2008 Yamaha WR250R. This past week-end I drove to Tulsa area
from Little Rock to celebrate my mom’s 90th birthday and Mother’s day
but also to go riding dual-sports with Jeff. I arrived around 5:30 pm Friday at
Jeff’s house just in time to find him putting a new battery into the WR. His
story was that he had just re-installed the turn direction lights that had been
removed by the previous owner but when he tried to start the bike, all it did
was click continually; typical bad battery indication or bad ground connection.
The bike had been running fine until he started the turn light work.
The new battery was filled with acid, charged and
installed into the WR in short order. When the ignition switch was turned on,
the tail light was flickering and when the ignition switch turned to start, it
again only clicked continually. The horn wouldn’t work nor any other electrical
component. Our first thought was there must be a short somewhere because if we
moved the cable harness in certain areas the horn would start to work and
lights go on steady. We spent hours trying to find a bad connection or shorted
wire. It was almost 9 pm and the bike was torn all apart with the cable harness
hanging loose in most places and the bike would still not keep the power on
reliably. We finally figured it had to be a bad battery, even though it was
new. Jeff took the battery out and went back to the auto-parts store just
before they closed for a replacement. When they tested the battery, sure enough
it had a bad cell!!
Jeff returned home with the new new battery, added acid,
charged it for an hour and reinstalled into the WR. By this time it was close
to 11 pm. When he turned on the ignition, all the lights were on steady, the
horn worked and we were getting excited. He tried to start the bike, the
starter turned but the bike would not start or even attempt to start. After
server tries there was definitely a smell of fuel from flooding the system but
no indication that the sparkplug was even getting any power. We finally gave up
and went to bed. Note: The fuel smell was curious. I didn’t think a fuel injected
bike would flood but evidently this one will. A review of the owner’s manual
even states to open the throttle full to clear out the engine if it has trouble
starting.
The next morning we started again. I had the bike
schematic in my lap while Jeff attempted to find out why the ignition wasn’t
getting any power. About this time we read in the manual how the diagnostics
tool worked using codes shown on the instrument cluster. I know, we should have
done this early last night but we were both unfamiliar with the WR’s
capability. We ran through the test, got an error code, I looked in the manual
what it meant and BINGO, problem identified! It was the lean angle sensor. When
Jeff was moving all the harness and components around last night looking for a
shorted wire he pulled several of the sensors out of their mounting clips,
including this one. What he didn’t know was that this sensor must be positioned
correctly or it will shut off the ignition on the bike. We found the sensor and
installed it into its correct mounting spot and like magic the bike started
immediately. It was 9 am Saturday. Although Jeff was pretty irritated I told
him that this was all good experience. We now know where all the sensors are
located and how to use the WR diagnostics to troubleshoot these types of
problems. It could be invaluable on the trail in Utah or some other isolated
spot on the TAT. We finally got to ride some local back roads and even a few
single tracks and it looks like his WR will do the job.
2 – Woodrow’s leg is healed, at least that’s what the
doctor tells him. This is the same doctor that didn’t recognize that it was
broken in the first place. Woodrow says it’s fine and not hurting and that he’s
ready to ride again. More on that later.
3 – Terry just bought a new KTM-690 to replace his
KLR650. The KTM is around 300 lbs.
compared to the 400+ lbs. of the KLR. Terry is a big guy but he quickly
realized during Leg-1 that a heavy bike is lots of work when riding bad roads
and water crossings. Steve made this same discovery prior to starting Leg-1 and
that is why he also replaced his KLR650 with a WR250R. Don’t get me wrong,
larger bikes are great, especially if there are lots of highway miles to cover.
In addition, these smaller bikes may suffer out west when we hit the high
passes but lots of TAT riders have been successful on smaller bikes and the one
thing I see written over and over again is lighter is better on the TAT. Our
experience from Charleston, SC to Little Rock, AR is that a 250 is perfect.
Only time will tell if that holds true for Legs 2 and 3.
4 – I continue to throw more money into mods for my
CRF250L. I really love this bike. It is so much fun to ride. After riding
Jeff’s 2008 WR250R this past weekend the CRF also rides smoother and is easier
to shift than the WR. It also handled all the gear plus me on Leg-1. My CRF is
a 2015 model with 3800 miles (1431 miles during TAT Leg-1) since Oct 2015 when
I bought it new. Jeff’s WR250R is a 2008 with about 4500 miles.
The latest modification to my CRF is arriving this week; an
FMF Q4 Hex Muffler with Megabomb Header plus the EJK Electronic Fuel Control
Monitor. This is a very popular modification to the CRF and adds around 3 horse
power to a pretty tame motorcycle. All the YouTube videos on this mod were very
positive and I’m anxious to get it installed this weekend. In addition to
adding these components, I will also do an AirBox mod that gets more air into
the engine. This will be limited to adding a larger diameter snorkel tube to
the top and maybe removing the metal screen in front of the air filter. My
experience on Leg-1 after dumping my CRF during a water crossing is that I want
to keep the AirBox water proofing in place and only make the input hole at the
top larger. If water gets that high on the bike, it won’t matter how large the
hole is. The FMF muffler is about half the weight of the stock muffler; 12 lbs
compared to about 6 lbs. I also have already installed the 13 tooth (13t)
sprocket shown in the picture below that replaced the original 14t.
One other addition I plan on trying is a different
mounting plate for my RotoPax Fuel tank. On Leg-1 I had the RotoPax mounted flat
on my rear rack. This made me have to have my GL bag on top of the RotoPax on
the back and my rain gear bag in front under the GL bag. It worked OK but I
would like to get my GL bag lower and have it setting on my seat and directly
onto the rear rack. You’ll see this in pictures I will take after I try out the
new mount this weekend. The metal plate weighs almost 5 lbs so I hate to add
that extra weight and unless it makes a significant improvement in my gear
arrangement, it won’t be used.
5 – I had mentioned in a previous post that we were going
to try and do the rest of AR and some of OK TAT sections (334 miles total) in
the next few weeks so as to shorten the August Leg-2 to Colorado. We have already
ridden all of the AR TAT from the east state border to just north of Dover,
AR. That leaves about 170 miles of AR TAT
from Dover to the OK/AR state line. Our plan for a Memorial Day TAT ride is to
finish all of the AR TAT.
Saturday morning we will all arrive at Dover, AR around
sunrise to unload the bikes and gear up for the ride. Right now it will be:
Mike on his CRF250L with new FMF exhaust system installed
Jeff on his WR250L
Woodrow on his CRF250L
Terry on his new KTM-690
Steve on his WR250R won’t be going since he has other
commitments
We connect with the TAT about 10 miles north of Dover
where we ended a previous TAT ride several months ago (red Flag on right side
of map).
We will head west on the TAT through the Ozark National
Forest through some very scenic areas of the state. We will ride till close to
sundown and stop for the night in a local motel. If the roads are good and
water crossings no issue we should be able to reach the OK border; 169 miles.
If we don’t make the OK border we will stop short and finish up on Sunday morning
(Red Flag on left side of map above). The mileage chart for this TAT section is
provided below:
At the OK border we will ride 2-lane secondary paved roads
121 miles back to Dover where our trucks will be parked.
That’s all I have to report this time. Next post I will
have a trip report of our ride described above and a review of the FMF exhaust
mod to my CRF250L. In addition, I’ll report how Jeff handles setting on a
dual-sport seat for 2 days. He’s used to riding on big Harley Davidson comfort
seats.
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