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For this ride, I’ll bee riding the same motorcycle that I used to ride around the world in 2010-2011. Some of the modifications for that trip are documented here.
I purchased the bike with 8,000 miles on the clock, and over the ensuing 10 months accumulated another 24,000. In the intervening 10 years, another 16,000 miles have been put on, through several trips to Baja and mainland Mexico, local dirt road rides, and leisurely cruises around the state.
With “pandemic pricing” making new, or newer used DRs too rich for my blood, I decided to refresh the reliable mule. From stem to stern:
Chassis, suspension, wheels:
- Front forks rebuilt with new bushings, seals, fork oil.
- Cartridge emulators (Ricor Intiminators) were cleaned.
- All bearings in rear suspension linkage replaced.
- Bearings replaced in front & rear wheels + sprocket carrier
- Rear shock replaced with Cogent stock rebuild/revalve with uprated spring.
- Converted rims to tubeless using Outex kit. Shod with Trailmax Mission tires in stock sizes.
- Fresh brake pads front and rear
- Fresh chain and sprockets in stock sizes
Fuel storage & carb:
- New 6.6 gallon Acerbis fuel tank. (The old one had a slight leak, through no fault of its own.)
- New fuel lines
- All seals & o-rings in carburetor replaced
- Slide, slide guide and slide needle replaced
Engine, clutch, transmission:
- Fresh anti-seize on header retaining bolts, also on the midpipe clamp bolt.
- Checked thickness of clutch friction plates — in the middle of spec…replaced them with OEM.
- Valve adjust, new spark plugs, oil change (Mobil1 10w-40) and oil filter
- Neutral sending unit screws snugged with high strength thread locker
Controls/ergonomics/comfort:
- Replaced clutch cable (retained original as a spare) and throttle cables
- New grips, also added Grip Puppies
- Footpegs lowered 1″
- Seat Concepts Commuter seat with Sit & Fly open mesh cover
- “Garbage bin” windscreen
Lighting/Electrical/Nav:
- Cyclops 10.0 LED / H4 headlight bulb
- Adventure Spec Rally Mini-fairing (brackets and panel only)
- Garmin Zumo XT
- Dual USB outlets with switched power
- SAE outlet, direct to battery.
- Fabbed up a rally tower
The engine compression and leakdown tests yielded results I can live with.
Now we have this:
Rear saddlebags are Turkana Hippohips with Oxpacker and Bushbaby add-on bags. The top duffel is from Wolfman, capacity is around 100L. Rear topcase is a Nanuk 925 with locking latches, mounted on a Backcountry Equipment slider rack. The tank panniers are cheap Amazon models that had the zippers fail on literally the second day of the trip. I later replaced them with Aerostich models. The tank bag is a small Wolfman model that I jettisonned along with the cheapie tank panniers. Good quality product, but it always seemed to be in the way.