Dual Sporting - East Texas Style! 1/26-1/27

Some highlights from the East Texas Dual Sport Ride:

Staging. See me leaned over while balancing on one foot....
(third helmet from the right, white fender/number plate/knuckle covers)

This is what I looked like just moments later. DOH!

Hmm. I see a bike, but where's the rider?

Oh, there he is! Went for a swim it seems.

Danny's bike seems to like being in the back of the truck. His wife doesn't.

The folks at Harborlight catered FOR us and TO us all weekend. They made it very clear they enjoyed having the group stay there, and they're looking forward to hosting us again in the future.

The fire was roaring all night and brought out great conversation, story telling, and joke-telling...

Bud Light cans melt slower than Miller Light cans apparently...

Do I hear banjos?

Have we mentioned the mud?

As the weekend was coming to a close, the sun finally appeared. :sun:

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Here are some pictures from some of the other participants…

Me in the sand

I’m in the back, white helmet & black jacket. David to my left on his Husky 610 and Bill standing in front of us with the blue helmet.

Graeme got himself a little sideways and a lot stuck.

Men make fire.

Stickers!

And the rest, in no particular order…

My Nephews

I got them this bouncing Tigger toy for Christmas, and they love jumping and bouncing along with it. Ethan even imitates Tigger's noises!

Still have to adjust the pilot screw, but it's running.

Last night I changed the chain & sprockets, added a tailbag, and bled the rear brake. Next up is the front brake and the oil/filter change and it'll be ready for the romp in East TX this weekend!

The $4 chain plate tool (Mike's?) was PERFECT for pressing the plate on - I highly recommend it! The hardest part of the process was getting the VERY stuck bolts off the back sprocket. I had to get some Liquid Wrench and work on them for a while before they would budge.

I also realized that I'd ordered stock gearing but that's not what I took off the bike. One of the previous owners had it at 14/51, but I put on stock 15/45 - probably better for this DS ride anyway, but I'll have to hold onto the 14/51 combo for trails and such, or look into a 12 or 13 front if I want to avoid adding links to the chain when I change it.

Light Dual Sporting with 'Da Bunny

Carb Follow-Up

Ok, before turning the fuel back on this morning I took the tank back off, drained it, then got a fresh batch of gas. With the idle screw all the way out the bike fired but didn't run. Quarter turn of the choke for each kick and I knew I was getting closer.

When I finally got it running, it was idling pretty quick. Choke off, idle screw down a tad, but I can tell the pilot screw will need more adjusting.

I started getting a LOT of white smoke off the right side of the bike near the (?) exhaust header so after about three minutes of warm up I cut it off. I'll let it sit and then give it another go, hopefully it's just extra cleaner that got down there and needs to get burned off.

Thanks to all for the help and advice! Hopefully I'll be able to keep it running and get the other maintenance done for the DS ride next weekend!

(and yes, I'm kicking myself for it likely being just bad gas but at least I learned about carbs in the process so it wasn't a total loss)

Carbs 101

The XR still won't start/run. With starter fluid and almost all of the energy I could muster I got it started but it would die almost immediately. The longest it ran was about 10 or 12 seconds.

I was a little nervous about doing this kind of work myself, but I pulled the carb based on the service manual guidelines. Clean as a whistle but I went at it with some more carb cleaner anyway. Needle and jets all looked fine. Float had no irregularities and was free-moving.

Since the tank was off the bike, I tested the petcock in both the ON and RESERVE positions and the gas flowed freely. Tomorrow I'll dump it and put fresh gas in, but I doubt that's the problem.

Spark plug is good. Did the "touch it to the side of the motor" trick and got blue spark. Fuel filter is in/behind the petcock so opening the petcock while the tank was off showed no slowing of fuel there.

Air filter is a new-looking K&N that was cleaned and oiled before the last ride and shows no signs of dirt or crud.

Booth, TX

I had a great time meeting and mingling with folks down in Booth, TX for Ara & Spirit‘s visit. The food was excellent, the company outstanding, and the weather held up its end of the bargain. Thanks a million to Carl and Colette for hosting and to Ara for setting up the spread.