The Big DR350 Project. *Updated*

[picos mestizo]

Tyrant68 wrote:-Good job Steve, you should restore for a living.

Unfortunately you can only restore for a LOVING.
There aint no bread to be made here not even the odd Full English Breakfast, as Steve will probably tell you.
No! this is a labour of love, a passion to ride the reprieved machine. To be at one with it romping through the countryside with a big smirk on your face, conjoined @ soles & palms. Extacy in motion the machine LIVES again!

[Thedktor]

Ah that 640 is proving rather troublesome and you know I would be more than happy to help fix the blimin thing, but you would of course have to bring it down to me .....

Now, yes picos mestizo is exactly right in that it would be very hard to make any useful money from my restore/repair work, it just takes too long and costs a lot more than most people are willing to spend! :unsure:

Needless to say I have given it a lot of consideration, and there must be some other profession that I could apply my abilities to, just not found it yet!

[wilky]

quick question on the carb yours look different to the one on mine
Mine has the 2 throttle cables and i am thinking of upgrading it to a better one any suggestions on a new carb that wont cost to much.

wilky

[Thedktor]

Most four-stroke carbs use two cables, BUT you don't necessarily have to use the return/push cable as they are only there for safety. The return spring is designed to always close the slide unless something catastrophic happens = very rare.

The Keihin FCR carb is the best but £600-expensive! There are quite a few secondhand ones around though.

I've expanded this discssion on your thread here

[Thedktor]

I had noticed that after riding for a while that the steering would start to feel weird on the road, like the tyre was flat, vague and weave-prone. Odd, and even odd-er when the knackered old tyre was replaced for a new(er) one and it made no difference!

Everything was straight and true, spokes tight, head-bearings good and smooth - a bit of a puzzle!

Eventually I realised that it only did it when the engine was good n’ hot, and with a bit more pondering figured it had to be the steering-head bearings being affected by the heat of the oil which is up in the frame right next to them. So strip the bike down:




and:




Bearings completely dry – that would be it then! Fortunately the bearings re-usable at this stage:




Subsequent test rides and the problem fixed – yay!

Another reason to take the bike apart:




Replaced with some new ones, kindly donated by another forumite:




Rear pads, yeah, shot:





Luckily the disk is not scored, just smeared with metal off the pad. There was plenty of meat left when I set out for a few hours, but they quickly wore down to nothing! That’s cheap pads for you (Kyoto I think).

Some new ones, and also changed the fronts which have never worked well (don’t know what make the old ones were):




Ooh sporty:






And here was me wondering why the front-end was a bit slippy in the mud!






So another knackered old tyre put on, but at least that has some tread.

Rear shock leaking, and you may have already seen that I found a replacement:




And finally, the pièce de résistance:







The shiniest bit on the whole bike!!

The original spoke was seized and broke when I tried to tighten it. Phoned Talon Engineering and they asked for a minimum spend of £5, and a turn-round of just a few days. So I send off a spoke to be matched, but nearly two weeks pass and no new spokes, so phoned again to check on progress.

Chap on the phone very apologetic - he’s got my spoke but they have been very busy, and says he will immediately send me three free of charge!




Well, that is good customer service!

And that’s that all done, for now, just need to MoT it again cos its just run out…

[Britmech]

Did you put the small o ring behind the oil filter ?

[Thedktor]

Did you put the small o ring behind the oil filter ?

Very observant! :cheer: Yes its in there, that must have been a mocked-up photo

Someone else noticed this:




Rear spring lock-ring not done up. I was fiddling with the pre-load at the same time, for some reason :dry:

[Thedktor]

Has damping:




And has MoT:





Well I never doubted it would pass but inwardly rolled my eyes at the loose-chain advisory. … if anything it was set slightly tight for a dirt-bike!

And the brake pedal, well that was nothing new as it took a lot of effort to un-seize it at the beginning of the project a year ago.

The new s/h shock is great - the DR feels almost taut! Well, its all relative. The old shock had only seeped a tiny amount of oil but was clearly past its best.

Good to be back on the bike after a few weeks off, really missed it.

[trigg]

Great Bike Steve

Brings backs some memories when first got my DR,

Took the air filter out just crumble like sand in my hand, amazing it still run ok tho.

Trigg.

[boboneleg]

I see you like to get your moneys worth (pads and front tyre) :laugh:

I recently did the head bearings on mine, my bike has only done 13,000 miles but it's surprising how they can go 'off' when you use the bike for trail-rding.