Spring lengths checked and good. Valves back in with exhaust seats lapped and new guide seals all round. This pic really doesn't portray how shiny the valves came up. One of the stainy exhausts has some light corrosion marks. The titanium inlets are like the day they were made - down to being able to read the "Del West" logo and size etchings. Step one of engine disassembly was noticing that one of the cam cover bolts was missing. The hole was filled with silicone sealant and there was no sign it had ever been leaking. I wrote it off as just more prior monkeyness. While sorting it out today though I realised it was at heart a factory screw-up. The hole wasn't deep enough and the fancy stepped bolt, which is supposed to bottom out on the stepped bit - was instead bottoming out in the hole, hence the stripped thread at some point in the past. ...and when it stripped it also blew through the side. Drilled it out and down and stuck in a 15mm helicoil. Plenty long enough to be rock solid for enough of it's length to hold the bolt.
Assembled the wheels. ...using spanking new bolts all-round that came pre-dapped with loctite no less. I could get used to being pampered. The KTM and wee-z are the only bikes I've ever had that cost more than what's lying there. Is it a coincidence that I chose to put them together the day after the 350 appeared back from it's 'clean bill of health' service? (the 350 whose arse-end needs to come off anyway - came wearing an old half-bald trail tyre on the back) When I scanned the far wall that is the current to-do list at lunchtime I thought I was just picking a job that meant using a torque wrench. Needed a little burst of positivity and nothing says 'getting there' like using the torque wrench. But y'know, now that I see the wheels lying there. Shifting the wants-to-be-black pile into the back room and wheelling in the 350 for a little jiggery-pokery is kinda tempting.
Lump's more-or-less back together with fresh clutch, piston, gaskets and various outer seals. Had to go back down a shim size on both the exhaust ports to balance out the decoke. New cam cover bolt torqued down fine on the repair. KTM style seals are a bit more fiddly to fit than the rubbery Japanese style ones. All went in ok I think but yeah - tricky. Popped the endcan cap and the packing was amazingly fresh. Had a prod with a rod and it felt good down the other end too so just fixed the threaded baffle mounting hole and popped it all back together again. Black / not-black ratio is improving.
Tinkering away. Been cleaning up the loom and checking out the add-on sub-loom. Turns out the two aren't compatible but there's enough between the two piles of wires to make a full loom - it'll just take a bit more fiddling. Also working on the back end. The shock mount bearing and one of the swinging arm bearing pairs pulled right out. The other pair has rotted though and aren't keen on moving. Need to get more blowtorch gas for the next attempt. Also painting. Nice little ebay score. SMC R stubby mudguard. Just back from a helmet shopping trip. ...which prompted me to drag out all the gear I've been collecting over the last few months. Because I've been in no hurry there were some great auction deals - brand new Leatt GPX 5.5 boots half-price, FLY kneepads for £4, the bodyarmour and big t-shirt for over it were each around a tenner posted...
Been polishing bolts. ...and anything else that came to hand. Don't know if the pipe is KTM or FMF but it's wafer thin and you gotta love stainless for knowing how to react to a wire brush. Clean it up, replace everything, make it black. Usual routine. Poor wee thing - sitting there waiting on an arse. The forks join the endcan as the surprises of the rebuild. One of the legs must have had a seal change maybe six years ago. The other was OEM greeny/browny/grey' goo depending on how far down into the damper you went. Level was low by about an inch. Other leg was fresher and level was good. ...but more to the point, when they were drained and I was was in super-critical mode I couldn't find a thing wrong with them. The bushes should be long gone(I figured) yet they and the damper rods felt, slid and sounded like they'd just been put together. ....so just stuck in fresh oil and hit the tubes with a fivers worth of 60mm heatshrink, just for blackness sake.
Starting to take shape. ...and I think that's the last of the painting done. ...for phase one anyway. This rebuild's turned me into a bit of a fan of VHT branded paint. Was originally only going to get a can of their epoxy paint for the spring but it was a better deal buying two so I just done the other wee bits in it too. Went on lovely so thought I'd go with their engine enamel as well. Bought two again but the three covers only took one can. Rated to 288°C though so the other should be ok for doing the calipers in phase two and any other odds and sods that still need blackened. Hope their paint's half as good as their nozzles.
Sitting cleaning connectors. Couldn't be more in the mood to get out on it. Assembly has been plodding along nicely. Haven't had much time and am still washing clay off of stuff but there's not much left in the bits boxes now. Front brake cleaned up and slotted together just the job. The slightly thicker disk and fresh pads fitted with a bawhair to spare and the EBC replacement bracket even has a tapped hole specifically for the trailtech speedo pickup. Happy days. Discovered last night that I'm missing a couple of little plastic block thingys for the back of the subframe. Explains why the mudguard was always a little wobbly. One look at OEM prices and I'm thinking I'll just whittle something instead. Got a block of nylon somewhere or might just use wood. Main loom wasn't in bad nick - a few near breaks that I helped along then fixed and a bit of a re wrap. Put fresh spade connectors on the thermostat and horn cables and yeah, everything's kinda grotty looking so connector cleaning time. As luck would have it one of the near breaks was on a feed and another on a ground, so I sneaked in the wires for the new speedo while I was at t. Adapted the indicator kit. Now rather than plugging in to a connector at the headstock and another in the airbox(neither of which exist on my bike) it's a pukka sub loom. The two bits will meet in the airbox and I've added a connector to go into the old speedo power feed.
Footery wee finishing touches done and it's on the road at last. Shakedown runs went not bad. Main problem is a minor coolant leak from the weep hole. It's a common issue - the seal's gone behind the pump. Apparently for years the factory fitted the seal the wrong way round so they all go. Easy enough to get to. There's an oil seal behind the water one that I'll likely change too while I'm in there. Also the bike's running wayyy rich. Popping and crackling on the overrun and bogging a little when cracking open from low revs in proper FCR fashion. I'll be honest - I didn't touch the carb. Just cleaned the muck off it and slapped it back on. So I'll get in there, check the jet size and drop the needle to begin with. There's another issue with these though. I've read the factory sets the accelerator pump to run too long a squirt. There's an easy mod - using an o-ring as an elastic band to limit pump actuator rotation... ...or another that sounds more the part - drilling and tapping the pump casing to take an adjustable stop screw. I'm already sold on the latter but hey - let's get a few miles on the thing. Will get richer again when the baffle goes in. For testing purposes the exhaust is still in naughty mode and while the petrolhead in me smiles at the bark, the friendly neighbour in me says no-way-Jose! So... Switching off naughty mode. FMF's inserts were a bit pricey for all they were and still have a rep for being loud so I picked up a variety of bits to play with instead. One on the right is from a Vance and Himes. Just needs a half mill skimmed off it's diameter and it'll be spot-on. Middle bit is a universal affair for between the can and pipe. Looks hopelessly restrictive at the moment but with a bit of lightening I'm hoping it may play a part. One on the left is tonight's plaything though. Was £3 posted off ebay, is light mild steel and with a heat and a bend should slot right in.
nice read pal, ive just sold my excf450 then regretted it and bought an excf250, just changed the jets in my carb and set up the squirt and o ring mod, makes a massive difference. ive tried to stop mine from popping away by using some high temp silicone on the akra exhaust joints, thats helped! hope you enjoy riding it, wouldn't mind a set of supermoto rims for mine for a play on the road!!
Seal the joints - of course. Why didn't that cross my mind? Cheers - good call I reckon. Even after only 20 miles or so I'm lapping up the wheels. They've taken all the things I didn't like about dirt bikes on the road and turned them on their head. Handling is everything I hoped for.
hehe I enjoy the popping exhaust but I needed to quieten mine down, way too much of it. Apparantly they mainly let a fair bit of air in around the headers where they slide on. Would love to ride mine on the road with supermoto wheel set on and a change of gearing and see how they go, I mainly ride mine green laning so need the knobblys but they’re bloody horrible on the road with the feel and vibration!!
You could go 17 inchers with adventure tyres - the thought crossed my mind when I was gathering the bits. I'm tempted now to get a set of rims for a pair of Anakee Adventures or the likes - 17 rear and a 19 front. ...and if I've got a 19 front lying there - might as well get a 19 rear and go flat-tracker for a while. The possibilities are endless and potentially pretty expensive. With the joints sealed and the cheap-and-cheerful baffle it's not quite as quiet as the 350(standard exhaust) but it's comparable at least. Still has the odd cackle on the overrun but nowhere near as bad and with the baffle they're not too offensive now. Can hear the other engine noises now and it all sounds pretty good. Hit the Trossachs for the day. 120 miles and feel surprisingly ok after it. The pegs and bars are buzzy and the seat's too narrow but yeah, not as bad as I expected. Sorting that stuff out is all phase 2. ...and after today - Phase 2 is definitely going to happen. That was a bloody hoot. Dukes Pass on a sumo has to be experienced to be believed. Usually I enjoy the uphill and worry my way down the other side - on this thing up, down, forwards, backwards - it was all some of the best fun I've ever had on a bike.
Thought I'd post a wee update on the naughty bike. Only had the one problem so far and I kinda got away with it. There was an almighty crunch then an awful grinding... ...which turned out to be the auto-decompressor arm falling off the end of the camshaft. Pin popped right out and arm flew off. Luckily it wedged itself down the side of the front chain guide and while the chain proceeded to gouge a channel up the well and chew a funky pattern out of the flywheel... ...it could have been worse. Was due a fresh timing chain anyway. Put in new guide blades and cam bearings too. The 11½ month wait for a new camshaft was a drag - no two ways about it. Tried all over but the 400s weren't as common as the 450 so none in stock and I was stuck with a "coming out of lockdown" delay in the KTM back-order queue. Ahhh - but the day it finally showed up - there was much booty dancing and singing of Happy Days!
With time to kill waiting on the cam I got some tinkering done. The coolant coming from the weep hole was indeed from the pump seal being fitted backwards at the factory. Apparently it happened for a couple of years. All the 08s and most of the 09s leak because of it eventually. Here's the way the seals were fitted. Freshened up the oil seal too(which was in the right way round). Prising off the impeller was a little nerve wracking. Was so flimsy and old and starting to fur along the edges. ...so I took a punt on an Aliexpress clone of the KTM alloy pump replacement. Appeared identical and fitted the shaft spot nn. Assembled it with plasticene and it looked to be about half a mill clearance all over. ...and it's worked fine now for hundreds of miles. If it sounds like I was dubious well, £14 posted versus 80-odd from powerparts(plus a gasket plus postage). Needed longer pump cover bolts and you know what it's like. Once you start replacing grotty old engine bolts with shiny stainless ones it's hard to stop.
Done some more aluminium whittling for up the headstock. The C-shaped bracket in the middle goes on the bottom yoke and holds grommets to fit a 2012-on headlight/numberplate. They're a nicer shape and there were loads more lamp options for them. ...but the mounting pins are on the fairing, rather than the mudguard as per earlier models(chopped those off once I was happy the bracket was working). The idiot lights have an indicator either side, low beam, high beam, fan and a switched voltmeter. They just bolt onto the main bracket and come off along with it. The little bits are adaptors and brackets to change my original indicator mount to hold mini-spots. The newer fairing has indicator mounts moulded in. Reasonably tidy. ...and a shit-ton brighter than the dull orange glow it was before. Low beam is the sidelights and bottom three, high beam is everything. The stock headlight from the 350 goes on for mots.
When I told my local guru what had happened he suspected too many cold starts over the life of the bike. You keep loading the pin before it's warmed up.... The cam I put in was twice updated from the one I took out. Once in '09 and again in '11. No idea what was changed. It looked and measured the same(bar a .04mm pretty even wear in lobe diameter. Profile looked the same to the eye... ...so hopefully pne of the updates was a tighter interference fit. It's a running theme. All the shit I've been replacing seems to have been updated by the end of the run in 2011. My Fowlers bookmark just links to the 2011 parts diagram and I just fit whatever's listed there.. In fact if I've learned anything that's worthy of passing on about KTMs it's that it's worth looking for latter-year models in a particular run. There's a whole lotta tweaking going on and none of it ever appears to warrant a recall - just a bunch of pissed-off owners.
Fitted a Seat Concepts foam and cover kit to the spare seat base. Knew going in that it'd be a four month wait for it and it was - almost to the day! Not that I was caring. The engine was wide open all that time - but it was a nice touch that they hit the estimate. It could never be described as luxurious. ...but it seats two cheeks rather than the two half cheeks of the standard seat, so is a big step up. It also was wide enough to mean I was back to tippie-toes everywhere - even with the sumo wheels. Fitted a 10mm lowering ring ring in the shock. ...which lowers the back about an inch. Dropped the yokes by about the same(25mm - max drop before the flat bit runs out on the fork). Fitted 16mm risers to allow for clearance to drop the yoke so far. Chopped the funky stand down to suit. Fitted a universal 4-wire ignition switch. Work in progress. Probably always will be.
