Dual-sporting a 2010 TE 450, with cheap tricks

My bike has 15,000 miles on it with stock engine parts, and I am on my 2nd air filter, I wrung the first out pretty roughly. I have been cleaning foam filters with gasoline and oiling them with either engine oil or ATF for 40 years.

I let the gasoline sits in the drain pan for a while and most of the silt settles down to the bottom, and I pour the gasoline carefully and slowly, and most of the powder silt stays in the drain pan, I'll get a pic next time.

Dirty


Cleaned with gasoline


Oiled with ATF

The TE450 is back to running great again, gotta order a couple of temp sensors, seems I need one every 5000 miles....

Find out what temp range it is and buy one from a different maker,,just know the thread count and size,1 prong 2 prong,the basic function is the same,,problem solved..

Most of them seem to be around $15, that's what the Husky OEM part is, so I don't think I can improve anything.....
https://www.google.com/webhp?source...08,d.eWU&fp=2d51c5bfc01f1cdf&biw=1360&bih=857

I have been sick and tired of spending $20+ on air filter supplies. I know they are worth it, but I figured something else has got to work. I never thought of ATF. Does it end up running down toward the bottom of the filter at all? Have you noticed any kind of delamination of the twin air filter from repeated cleaning with gas? By the way, your documentation of your TE has been very informative and helpful

ATF is not the stickiest thing around, there's some run off, I squeeze out as much excess as I can before I reinstall, but when when the bike gets hot and I ride in 95F temps, there is some run off. I have a real old rag rolled up and stuffed into the bottom of my airbox, to try and soak up the ATF and the breather oil that gets past the filter, I change out the old rag every so often. I have my original TA filter and the only damage to it was some cracking of the outer most layer, from my over zealous wringing it out, no delamination of the layers.

Outside layer cracks






Inside layer, looks perfect to me

Thank you. I have a couple quarts of ATF that are not compatible with my trucks transmission. Obviously I'm not going to lose any sleep over doing this due to how many miles you have accumulated on your beast. Again thank you for your documentation, it has been very appreciated by me and numerous others.

As long as you are OK with a little run off, ATF has been fine for my riding for a number of years.

Thanks for the kudos, I don't have a lot of high tech stuff, just everyday bike maintenance items, finally was able to get into a powerline yesterday that had finally been cleaned out so we could see what we were riding, it was well worth the wait.



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Fun. I like the rag idea inside the bottom of the air box. I hate the oil run off from the breather vent.

Amazing 3rd day delivery for $5 from Bryon at Bills, I felt some play in my front wheel after this past weekend's ride and so on Monday, I emailed Bryon at Bills, he said he would send out some bearings and a couple of temp sensors via our normal USPS, on Thursday, I check the mailbox, there they are! Before dinner Thursday, I had new front wheel bearings in. Thanks to Bryon and Bill's for being a great parts supplier!

I used to clean my filters with gas back in the 80's but had a filter disintigrate on me recently trying that. Maybe i didnt rinse it enough afterwards. The old filters where tough. These new ones seem alot more junky. Do you do something specific after a treatment? Id love to go back to cleaning with gas. Just dont want to ruin another filter.

I strain my used gasoline into a 1 gal bottle, that sits in the garage and the dirt in it settles to the bottom. I pour off the top onto the dirty filter, and squeeze it out over my drain pan, several times, wring it out, then I slap the filter up against my car tire, and lay it in the sun to dry, then I soak it in ATF and wring that out, the first Twin Air filter I had lasted 2 years I guess.

Well, the Husky ran great this past Sunday, I flogged it and it ran like a champ, wish I had more skill, at staying upright. Went down 3 times, the bike is pretty well set up to take the abuse, but the rocks are merciless, and the 2.5 year old front fender finally gave way. As I thought about a replacement, I just couldn't bring myself to chuck the OEM fender in the trash, especially with that sweet BMP sticker on there.....and the title of this thread IS Cheap Tricks, so I decided to give that old fender one more try, at making 20,000 miles.

15,000 mile report
14,000 mile report was on May 9, 2013

Rode today, and discovered a little quirk of this bike: we parked for about 15 mins to drink water and take pics, and as usual, I tend to leave the key ON since my headlight is switched and usually don't run with the headlight on, and when I started back up, I was backfiring, wouldn't idle, all the same old symptoms I've had several times I've had (or thought I had) problems. This time, as I rolled along I pulled in the clutch and switched off the key, then switched it back on, resetting the system, started it up and it ran like a champ the rest of the day. I am gonna make sure I switch off the key every time I stop for a break from now on, something is weird with my CPU.

Bike is running great, did the 15th oil change before the ride, strained the oil and also cut open the filter, didn't see anything alarming, for this bike. Temp sensor and fan are working reliably, fork has not sprung a leak again, and new Toyota fuel pump is working great. The zip-tied front fender held together fine.









The pic of the TE450 above, with the rocks and water, was taken where the green arrow is pointing, we are really lucky to have some good, urban dual sport riding, the single track pic above was taken about 1/4 mile from a Sonic drive-in.:

Thanks for the 20,000 views! Here's a couple of bloopers.....

big rock to hit with forks nothing left to do but roll=

perfect dismount! 9.5..9..10... that's the way to get away from the bike

I had dismount scored at 8.9

Thanks for the 20,000 views! Here's a couple of bloopers.....


Its just great to read about somebody who is definitely getting their moneys worth out of their bike! You have ridden the wheels off that thing. I wish I could say the same about mine.