Dual-sporting a 2010 TE 450, with cheap tricks

Looks like I let my linkage bearings get overwhelmed again. I am gonna try all 7 replacements with the Synergy product, I already have 2 of them in hand, just ordered 6 more to replace 7 bearings. Anybody ever press these into their linkage, is there a technique, is it possible to break the crap out of them using a socket to press them in? Will the freezer make them smaller like regular bearings?

Yes
No

The bearings at the frame end of the tie-rod were the ones that are the worst, I never changed those, they were OK 2 years ago,...not so much now, the Synergy bearing sleeves pushed right in, by using the collar bushing that fits into the bearing when installed, they pushed in pretty easy. I am glad I have an extra one coming though, one of them didn't turn out so well. Let's just say, if I could bottle "Stupid" and sell it, I'd be richer than Bill Gates, seein' how I have an unlimited supply.

Wish I had some video of me in the parking lot of AutoZone, the Husky tie-rod hooked into the receiver hitch of my truck and me slamming the slide hammer of the loaner bearing puller about 50 times per bearing, it must've been hilarious to watch!

Absolutely stellar performance today by the TE450, everything was perfect, front end performed well, I hit a rock with a glancing blow at speed that threw the front wheel sideways, but the suspension soaked it up, the tire bit into the rocky soil and no wreck occurred, my shorts were soiled however.

One of the maniacs I ride with decided to bury his CRF in the quicksand, and then he did the only thing he could do, he rode in the lake to wash it off!
Vinny on his GasGas got to see some new stuff. Jeepman got some new springs for his Dizzer and man, he makes that DRZ go like a KTM, he's fast. Big props to the Driven shifter, it took a massive rock hit near the lake, and came back under my foot, we stopped, and I pressed it back to its original position, no breaky!

At a break on this past weekend's ride, one of the guys noticed I had a triple clamp bolt backing out, I guess I forgot to tighten it or went too easy on it. During the down time to tighten it, we noticed there was alot of side-to-side front wheel play, like a bad bearing, which I had just replaced with the 3rd set of bearings (OEM plus 2 Moose bearing sets) a few months ago. Today, as I looked closely at the amount of play, it was clear that there was more movement on the brake side than the other side. When I broke it down and pulled the brake side bearing, it became obvious why I have always had 1 bad bearing and 1 good bearing when I change them. The brake side bearing was totally gone, and I left the other side in, because it felt great, smooth action, no play at all. I installed one of the older bearings that I had saved, from the other side, and with the wheel back on, all of the play was gone. Maybe the 2nd pic had alot to do with the quick death of the bearing but hey, the other side bearing was in the water too, so I am thinking it's the braking action that opens that side's bearing to more wear.

I hope you didn't bend your shifter shaft.

If it got bent, it should show up as an oil leak, I'll keep and eye on it.

Gotta rough ride coming up Saturday, sandy, rocky, trees down, probably gonna overheat, a lot of slow slogging, and I thought I was hearing some kind of vibrating metal, thought it was coming from the engine, so I pulled the valve cover, nothing was loose, didn't pull the cams to check the cam bearings, they seemed great just a few hours ago. I did get a couple of vids of the valve train turning over.

I never concluded the linkage story. I got the Synergy composite bushings in, a week from when I ordered them, I usually get my USPS stuff from Bill's in 3 days,.....the picture on the Synergy web site shows 2 bushings in the picture, the size of the bushing is such that it doesn't really fit the single bearing location, so I thought Quantity=1 meant 2 bushings,....not, 1 means 1, I got 3 bushings instead of 6, oh well. Anyway, I replaced the bushing I messed up with one of the new ones, that was in the tie rod. Got that back in and went to inspecting the other bearings in the tri-pivot and the shock bottom, and all of those were still good from my heavy greasing almost 2 years ago. The bottom shock bearing, which does not have any seals on the sides since I used the larger bearing that doesn't leave enough room on either side for the seals, was in great condition, mostly due to the Indorider-inspired inner-tube boot, so I made a new one of those, and repacked all the bearings and put it back together.

I spotted my old air filter element in the junk pile, I knew I wasn't going to ever use it again, so I cut it up and now I use it as a kind of pre-filter, and when i want a fresh spot of air cleaner, I remove the piece and I go for 1-2 more rides before cleaning it all again.

At 17,500 miles, the TE450 continues to run great, I thought the engine sounded a little noisier than normal, got a little worried, but then I remembered I was running 100% 0w40 and it's been a little hot here the last couple of rides, so I drained a quart of oil out of the larger screen hole and put in a quart of 15w50 and it sounded like its old self.

Moss and algae will definitely mess up your rear brake if you just leave it on the bike and ride, thinking it wall fall off eventually. Also, if you gass it when deflecting off a rock on a downhill creek crossing, you can really travel a long way and end up in deep water, shit like that happens....

I'm still searching the threads to see if Im missing something… I still have a starting issue with my TE250.. I checked the starter, replaced the ADC cam and still can't get the starter to spin the engine. I wonder if I have the timing off? It did run pretty darn good when it started..But it would die after getting hot?
How do I check the timing?

Yes, when I had the exhaust cam in the wrong position, it was hard to start and it ran great. Remove the cam cover and get the engine to TDC and take a picture of the cam position. Post it up. Here is a couple of graphics I made showing how the exhaust timing affects the ADC release of compression at slow RPMs. The first pic is when the exhaust cam is in the wrong position, usually one tooth off. The compression release happens too early and too much compression remains for the starter to work (the pink slice is the ADC compression release).
The second pic is where the ADC is working better, releasing more compression and the starter is able to turn the motor over.

Here is a pic of the cams as I found it.. I put the white marks on each gear for me to reassemble exactly the way I found it. I guess I need to check that the exhaust cam is actually correct.. Thanks !!

Is the cover still off? Canyou take a pic from the right side of the bike, with the camera centered on the middle area.

sure.. I'm going to check the cam positions tonight. The cam gear index mark should align with the drive gear marks per the manual. It sounds like its off a tooth..

Had a look and it all seems to be in the right place. heres a pic..

With the cams at his position, at TDC, go over to the left side of the bike and look for a dimple on the far right of the intake cam gear, and a dimple on the far left of the exhaust gear. Those dimples should be relatively the same position and close to being on the plane of the head top edge, kinda like this.

--------o---------.........................--------o---------

Make sure the double dimple where you have the white paint is exactly on the mark.

Have you double checked that the piston and the double dimple are correct?

Insert a stiff, plastic straw into the spark plug hole, do not use anything metal, do not use anything wood.
With the trans in 6th gear, rock the rear wheel back and forth as you hold onto the straw, so that you can feel the tiny movements near TDC. get the straw to where is is half way between going up and going down and that's where the double dimple should align perfectly with the hash mark.

I quit using my radiator flaps some months ago and my MPGs went down from 32 to 25. I wanted to try an idea I saw floating around the internet about fooling the ECU into thinking the engine was up to operating temps(about 220F) so that it would run nice and lean, like i knew my bike does when I use my rad blockers to get the temps up to 220F. On the left side of the bike, where the 2 wires come out of the water temperature sensor (WTS) I cut the 2 wires. The wires that went to the ECU, I placed on the middle prongs of the double pole, double throw slide switch. I put the WTS wires on 1 end of the switch and on the other end of the switch I put a 150 ohm, 1/2 watt resistor, total cost about $5. I tried starting the cold bike with the switch on the 150 ohm position, wouldn't start, as was my guess, too lean, I then switched it to the cold WTS and BAM, fired right up, rode it about a half a mile and switched it to the 150 ohm position and it ran fine, like a carbed bike still warming up and the choke has been taken off. My temp light (which is the signal from the ECU to turn on the fan) came on as soon as the bike was switched to the 150 ohm position, meaning that my bike sees the Radio Shack 150 ohm resistor as some temp over 230F. I did a typical dual; sport ride today and got about 30MPGs but I spent alot of time switched to my main map with no rad flaps in some slow singletrack (edit to add: I also had a massive intake leak at this time as well, good thing I didn't cook the motor.)

When I did the resistor trick, I went test riding and felt like I had a hanging idle, the idle would not come down to its normal place immediately, it just kind of slowly lost revs until it got down to normal. I thought, crap, how did my resistor trick have anything to do with the idle. Well, I found the culprit today, split open intake manifold, only about 10k miles on this one. I slapped some hi-temp silicone seal on it, maybe I'll get a new one, maybe the bike blows up before I get around to it...