Dual-sporting a 2010 TE 450, with cheap tricks

This and Kelly's ongoing goofy thread.

+2 on that. A lot of great ingenuity and persistence here! For sure, OHR will make it to 20K!

Thanks guys, next up will be replacing my worn out muffler with the muffler from another 2010 TE450, which is the only year for this muffler design, 2009 won't work, I know, I have one in the garage!

Here's the bike that the replacement muffler will come from, I am pretty excited to put a part from this bike onto mine. I will be looking to see if I need any other parts from Dave's old bike, running parts from someone's retired bike really adds an aura to the whole experience..
http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/2010-te450-runs-great-rider-still-in-reconstruction.40245/

HFS! How did he do that?! I hope he is ok.

Took a short urban dual sport ride today, lotsa water, no problems until I went downhill into the creek and hit hard at the bottom and the bike started acting up. I thought it was water, but I just couldn't figure out how ANY water could have gotten any where to make the bike bike die every 60 seconds or so. And it would start up after cranking awhile and run for 1-2 more minutes, I eventually bailed on the ride and rode home with no problem. Got to thinking maybe it was a fueling problem, slipped pump, whatever, so I pulled the pump, and other than a filthy strainer, there was no issues with the pump. So I pulled the air filter to clean it, then I was checking the air cleaner boot to the throttle body for any holes, and then I saw an electrical connector wedged in by the frame, under where the rear of the tank would sit. Yep, more bare wires, the Yellow with red stripe wire is the power wire (thru a fuse and a relay) for the Green with red stripe wire which is the power for the injector, the coil, and the fuel pump! Hope this was what my problem was, the frame has burn marks (the green arrow) and the bike starts and runs great again. I even swapped the strainer for good measure. Another day, another 3 bare wires on the TE450!

where did you get the new strainer?

OHR, I see the subframe connection to frame, but do you have another photo with a wider field of view to see where we are looking? Maybe from a greater distance????

Left side of bike, under the left side plastic cover, my connector is now hanging free, the bottom was jammed up and touching the frame where the green arrow is, I think the burn marks are there.

I think the burned Green wire is another path of power to the fueling system. I think the Brown wire is from the stator to the ECU.

I have to say I've really enjoyed this thread. It's a great read.

Thanks for the kudos, wish I had more to report but our one big riding area has shut down and I'm riding less than I have in 3 years. At least I have my big New Mexico trip in less than 2 weeks! (pic below from my October 2013 trip)

Benwiggin, I have been using an Airtex FS175 for all 3 years now, it's $20 and I've been thru about 4-5 of them by now.

In the first pic, I should have zoomed in so you could see the 6 little turtles catchin' some rays on a log, they are right above the tank, in between the gas cap and the front seat edge, this area will have many houses on it very soon., you can see the 4 lane road in the pic......

Second pic was trail clearing, I threw the branch in the creek, the trail drops off into the creek just ahead, where the tree is in the middle of the pic, that's where I can get some water testing, bike ran flawlessly today!

The TE450 ran great again in my test area, it ran so good, I boiled my rear brake fluid trying to keep up with my CRF buddy in the tight stuff, I always get to trail-braking and forgetting that I have to let up every once and awhile.

Since I am about to go on a 2 day New Mexico ride, I knew that I didn't want to repair a rear flat with the Dunlop MX51, it's a great tire, but putting it on damn near killed me and taking it off was no picnic, so I am glad I switched to a 110/100 Pirelli DOT tire, much softer, and easier to get the tube out. The Dunlop 110/90 is a rank tire to work on, just a fact.

Teaser for a pretty good ride report, for a bike with almost 19,000 miles on it....

Nice !! Any issues with flooding gas when you lay it on it's side ? My YZ420 would not like that !

EFI bike, no carb, my main tank is sealed, and by this time of the day, there's not much gas left in the Acerbis side tank to leak out!

Stayed in a $40 a night motel, for 3 nights, took 10 hours to get to Truth or Consequences, NM, my favorite riding area.


Off in the distance is Palomas Gap, just a cut in the range that we ride through on a jeep road.


Here's Palomas Gap road, a pic and a vid of my 530 SixDays buddy.



This a "steeper than it looks" descent on the backside of Palomas Gap. I successfully avoided boiling my rear brake fluid and got down without crashing!


Luckily, I made it past this spot without "holing it" like Luke did, we got him out and got the heck out of there, turns out, it was Apache Gap, a big no-no on my list of places to ride.

Spooky cabin waaaaay out in the boonies.


On the way back down Palomas Gap, towards the Rio Grande river plain, I felt the front end washing out, and I did not like the direction it was washing towards, so I threw the bike down and pitched off to the left, hands and head over the edge, had to push myself back up to the trail.

Here's Luke on the smallest taste of Apache Gap we could take, and I didn't even taste it myself, too damn rough for me.

About 90 miles on the first day, I even had to clean my air filter that night, following too close to Luke in the heavy dust.

Next day was a killer 175 miles I think Luke said, I couldn't hear him too well for my screaming about my shredded ass, even the Seat Concepts couldn't save me from the monkey butt!

First up, Burma Road, just a big loop up and down 3 arroyos, starting in Monticello and dropping down into Alamosa Creek, home to The Box. We were going about 60mph on parts of these roads, then we'd drop down to first gear for the nastiest rock gardens.


The first arroyo descent is the best, you can just see Luke's shadow in the white corner near the middle.