I originally posted this in "Now that you got the TR650 where ya gonna go?" But as we have been on the road for 7 weeks now I thought an update on how the bikes are doing and a new thread was in order." My buddy Lee and I left Portland Oregon on 30 September riding 2 brand new Terra's. We rode down PCH to San Fransisco to visit friends before hopping over the Sierras to Alabama hills then rode through Death Valley to Joshua Tree. We had the oil changed and the coolant burped at Malcolm Smith's before heading over to Tucson to visit the man behind Wukkaking, the perfect solution to the TR fuelling problems. Then we headed South, our destination is Patagonia. We crossed Mexico in 12 days and are now in Guatemala enjoying a few days in Spanish school before we head for El Salvador. The bikes have almost 8000km on the clock and the OEM Metzelers are about to be replaced with Conti TKCs. You can follow our progress here [url="http://www.southwithhuskies.com or follow us on Facebook but don't expect daily updates, we are all about riding the bikes first and foremost. Phil Barnes." As of today we are (temporarily) stuck in Costa Rica because my ride buddy Lee is suffering from Chikungunya Virus. We have been waiting a week and his blood test results today suggest he may need a little longer to recover. The bikes were just about new when we set off, one showing 32 miles the other about 11. We switched over to KMs when we entered Mexico and are now approaching 10,000 kms. We fitted scottoilers before we set off and the chains are less than half worn, we also fitted 15t front sprockets here in Costa Rica. The bikes wear a mixture of SW Motech and Touratech luggage and protection with Barkbusters handguards. They were burped in LA but they still run a little hot. We didn't touch the airbox and will review that decision when the bikes are serviced in Quito, Ecuador at about 12,000 kms. The brake pads appear about half worn and one bike has had the clutch adjusted. The Metzeler Saharas lasted over 7000 kms and still had at least 1000 left when we swapped them out in Guatemala. We are now running TKC80s and putting up with the head shake which limits top speed to about 65mph. The Metzelers were superb for Mexico, where our route was probably 90% on and 10% off-road but they would have been a problem further south. We hope to be in Cusco, Peru by Christmas and I will try to provide a further update then, in the meantime please check out our blog or you can follow us on facebook https://www.facebook.com/southwithhuskies which has more frequent updates. We wonder if the TRs may be the first Husky's to be ridden all the way from mainland USA to Ushuaia and would be interested to hear from anyone who knows of any others.
My bike was there last year with the previous owner and his buddy, both on Husky's. http://bckwtr11.wix.com/caminodelsur
Update. We are now in Cusco, Peru about to do the Machu Pichu thing. Ran TKC80s for the last 7000 ks and now switching to MT21 front with the TKC 80 rear. The big news is that the altitude ceiling for the Husky is 16000 ft. Above that the FI can't cope and above 15000ft the engine loses power and has to be kept above 4000 revs. If anyone knows an easy fix for this we would like to know because we have ambitions to go higher in Chile. We are running the wukka king, but neither setting helped with this, nor did reverting to standard. Second issue is that after much off-road vibration the plug for the ECU can work ever so slightly loose, it's not enough that you can see it but it's enough to let moisture in. We spent an hour beside the road with a dead bike before we worked that one out. Lots of pics of our progress on our facebook page, please spread the word. https://www.facebook.com/southwithhuskies
If I have been understanding the various rumours/discussions about ECU adaption in these forums then what you need to do is, at altitude, without touching any other controls, start the bike (when cold I think) and let it idle for at least 3 full minutes.
Thanks, we will try that but I'm not optimistic. We spent a night at 14250 and in the cold morning conditions the bikes ran pretty rough. Another issue we are having is the fuel tank is pressurising, bad enough that when you open the tank you can get sprayed with fuel. I'm guessing the canister is restricting the vent hose and we are concerned the tank could spring a leak. Can we simply pull the vent hose off the canister? We don't really have the time to do a full cannisterectomy.
The tank pressure thing could be the valve at the cap, others have had similar issues. Here is how to fix/disable it. http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22407576&postcount=1696
Thanks everyone. We found that above 12000ft the bikes won't start without some throttle, they won't tick over at all until warm.
Thanks, I checked out the blog, they only made it to Valparaiso. How's the bike holding up and how many miles do you have on it now, I saw that one of the guys had to have a hole in the tank repaired.
No real issues with the bike so far. It doesn't currently have any spoofer (Wuka or otherwise) and has the normal issues, not sure how they rode them that far and put up with it. Yes, the hole must have been where the header comes closest to the fuel-tank, mine had some reflective foil stuck in that area with high-temp silicone as a preventative measure.
