My TE 450 has died out 2 years running in a creek/road in New Mexico, I thought it was the gear position sensor, but I just spent 30 minutes in the driveway with the bike running, and a garden hose, getting everything wet that I could think of, and it never died. During the creek run, it would blubber/die and as long it got to dry out a little, I was able to start it and rev it to the next crossing where I tried to slow down or if it was a deep one, the bike would die no matter how slow I would go. I've googled and found some guy and his taillight might have been bad. Of course, it's not my carb vent lines on my EFI 2010 model.
Here's a vid of the creek run:
Well, if you were betting it was some of the work I've done, you wouldn't have gotten very good money odds, since 80% of what goes wrong on this bike is the direct result of work I've done on it, but you would have won the bet.....that said....
It was more the continuous supply of water than it was the depth of the water, and that led to.....
When I tested with hose water under the rear fender, I just kind of sprayed it back and forth, up and down, back and forth, but that did not really replicate what was happening in the creek, if you look at the creek vid, the rear tire really churns a big, continuous loop of water and it is a STEADY supply of water to ALL points under the fender, so that led to this....
The video below shows me holding the hose at various points under the fender and sure enough, when installing the Acerbis gas tank long ago, the cutting/trimming I did on the right side plastic cover had removed the baffle/blocking plates and water was pouring into the airbox.
But you say, "the Acerbis tank was on the bike for the creek run in 2011 and you had no problems with water dying"
Sometime after Nov 2011, I stuffed a rag down into the airbox to soak up the oil that would drip out of/off of the filter. Over time, the rag would get saturated with oil, it would get heavier and it would get pounded down into the drain holes of the air box by riding, plugging up the only real exit for pooling water.
As for the car wash, under the rear fender is always where I have to spend the most amount of time and once again, before Nov 2011, I don't remember having all the problems I had after I started putting the rag in there.
The vid is not the greatest, but there's a couple of flashes where you can see big time water flowing in.
. Friend had mineral oil (I've heard that in a pinch even vegetable oil will work). Bled, burped, tightened the bleeder and rode on.
What needs doing on the motor? Btw I'm getting ready to sell the 310 but so far as I can tell the motor is great. Although it doesn't have 30000km on it it has 6000km of decent trails.
