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Problems And Solutions:

Boots Parts Fall Off Speed Wobbles Rear Tire Blowout (Yikes!!)
#1. Boots.
When I first picked up my new KLR, I arrived with my brand-new size-13 MX boots to discover that they were way too big and clumsy to comfortably shift gears. I soon found myself removing the shifter from it's stock position and moving it up slightly to allow me to shift gears without having to hold my foot in a near-vertical position. It was simply a fact that the thickness of my foot, with these boots, was almost the same as the distance between the foot peg and the shifter. There are a couple options available here. The easiest is to "try before you buy". If you're at a bike shop, ask them to let you try the boots out on one of the showroom bikes. The other option is to get an aftermarket shifter that will put the business end of the shifter far enough forward to let you get your foot in there.

#2. Parts fall off.
Within the first hour of riding my brand-new bike, the bolts on both the rear turn-signals loosened leaving the left signal dangling by the wires and the right signal was just about ready to do the same. Fortuneately, my brother happened to have a tube of "Loctite", which I applied to the threads, and the problem has not recurred. I also removed the nuts on the front signals and did the same.
A couple of weeks later, I observed a fairly sunstantial bolt and washer plunk onto the ground during warmup. I checked all of the hardware on the bike to make sure nothing really important was missing, put the bolt in my pocket and drove to work. Since the washer had a bit of a shoulder to it, I figured that it was probably used to hold on either a plastic body part or perhaps the airbox. A quick teardown later revealed that it was the bolt that fastened the right side of the seat to the frame. Another candidate for "Loctite".
A couple of weeks later, I was driving down the highway to work when I saw something small and black eject itself from my bike. Before I could say "what the...", my windshield started flapping wildly. There was only one bolt of the original three holding this thing on. My first thought was that if I let this thing flap too much, it would eventually snap right off. Sooooo.... I grasped the left side of the windshield to hold it still while I formulated a plan. I quickly ruled out driving with one hand and simply pulled over onto the shoulder. I used my trusty Kawasaki toolkit and removed the remaining screw, removed the windshield and tucked it under my shirt under my jacket. Once again, Loctite to the rescue.

#3. Speed wobbles at highway speed.
I can guarantee you that this will happen... whether you're on an open stretch of highway with a crosswind or passing anything bigger than a sedan, the front end will wobble wildly. Don't panic! Simply move your weight as far forward on the seat as possible and crouch down on the gas tank. If you're passing a large vehicle and not feeling squeamish by now, hit the throttle until you've passed the vehicle. Your goal here is to transfer your body weight to the front wheel.
What causes this craziness? I think it has a LOT to do with that huge front fender. It's not very aerodynamic from either the front or the side and consequently catches a lot of air and acts like a rudder. If you plan to do any highway driving, you would be well-advised to replace the stock fender with something a bit more streamline like a UFO superbike fender.

#4. Rear tire blowout.
After logging only 155 km on my new bike, I was filled with terror when the rear end of my bike started weaving wildly. I was doing about 80 km/h, (or 50 mph), on a straight stretch of country road
. At first, I thought it was merely a front fender-induced "wobble" but after about 2 seconds, I realized I wasn't going fast enough so something else was causing it. The shoulder was nice and wide so I instinctively pulled in the clutch and pulled off into the gravel. My best friend/brother, (it can happen!), was behind me on his vintage '76 Yammy RD200 twin and saw the whole thing. He saw the rear tire drop within 3 seconds and then start weaving. The whole deal was rather uneventful but it shook me up nonetheless. My bro' made a funny remark about his trusty Yammy, patted his gas tank and then "pinged" away on a rescue mission while I sat on the side of the road reflecting on what had just happened. I had been riding bikes since 1979, including a winter trip across Canada on a CB900F SuperSport, but had never experienced a blowout before. It was scary. I then thought "what if this had happened when I was on that 6-lane highway mere hours earlier?". Yikes! I began to question the whole idea of getting back into motorcycles. Was I merely spending thousands of dollars just for another opportunity to kill myself?!!!
Was this a sign or a warning? I took it as a sign to be VERY careful and always leave myself an escape route. To this day, I always spend the majority of time in the right lane with an escape plan. I keep an eye on my rearview mirror too. Wiping out around town is one thing but laying it down on a multiple-lane highway with traffic behind you is a recipe for disaster. It struck me that life is very fragile when you trust your life to a thin skin of rubber pumped up with air. I questioned the progress of man when such a primitive method was still used for motorcycles. Man... why don't they use wheels filled with foam or something?!!! My brother returned sometime later with my rescue vehicle... a pickup truck that he had borrowed from a friend. The local cycle shop was just about ready to close but he had managed to convince them to hang on just a few more minutes to fix my wounded KLR. We tried to push the bike to the truck but soon realized that 350-pound bikes simply don't roll with a flat tire. We repositioned the truck closer to the bike and were able to manhandle it onto the back. We didn't have any tie-downs so I sat in the back and held onto the bike while it was on the side-stand. About 15 minutes later, the bike was back in business. I had caught a fairly large flat-headed nail in the tire in such a manner that it went through the thin part of the tire, between the treads. The mechanic said that this was very unusual and would probably never happen to me again... a fluke. I thanked the mechanic profusely for staying late and helping me out of a bind. I offered to buy him a 6-pack but he declined. The damage came to $50 plus tax to instal a new tube. The ironic part about the whole thing was that my brother had been having problems with his electrical system on the Yammy and had warned me ahead of time that HE might not be able to ride for too long due to this. After the Kawi tire was repaired, we returned the truck to his friend and then headed back to my brother's place. When we were about 2 miles away from his house, the Yammy started losing power and limped home on one cylinder...

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