Xr600 & xr650l aussie owners

Hah! I trump your first world problem, mine came with PURPLE .

Thanks Lookfar,I had looked but the only page I could find was MCS I think it was called,certainly a good page but not what I really wanted,thanks again Nev

Honda Red. Just need to clean the tank/mudguards, or more likely just wait till the new side panels get scratched and dirty to match.

And got my FCR fitted.



Pulls great and runs nicely on the throttle. Idles like a pile of poo. I hate fettling carbs, but that's what I'm going to have to do. Hopefully it'll just be the float height, or a leaky float valve.

My little end is noisy as fuck now. I wasn't sure if some of the noise was from the camchain. I had a new camchain anyway so decided to fit it to be on the safe side. The old chain was on its last legs, but not the cause of most of my engine noise. Better try and get the beast of the road for a rebuild sharpish :eek1

Hey guys
What are the oil change intervals on the xr650l? Just doing a bit of research for a bike to do longer trips on and am tossing up between to 650l and the dr650.

Did you check the pin that the cam chain tensioner sits on ,if it gets marks in it the needle rollers from the tensioner stick in the grooves which lets the cam chain slap around,had one fixed under warranty once

Thanks Breil, a few people had warned me about that problem, and the tensioner failing in general, in particular Kenno who posts here. My tensioner went bad on my cape york trip, gradually got more and more camchain noise. I got a new pin/tensioner/spring posted up, and my camchain noise disappeared. I reckon the tensioner itself was more the problem than the pin, you could easily push it back with a screwdriver. That wasn't long ago, and the tensioner assembly still looks brand new. Noise now is piston slap and little end


I got my carb running a bit better. I was expecting my 45 pilot jet to be on the rich side if anything, but it seems to be lean and I've had to wind the mixture screw out a fair way. The guys on the thumpertalk XR FCR thread reckon 42 is more like it, but I think I'll have to order a 48 and see how that goes.


Whilst I was on a roll, I decided to fix my wobbly kickstart. It's been pissing me off for the last year riding round Australia. Took the lever part off the 'knuckle' lower part, cleaned out what grease was left, stuck in a bit of coke can cut to size, and stuck back together with fresh grease. Loads better but still a fair bit of play in it. Took it off again, stuck in a second layer of coke can bushing, and all good. Tight squeeze to get it back together again but all the wobble is gone. I've now been able to move the kickstarter one spline clockwise on the shaft. It's pretty close to the clutch cover so I'll be keeping a close eye on it, but it seems good and I think the bike will be a lot easier to start with 'lazy' kicks from now on. In that photo of the carb above you can see the kickstarter fouling the frame, incase I'm not making too much sense.

Good to here from you Nath,
If the little end is gone then the big end must be looking very shaky indeed ! My gudgeon pin was super sloppy in the little end before the rebuild, I used a 'hot rod' conrod. Please keep posting during the rebuild with pics, it has been pretty quite around here lately !

Theres a guy on a XR 600 92 doing this .Had a few issues but hanging in .sundowner is his sigline GO THE XR

That's great, I hope he posts here when it's over to let us know how the old XR handled it! I'm planning on doing the Finke Desert Race next year on my XR, so I'd like to know what he did with his suspension etc.

I've got my FCR carb running pretty good now, way better than the old carb. No matter what I did with the jetting or anything else on that old carb, I could never get rid of a slight stutter when cruising on the highway at low throttle. This carb is already running loads smoother, and pulls shit loads harder. Doesn't seem a wheelie machine just yet, but I'm loads down on power so will wait till after the rebuild to give the final verdict. Will also be eager to see how it reacts to dropping the bike. It doesn't have a hot-start, but I'm hoping it won't flood so easily as the stock carb.


My new (smaller) 5th gear cog turned up from Japan yesterday. Think it was around $100 including postage. Paid with Paypal, no hassles at all. Can't wait to tear into the engine and get everything sorted.

Has anyone on here done the xl600 cylinder swap?

100mm xr slug, xl600 cylinder?

is it a simple bolt up affair?

Does anyone know if a slip on exhaust from a XR 400 will fit on a XR 600?

Quick question Nath, what diameter is that FCR? I'm looking at a 39mm job off a KTM 525 at the moment, wondering if it's the right size as most people are talking 41mm?

Cheers

Bill

Bill, the 39mm will be heaps. 41mm is for howling top-end-type applications, and the XR doesn't really warrant it.
FWIW, the KTM rally bikes used the 39mm carb. Better economy, better fuelling for low and midrange too.
I got one recently for my XR, but after reading about the rooting around to get it to fit I thought it might look good on my KTM 625 motor.

Ah thanks mate. I'm thinking of putting together a general use bike from my spares but want it to be easy to live with. My good XR has the standard carb with the usual tight spot off idle which I'd like to get away from. Looked at that Mikuni conversion that Ballards has but theres a lot of bad press about it, and most people suggest the "pumper" carbs like the FCR. As I'm building the bike up a bit of stuffing about making something fit is almost mandatory anyway!

I've got that ballards mikuni conversion on mine, and I'm pretty happy with it so far. The only issue is getting a steady idle, but I haven't any info on the standard settings so it's a bit dodgy for me to tune.
Wot's the bad things folks are reporting on?

Intersting, I've been reading that they're hard to tune out of the box compared to the FCR, and that the stumble when you rev it doesn't clear up. Apparently the pumper carb makes the whole thing work better off idle. Basically all the Mikuni does is remove the sticky throttle off idle.

That said if theres a no fuss kit out there that works i'm totally interested!
I didn't realise you had one fitted, did you do the install yourself? How did it go? Any issues with tuning it? Was it a straight swap?

Cheers

The stock Ballards kit on my 2000 XR600 Mikuni TM 38-85 has a 12.5 pilot and 230 main, never ever had a gasp off idle and since it has never given any problems i don't even know what needle jet and needle combo is in it.
I moved from a so so 2 stroke throttle to a really fast action throttle which was almost like fitting a pumper carb, never felt the need for a pumper though.
I would also say it is a bottom to mid range carb and near on perfect for just that.
The cam is also backyard modified so i don't get low idle interference from the auto decomp, see post #1 if that interests you.

I was able to tune the flat off idle on my 94 stocky before i sold it, most times it was just grit building in the air to pilot mixer passage despite good filtration, every time i cleaned it it came good again, the mikuni can have a dirt farm in there and still give no trouble, they are simplicty plus just like the engine it is bolted to.

G'day fella's. I rode XR's for almost 20 years until I sold my last one , a 98 600,when my son was 2yo. He's almost 18 now and the XR600 is learner approved here in QLD so I have bought a 2000 model 600 recently.To answer my question above Yes the 400 pipe fits if you have a welder and grinder at your disposal . I got the 2000 at a good price as it wasn't running right . Would start and idle , but not rev . I was hoping for an easy fix to get it running properly and get the electrics working. Did the usual carby clean and found blocked jets and mixture screw all the way in. Put back together and it started easily and ran well except for the dreaded bog of idle and the choke wasn't quite right. It would start and idle low on full choke and settle to the correct idle a few hundred revs higher when put in the off position. I improved the bog with the mix screw and went one clip leaner on the needle to try to fix the choke problem . Made it worse. So I went the other way . Started at middle clip 3 , then 2 lean, now 4 rich. Should say its the standard round slide kehin 152 main 62 pilot. I'd put about 100klm on it so far in test rides with no probs and on the 4th clip it started easy ,idled and reved well so I took it out for another test ride . All seamed good ,was running great until I was about 15k from home and it started missing like it was running out of fuel .Had half a tank so it wasn't that. It played up all the way home . The engine died a couple of times but started again with a couple of kicks. Left it till the next day to look at. It started cold easy but played up again once warm. Its become progressively worse since , to the point now I have to use Start ya bastard to get it to fire . I've had the carby off numerous times with the needle up and down. Mixture screw in and out. Checked valve clearances , there is good spark. Cleaned the fuel tank and filter ,fresh fuel. It has 25000k on the speedo , still has good compression. The decompression lever isn't riding. I was starting to think valves or an elec problem but the fact it starts with ether spray keeps me wondering about the carby. Sorry this has dragged on but I'd appreciate any idea's or advice from those of you more experienced . I had fun on it for the short time it was going and the boy likes it too. Thanks in advance for any help. Ian