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[elsalvadorklr]

Originally Posted by Spud Rider

Your bike is beautiful. Thanks for posting the photos.

Spud

x2...

[ThumpnRed]

Originally Posted by Wattner

Northern Dog, do you just want to fight everyone and everything? Your stock forks all dialed, braced, dampered etc. still SUCK... You re turning out to be a twatwaffle( whatever that is???) I bet you had a lot of sand kicked in your face in the sandbox as a kid???

I have been busy lately, checking in every once in a while and it seems every time I drop by you are trying to sell how your stock forks are great (the stockers SUCK...) and bashing people.... Sell some blood, buy a life and "happy up" or move on...gheees

Is there an "ignore" feature on this board? I just discovered that there is one on the "other side" and it is awesome! Birds chirping, butterflies fluttering about, hippies dancing... oh wait that was a childhood memory...

[elsalvadorklr]

jejeje(sounds interesting)

I wish I had money for USD's its just that down here the whole fabbing up process and modifying takes a milliion times longer than in more civilized places...

so unfortunately for now, Ill take my upgraded crappy 98 xr forks and swap them on to my 88 non cartridge forks!

Geez I hope they are at least a little better than the ones I have now!

cheers,

THUMPIN thanks for the help and comments on the "other" side too.

cheers guys

[sc-razor]

Originally Posted by Spud Rider

Your bike is beautiful. Thanks for posting the photos.

Spud

No kidding. Winner!

[Gunga Galunga]

Originally Posted by Brtp4

Had my 2006 XRL for a while now. While I do not have many miles on it, most of them are off road, so I try to do plenty of preventative maintenance and an occasional cosmetic freshening. I just finished replacing the bars, grips, bulbs, throttle tube, all the cables, greasing the rear linkage, lubing most of the wiring connectors, and a good cleaning. I also swapped out the silencer for an FMF (my Pro Circuit is for sale), got some wider footpegs, a spare set of wheels, and replaced all the plastic. Took a few pics before it immediately looks 5 years old again:





Brakes are perhaps the best part of the bike:







Rode it this weekend, on some slower, rougher singletrack that exposed more if its (and especially my) weaknesses. I need to do a little more jetting from the Q4, more fork valving, an oil cooler, and ditch the stupid Hotcam.

FWIW I did have a set of resprung, braced, dampered, and revalved forks before switching to USDs. Commenting on cost-worthiness is subjective, but the USDs are a clear improvement for my location IMO. I am still chasing the low-speed valving, they are R forks and starting with X models would have been better. If I lived in New England or Western OR, where the terrain is more rugged, braced stockers might be equal.

BP

Like that bike! Regarding the brakes, looks sweet, I see you have an EBC rotor, what else? You can tell a difference?

[sc-razor]

Speaking of brakes, I couldn't sleep last night and decided to go out and adjust my rear brake pedal about midnight. Damn they put those cotter pins in a tough spot to get to that time of night! Would have been entertaining (or painful) to watch for you veteran XRL guys I am sure.

[ThumpnRed]

Brtp,
The pigs can be a handful in slow, technical stuff. Anything that requires first gear and clutch is a treat. I know we start getting "happy" in second gear... top of the midrange. btw... What is your dislike with your Hotcam. Mine has treated me OK thus far.

Bend, Ore... nice country!

[ThumpnRed]

Originally Posted by sc-razor

Speaking of brakes, I couldn't sleep last night and decided to go out and adjust my rear brake pedal about midnight. Damn they put those cotter pins in a tough spot to get to that time of night! Would have been entertaining (or painful) to watch for you veteran XRL guys I am sure.

One of my "shop rules": Dont have small children or churchgoing ladies in the garage when I have to remove the rear brake pedal.

Sounds like a navy yard... lots of banging and cussing!

[sc-razor]

Originally Posted by ThumpnRed

One of my "shop rules": Dont have small children or churchgoing ladies in the garage when I have to remove the rear brake pedal.

Sounds like a navy yard... lots of banging and cussing!

[farrington300]

Originally Posted by Brtp4

BP

If it wasnt for Watners bike this would be number one!!!!

[flatfender]

Originally Posted by Brtp4

- The fork length and travel are much different than the stock bike. I had the fork length shortened 1.25" to minimize altering the geometry and the travel reduced 1" to prevent the wheel from bottoming into the frame. It is not possible to slide the forks up an inch and a half, so I felt this was important.

- There is still a difference in trail, which has a significant effect on handling, because of the Showas increased axle offset and and steering offset from the triples (24mm vs 18 mm). The bike does not turn well to begin with, and this seemed to not help. But after a while, playing with fork height, tire choices, spring rate, I got used to it and forgot about it.

BP

How can I get more information on shortening the forks? Was it something your local machine shop did or did you have to send them away? Was it expensive? btw, nice bike, good post, thanks for sharing!

[Brtp4]

Originally Posted by Gunga Galunga

Like that bike! Regarding the brakes, looks sweet, I see you have an EBC rotor, what else? You can tell a difference?

Yes. Of all the mods, the brakes are the one where it will match up with any modern bike. They are fantastic. Super, super strong. They kick ass. Blah blah blah. I could go on.

FWIW I swapped to EBC pads this week....stockers are better.

BP

[Brtp4]

Originally Posted by ThumpnRed

Brtp,
The pigs can be a handful in slow, technical stuff. Anything that requires first gear and clutch is a treat. I know we start getting "happy" in second gear... top of the midrange. btw... What is your dislike with your Hotcam. Mine has treated me OK thus far.

Bend, Ore... nice country!

Thanks ThumpnRed.

The power delivery is great, I lost some down low but I feel it lengthened the power spread overall. Bike is still easy to ride. However (disclaimer, I am not dumping on anyone's choices, just passing on my thoughts), I feel it was a very, very poor decision for them to ditch the auto decomp from the design. I have higher compression, and have mild starting issues as a result. This weekend, I got stuck in a small canyon, bike got hot, and the battery could not turn it over. If I was by myself I would have been hosed.

It did restart after I let it cool, but my personal feeling is that performance mods that affect reliability are a bad choice for our type of riding.

On top of this, there are enough examples of hardness issues with Hotcams. Some people have no issues, but clearly some do. My feeling (again, JMO) is that Hotcams is one of those companies focused on pricing and volume, and many of these companies flirt with the threshold of unreliability.

I am going back to stock for now, this winter I will look into a Megacycle or Wizard Mfg cam.

Originally Posted by flatfender

How can I get more information on shortening the forks? Was it something your local machine shop did or did you have to send them away? Was it expensive?

It was part of a revalve by Factory Connection. The fork swap itself was not that expensive but the fork internals work was. I believe they had a custom length spring made, and I think they also made a spacer to limit the extension. A fork guy or CW would probably know. I simply gave them specs, IIRC the CRF has 12.2" of travel, the stock XRL 11.2". Figuring the length was more tricky, I measured from the bottom of the triple to a theoretical horizontal line, parallel to the ground, level with the axle. I think it was 1.25" or 1.125".

Edit 2: I had a set of resprung, braced, revalved forks. To be clear, once I did those mods - really the springs and the brace - they worked quite well. I think the USDs perform better, but the stock ones were fine.

These are cool bikes. No matter what they are always heavy and slow compared to modern bikes, but that is not the point. They are rugged as hell, and perform really well for DS and ADV use. Almost like an FJ55. Even when you do everything to them, it is still not a lot of money compared to many bikes. I don't really have that much into my bike (FWIW I sold my stock frontend to a Transalp owner, which greatly offset my expense). Off road bikes are NOT investments, they are projects. Compared to classic cars, Harleys, farkled BMW GS's, they are cheap. I am neither rich nor stupid, rather, just interested in improving the function of an air cooled Honda platform. Other bikes may perform better, but the air cooled Honda platform is great for my type of use, and relatively cheap in the long run. I don't get people that like to ridicule others for that.

Let me know if you ever get out this way.

BP

[Brtp4]

Originally Posted by farrington300

If it wasnt for Watners bike this would be number one!!!!

NO.

To be clear, Wattner's bike has lots of custom fabbed stuff, and is another level. Mine is nowhere near his. Best example for me is the oil cooler solution, CW took the time to weld on mounts for the 400 cooler so it was invulnerable to crashing.

BP

[Cigar Mike]

I have to laugh when I see arguments about modifications done to the BRP. No reason to make a big deal out of the changes each of us choose to make. I have my own needs for the bike and don't see the need to make some of the mods that are made. And I am sure that the mods I chose to make does not make sense to others. But I enjoy seeing what fellow owners are doing to their bikes. There will not be full argeement on what is needed or what is not. When we start talking price comparison to benefit there will never be agreement by everyone.

On suspension most people don't know how to set up their own suspension or are too lazy to take the time to do so. Many say the stock fork set is crap (I am one of those) but what we choose to do with that depends on what we use the bike for, time and our pocket book. I ride the bike very casually offroad. After riding offroad and racing motocross for over thirty years I don't expect this bike to be anything more than what it is. I believe in using the right tool for the job. Using this bike for serious offroad use is using the wrong tool (IMO). You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.

I have more than one tool in my tool box because they have different uses. I see it the same way with motorcycles. That is why I have more than one. There is always a compromise that must be made when the riding we do encompasses a wide range of riding. The L is an L and does what is does. It will hurt you or your pocket book when you ask it to do something it can not.

So cut the BS and enjoy what each of us do to our Ls. Just because it does not fill the bill for you, does not mean it is not providing a lot of pleasure for the owner that has done the mods.

Please keep doing the mods and posting what you have done and why. I love seeing other people spending their money on their bikes. I does no harm to me in anyway. The only person I need to convince on what is right for my bike is me. I really don't give a shit what any of you think about how I choose to set my bike up, and neither should you.

This works for me. You may hate it. You don't have to ride it.




Mike