Oregon to Ushuaia on an XR650L

[Brown Falcon]

I'm glad I could come up with a useful idea for once! You really need to stop getting hit by things. Boats, cars, dogs, wandering livestock... what's next? Hang-glider? UAV? Tank?

Yep, just sitting here drinking a pale ale reading the last couple days reports. Wishing I was out riding...

[PDX Alamo]

Originally Posted by pdxmotorhead

BTW whenever you get back to Portland,, there oughta be a celeb meet at the Widmere or Lucky Lab / Or......

Dave

Great idea, let me know when

[Ed Zachtamundo]

Good work, you crazy bastard. Thanks for keeping up on your ride report- I just wish I were there to help!

20 hours of surgery so far and my pelvis is fixed. Tomorrow morning I'll go under so they can rebuild my femur and fix what they did in El Salvador. As it is, my right femur is 2" shorter than my left.

Stay safe and stay in touch!

Justin

[ONandOFF]

Wow Justin, it's such a bummer to hear about that awful accident. But at least now you're getting fixed up properly. Life goes on... el pasado pisado... quite the story to entertain people with, and warn them; I can see you as a grandfather telling your wide-eyed grandkids...

[Throttlemeister]

Originally Posted by Ed Zachtamundo

20 hours of surgery so far and my pelvis is fixed. Tomorrow morning I'll go under so they can rebuild my femur and fix what they did in El Salvador. As it is, my right femur is 2" shorter than my left.



Justin

Damn I guess I was reallyh lucky, I broke my lt leg bad in Venezuela and had surgery and it was spot on perfect @ probably a 1/3 of the cost in the US. Totally suck to have a dodgy job done and have a total redo

Great you are getting repaired the right way now

Goodluck with the surgery.

[adventurebound9517]

Originally Posted by Ed Zachtamundo

Good work, you crazy bastard. Thanks for keeping up on your ride report- I just wish I were there to help!

20 hours of surgery so far and my pelvis is fixed. Tomorrow morning I'll go under so they can rebuild my femur and fix what they did in El Salvador. As it is, my right femur is 2" shorter than my left.

Stay safe and stay in touch!

Justin

I hope you found Dr Douglas Beaman 501 N Graham Suite 250
Portland, OR. 503 249- 0719 He's the best around and lower extremities are his specialty.
Best of luck and be patient, these things take time.
Phillip

[alvincullumyork]

Originally Posted by Ed Zachtamundo

Good work, you crazy bastard. Thanks for keeping up on your ride report- I just wish I were there to help!

20 hours of surgery so far and my pelvis is fixed. Tomorrow morning I'll go under so they can rebuild my femur and fix what they did in El Salvador. As it is, my right femur is 2" shorter than my left.

Stay safe and stay in touch!

Justin

Hey Justin good luck with your surgeries. I will be going through Portland tonight and sunday sometime. I would love to stop by and check on you if you'd have me. PM me with some details.

Originally Posted by ONandOFF

Man.... You're taking a huge gamble riding that thing to the corner, much less to Lima, with the sprocket in that condition. I'd arrange to store it and get your parts by bus. And I recommend NOT to tighten your chain the way you've been doing it. Keep it loose! Your sprocket / shaft problems and chain stretching are indicating having set the chain too tight.

Here is a diagram of a chain drive and swing arm - with a line between the sprocket centerlines passing through the centerline of the swingarm pivot.

To realize this is the tightest the chain will ever get, over the suspension travel, imagine the rear moving up or down from this aligned position. Since the swingarm pivot is between the sprocets, you can see that the distance between the sprockets (labelled 24" in the above image) will decrease to less and thus the chain will become more slack.

Hence, if the chain slack is set to a minimum acceptable value, just loose enough to not be under tension, in this case about 1/2" of play in the center of span, at the longest distance between the two sprockets, as above, then the chain will be properly tensioned for full suspension travel. It should be not sloppy but not under any tension in this position of max tightness.

I know you must feel terrible about pulling out onto the road when a car was coming. The great thing is you got off without getting hurt, not to mention getting off easy paying the guy $100 and not even going to cool your heels in jail. You were super-lucky on so many levels! God is with you, and here he was reminding you - perhaps you are not praying enough

Slow down a bit and focus, brother in spirit.

Did I miss something. How do you know the condition of his sprocket? How do you know how he is tightening his chain? I'm so lost...

[pngaudioguy]

Ulyses also posted over in the XRL section. Quite a few of us from there have been following along as well, some more verbally than others.

I'll echo the sentiments of others who have written in saying that I'm really enjoying the South America ride reports this winter; between you, Bubbletron, and RTWpaul, I've had plenty of non-drizzle photos to enjoy!

[Kawidad]

Originally Posted by Ed Zachtamundo

Good work, you crazy bastard. Thanks for keeping up on your ride report- I just wish I were there to help!

20 hours of surgery so far and my pelvis is fixed. Tomorrow morning I'll go under so they can rebuild my femur and fix what they did in El Salvador. As it is, my right femur is 2" shorter than my left.

Stay safe and stay in touch!

Justin

WOW!!!! Good luck and keep us posted.

[ONandOFF]

Originally Posted by alvincullumyork

...Did I miss something. How do you know the condition of his sprocket? How do you know how he is tightening his chain? I'm so lost...

I hope I didn't let the cat out of the bag
See the sprocket pics for yourself.
I hope he's not on the way to Lima with that front sprocket flopping around on the output shaft like that! And a tight chain trying to rip if off... There will be little joy of it if he ends up having to replace the output shaft. I wish he would check in...

PS: how do you "piss off hippies in Corvallis" with his HD? That sounds like an interesting story...

[alvincullumyork]

Originally Posted by ONandOFF

I hope I didn't let the cat out of the bag
See the sprocket pics for yourself.
I hope he's not on the way to Lima with that front sprocket flopping around on the output shaft like that! And a tight chain trying to rip if off... There will be little joy of it if he ends up having to replace the output shaft. I wish he would check in...

PS: how do you "piss off hippies in Corvallis" with his HD? That sounds like an interesting story...

I'm all caught up now, I went through the last couple of page of the XRL only thread. And yeah he should update us. I'm curious as to what the rear sprocket looks like.

Well like most Harleys his is loud and obnoxious, unless your on it then it sounds absolutely badass. Right next to campus there is a really hippie/hipster coffee shop and when ever I make a pass by it I give the bike a lot of throttle and shake the windows a little bit. It's loud enough to set off car alarms so I figure I'm rattling some patchouli stinking hippie.

[purpledrake]

Originally Posted by alvincullumyork

I'm all caught up now, I went through the last couple of page of the XRL only thread. And yeah he should update us. I'm curious as to what the rear sprocket looks like.

Well like most Harleys his is loud and obnoxious, unless your on it then it sounds absolutely badass. Right next to campus there is a really hippie/hipster coffee shop and when ever I make a pass by it I give the bike a lot of throttle and shake the windows a little bit. It's loud enough to set off car alarms so I figure I'm rattling some patchouli stinking hippie.

I know that this isn't you (and, that you have of course seen this before). Sorry, I couldn't resist reminding you.

[alvincullumyork]

Originally Posted by purpledrake

I know that this isn't you (and, that you have of course seen this before). Sorry, I couldn't resist reminding you.

It's totally true. A truly great episode.

[Ulyses]

Well, I made it to Lima. Lot's more adventures today: freezing my ass off, more bike problems (nothing to do with sprockets or chains), and some more outright bribery of Peruvians.

By the way, the front sprocket isn't as loose as it may have seemed; the chain on the other hand just refuses to stay tight! I'll be hunting for a new chain tomorrow. I have a 14 tooth front sprocket to swap out with the old one and I know a guy who's flying to Peru in a few days who is going to bring me a new XRR 15 tooth front.

I'm going to go eat some dinner. I'll update later tonight. Cheers!

[huzar]

Which way are you going from there? If my lost bag arrives tomorrow, I'm leaving Arequipa and heading towards Nazca and then Lima to meet Hewby