The plan

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Last night I talked to a fellow KLR650.net forum member, and he lives down in Wasilla. He told me a shop just opened in Fairbanks about 3 days ago, and that I should give them a call. I checked out their web site, and it said they are open sunrise until sunset every day, and in Alaska that means 24/7. I was looking at their web site, and their shop is only about 5 miles from the Emmert's. I called Shawn at Adventure Cycleworks, the nearby shop, and he said he would throw on some boots and be right over. He was going to load up the bike into his pickup and drive me to the shop to have a look at it, since it is really hard on the bike to be driving it in the current condition. Keep in mind it was 7:30pm Saturday night. We headed over there, they fixed my cracked shift lever for free, and gave me an idea what kind of work I'd be getting into by tackling this job. It sounded like I might be able to tackle the job myself, otherwise they thought it would be about $300 in labor plus parts, best case scenario. I'd definitely do business with these guys before any other dealer in the area, they are just great!

I tore into the bike this morning, only to find the problem lies internally somewhere in the engine between the 2 crankcase halves. I can turn the shift detent wheel by hand, and it does not quite make it down to 3rd gear. It stops before 3rd engages. This leads me to think there is something in there jamming things up. Could it be the tip of the broken doo spring that I was unable to find? Quite possibly, but I may never know. It could also be something else like a damaged shift drum or a broken piece of a gear jamming things up. The list of possibilities could be quite long. The engine has to come out, the head must come off, and the case must be split. This is more work than I'm willing to tackle up here. At home I would have no problem, but not here. I'm going to talk with the Kawi dealer in the morning to see what they say, but it is looking more and more like I will need to sell the bike and fly home. Big bummer, and very disappointing. I planned and prepared so long and so much for this trip, only for this to happen. Sometimes I'm ok with the circumstances, and other times I'm just frustrated and disappointed. That's life, and I just need to make the best of it and move on.

I've had offers for people to buy a plane ticket in trade for the bike, but that isn't a very good deal. I also had a guy with a spare motor, but I'm not sure I want to go through the hassle of swapping motors. Plus I have no idea the condition of the spare motor.

I'm hoping to get about $1500 for the bike, and I have one offer of $1000 at the moment. That is better than nothing I guess. I'm just trying to minimize losses mostly. So the bike is not in running condition at the moment, but it is partly torn apart for the next person who wants to work on it.

On a brighter note, I've included some recent pictures.

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Photos

Photo 1
Emmert's back yard

Photo 2
ice museum

Photo 3
ice wedding chapel

Photo 4
ice chess board

Photo 5
ice staircase

Photo 6
Chena hot springs

Photo 7
Denali highway

Comments

[Adrian]

You can do it!!!
Come on mike that bike has to get you home!!! Nice work on getting all the way to the top, Im really sorry to hear about tweeter giving up on you. I hope everything works out. I just got home today with everything intack.