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Nov. 16, 2003 I thought I'd post this page for anyone else who owned an older Kawasaki KDX250 dirtbike. Mine sits in the basement most of the time. I bought it for $1200cdn back in around 1989 I think from Holeshot Racing in Langley on the Langley Bypass, BC.
The bike had a few problems such as nice deep scratches in the cylinder bore, a big chunk cracked out of the engine case at the back behind the output gear shaft, a completely worn out rear mono-shock. I haven't ridden it that much over the years simply because after the first couple of years of ownership every friend I knew either got rid of their dirtbike or didn't have one. Riding on your own just isn't as much fun. The last ride was up to Meager Creek hot springs but my wife followed in our truck behind me. The logging road was quite frozen in places that day and there was quite a bit of fog so it wasn't the best traction or visibility... quite easy to overdrive in fog. This two-stroke bike like most larger bore 2-strokes still has some really good get-up-and-go left in her. If you've never ridden a 2-stroke motocross bike you should really try it. Then again, they aren't ideal for tight trail riding and certainly not this KDX as the steering angle isn't very large either and the bike is a bit heavy for the slow stuff. On an open logging road you can open it up to around 130kph in 6th gear. Like all older bikes this one always seems to have carburator problems and since I only ride it once-in-a-blue-moon it usually means removing the carb and cleaning it out as well as putting fresh fuel in and dumping the old sour fuel. It's my fault though... really you should drain the tank and carb before it goes into storage. Some of the repairs I've done include:
I'm still running on the drive chain that came with the bike and it has an aftermarket rear sprocket with 2 or 3 extra teeth (more acceleration, less top speed). As with any old bike a bit extra TLC is required to keep it running. The piston bore still has some pretty deep scratches in it but she still runs fine so not going to bother fixing that problem. Unfortunately 99.9% of modern (1980+) dirtbikes use aluminum cylinder bores that are chrome plated. If you get some grit into the cylinder bore it will ruin the chrome surface quite easily. There is no real fix except to perhaps have it rechromed (don't know where you can do this) or have it bored and a steel sleeve liner installed. The liner option isn't cheap. If you look around on the internet you'll find a few outfits who do this work. Unfortunately just after I bought the bike I crashed it into a ditch that I didn't see was there and ended up smashing the headlight to bits. After brushing myself off and swearing a lot I got the help of a bystandard to get the bike out of the ditch (prob. with the kickstarter from new). So there goes the headlight. I did find that the headlight bulb (OEM) 6v piece burned out quite often, especially if there was a problem with the rear taillight burning out, the extra voltage would fry the front bulb even faster. Those 6v bulbs were hard to find (headlight). The rear is a standard type bulb. The electrical specs are 6v x 35watt for headlight and 6v x 5.3watt for taillight. So total electrical power is 40.3w @ 6v or 6.7A current. It's a crude AC voltage. I was thinking of just slapping on a 12v 55w halogen light but I don't think the electrical system can output enough power either voltage or current to satisfy that light's requirement. In any case, the solution is fairly simple. If your headlight is busted and you can't find a replacement check out the bicycle lights at www.mec.ca . Fortunately for me I've got a 6v halogen bike headlamp sitting around (battery died) and I'll modify that to bolt onto the front of the handebars. Since it's easy to burn this bulb out I will probably add a fullwave bridge rectifier to convert the crude AC current to DC current, then run it through a solid-state 6v voltage regulator. That way the light will always get 6v. If you wanted to go a step further you could add a small sealed gel-cell lead acid battery and a switch between the lights and battery and between the electrical charge circuit and the voltage regulator so you could choose if you want the lights on at any time and charge when the motor is running. If you look at the MEC website you could easily convert this one:
There are other choices. If you go to the Nite Hawk website and check out the Parts List you'll see there are many 6v and 12v light heads to choose from as dirtbike replacements. I bet you 3 x 10w halogens or 2 x 15w will be much brighter than your original conventional 6v bulb. Also check out http://www.fourstrokesonly.com/headlights.html for headlights (mostly 12v) and http://www.fourstrokesonly.com/taillights.html for taillights. Have no idea what their customer service is like, just found them browsing. Anyway... enough discussion of lights for now. I have an original 1982 Kawasaki KDX250 Owners and Service Manual. It's has a green cover and contains 60 pages including an electrical diagram. Here are some of the specifications of this model year dirtbike: Dimensions
Engine
Transmission
Frame
Brakes
Electrical Equipment
Next fix-it project is to sort out the headlight issue and replace the drive sprockets and chain. One of these days I'll repair the rear mono-shock but last I checked (many years ago) I was quoted $500+ and the bike isn't worth much more than that used so why bother. |
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Copyright
2001-2003 Peter Ferlow