Sean Colliers KX500 Project "I was only going to inspect the top end"

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This is the bike that Sean won the Two Stroke National Championship on at Glen Helen in 2015 on.
The tear down is being handled by Oscar.
All the notes and pics provided below are his.
This build is not really a build as much as it is a quick freshen up of the chassis and motor to keep it alive until we get Sean's new bike built.
Here is the beast...

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Oscar didn't get too far into the tear down when he found the first issue.
Don't you just love it when you go to take a bolt out and it spins round and round and never comes out?

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Someone hated on this air box... Man.. that's a lot of holes

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Oh yeah, that needs a bit of work..

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This is the world famous one off hand built muffler from FMF.
I know a few guys that would like to have one... Including me.

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Broken motor mount?
No good, that will cause a lot of undue stress on the frame as well as a lot more chassis vibration.

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Standard FMF Woods Gnarly pipe.

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OUCH!!!! Someone get me the eye bleach, those welds are UGLY!!!!

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NGK B8EVX Gapped at .024"

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Bare bones stock 97-04 KX500 carburetor.

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This rad stinks...

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Oh man.... look at this clutch cable.
KX500 cables are notorious for being routed improperly and bent too hard at the steel sleeve causing a harder pull...
This one is beyond any of that...

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There is something very fishy about that center valve..

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Yep... It's busted..

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Yeah, this frame has serious issues... And Sean was airing this thing out....

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I guess we need a new frame....

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Awwwww... What a little cutie..

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Oscar is discovering how difficult it can be to remove even slightly rusted parts

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[USMC 500]

OK, so what was supposed to be just an inspection for the head and jug for specs and work performed by the previous builder turned into a full blown quality budget rebuild. As I tore down the bike to pull the engine out I began to find issue after issue, basically a can of worms, Pandora's box and any other analogy you care to use. All the photos above just tell a small story of the actual tear down but in the end it was decided that because of the extent of some of the issues discovered it would be best to tear the bike down to the frame and split the cases.

Keep in mind that we are NOT going to change or modify any part of this bike that will affect performance. We want to keep the bike in the same state that the previous builder intended. The reason behind this is that we plan to compare this bike in its original form to the other project bike that we are building for the magazine test. Once the magazine has written their article on the two different KX500's this one will go back under the knife to be built the KX Guru Racing way.

We will only alter things that affect engine longevity and rider comfort like oil passages, shift quality, cable routing, etc. and nothing that will alter the current performance characteristics.

I can also guarantee that in the hands of KX Guru Racing and under the supervised eye of my 11 month old daughter this EXTREME budget build will still be a better build than what was originally given to Sean 18 months ago.