Crofter985'S KLX650C supermoto build

[Crofter985]

Yes I dare say, this is my first bike "special" so it's all new to me. I should have done this years ago. I am enjoying it.
I looked for a ball end mill of 23mm for the cam journals, without success. Iv ordered a 23mm reamer for the mill, im going to try it that way. I have my doubts of the quality of the job with an ball nose endmill, as in the roundness of the hole at the end of the job. But as I did not find anyone offering the piece it's kinda immaterial the 23mm reamer was £24 off eBay so I will find out how round a hole I can get with that.

[Crofter985]

I'm not getting on well with the valve job on the head. I think I will put the best head on the bike in as is form and sort it later. I went to fill in the valve order form and there was a lot of choices for collet groove and I didn't know which to pick. My plan now is to send the head and a set of valves away to the agent and ask him to send it back when it's ready to go back on the bike. There is no way if I wait for that head will the bike be running this summer.

[Sandblaster]

We had to have some ball end mills custom ground.
It wasn't cheap but the results were outstanding.
It will be interesting to see how yours turns out.
On the head you use temporarily, lap the valves and install new seals.
Don't forget some assembly lube on the seals
You should be good for a while.

[Crofter985]

Yes, I will have to have a bit of an experiment with the reamer before I dive into a head with it.
The stem seals need doing anyway so, yeh, the valves would probably be the better of a lap too.
I don't think I will clean up the combustion chamber much though, they say the water injection does that, so if I leave it the shit that builds on the exhaust valves will act like ceramic coatings and when I repace the head I will be able to see if it cleaned up any.

[Sandblaster]

Water injection does clean... I've done it in a few vehicles I have had.
It may or may not do much with what you have there but I guess we'll see

[Crofter985]

The head you did with the mill, was it a klx head?

[Sandblaster]

No it was a KX450F.
I think it was a 08.

[Crofter985]

Ok, some similarity between models then. The 23mm cam journals. There is actually just one of the 4 heads I have that has good cam journals one is kinda ok, and two are in need of work. So obviously this is a problem across the board with the KLX 650, this oil pump mods I'm planning could be useful to all owners.

I see you have some KLX 650 front hubs on eBay, all cleaned up. The look really good, I assume that's vapour blasted?

[Sandblaster]

Yes the hubs are Vapor Blasted.
If you want one, don't buy it from eBay...
Let me know and I'll get you a great price.

Your right on the common head issue and I think others could benefit from the oil pump mod if it works out.
That would include a huge KLR650 crowd

[Crofter985]

I've just looked, the KLR oil pump looks the same anyway except it does not have a slot drive off it like the KLX, so it might be easier to modify. But that's without even ever having seen a KLR engine so it's a very unqualified guess. Does the KLR top end suffer from poor top end lubrication too?