KX Guru Racing

Thanks for the big up mike but no, not a chief. I did sail as "driver" on (I will try not to make this sound like my life story) a fishing boat a long time ago. I am in commercial fishing, myself and two friends own and skipper two 19 meter trawlers. There is lots of problems to overcome in that line of work so I guess logic and problem solving come with that and not least my old dad, he was always fixing things he ran a heavy plant business with excavators and trucks, none of it new stuff, ones that could not pass a road test anymore and he would use them on off road building sites and me and my brother would go and drive some of this plant after school and weekends. My dad bought me and my brother a 81 KL250 for helping him out, so we broke it, naturally we were kids, so we had to learn to fix it.
And I think I mentioned this before when we were talking about the dyno, it's island life you tend to make makeshift stuff to do if you can't source it locally. So that's me.
What I do is quite rough, it's how I do things, really I have not put a lot of hours into this yet, I like to get results or I get bored. So I will be crashing on as quick as possible.
Viva la KLX turbo!!

As a business owner and boat owner, my hats off to you.
I grew up in a small Coastal town way before the internet..
You either fished, or worked at a lumber mill.
Making due was a way of life.
But some are better at it then others.
Your work may be rough in your opinion, but, it is far past the abilities of the average biker.
Keep up the great work.

I got to the bike the other day for a while so I thought some progress with the plenum would be in order. I started with the front bulkhead, it holds the induction pipe and is fitted around the bits of tube that makes up the subframe so it would be one of the trickier parts. It went in ok but there is only about 15mm between each side and the induction tube. The shock limits space on the left hand side and my leg will on the other side. 15mm is not a lot when you are trying to get a mig shroud in. My intention is to tack it up and then continuously weld it on the inside, then continuously weld it on the outside afterwards. The plenum will have to be strong, there will be a lot of pressure cycling and if the welds are not up to scratch they will split. I was getting on with the welding not too bad then the wire ran out, I wasn't too worried by this as I had two more spools, so off I went with a new one loaded, what a mess sparking all over the place, I had to adjust all the settings till I got it the best I could. This is a apology to the bike and the world for the sh*tty welding! I'm wondering if the spool was old stock? It certainly is a different grade of alloy than the previous one I was using as the wire feels much stiffer. What could I do? Dec 26th, no shops open, I've got to get this running, push on, it's the only way. So I got this done for my days work.

The bits of plate running across the plenum and up and down are to stiffen the plenum and hold the induction tube, the plenum takes up about a 1/3 of the space of the enclosed area of the tubes which at 12 liters should make the plenum right on the nail at 4 liters so that's good, at least that bit has worked out ok. It's all 2mm plate apart from one of the uprights was a bit of 3mm plate, just because it was handy and it seemed appropriate. It's going to become more difficult from this point and on to weld the inside too. There will be no room for the torch and I will not be able to see, so another approach will be needed, maybe just a thicker bit of plate? If I make the right hand side out of 5mm that would maybe be a solution?
Next up is the battery box and the positioning of the W/M pump. The tank for the W/M is going to go behind the plenum and above the rear wheel, I will drill a hole in the rear mudgaurd for the filler neck of the tank so it will be easy to access, so no taking the seat off to get to it or anything.

Got a bit more done today, the battery box/tray is welded in and it helps stiffen the largest section of the left hand side of the plenum so that is a bonus the little plate that the W/M pump is sitting on when welded in will also help to stiffen it too.

That's a new battery it's a better battery than the original, a bit more juice for cranking the beast to life.

You know, there is more fun here then just the cool build...
The other part is getting to look around your shop and see all the other cool stuff

Ha ha, you will have me paranoid yet, I've just looked through all the pictures to see what you can see.

Trust me... No tweakers from this side of the world will make it over there to pinch your stuff

They are too lazy and have plenty to pilfer right here

It's ok mike we don't really have criminals of any scale here, the problem for them being to steal anything you then have to get it off the island to get away with it. That's expensive too, a example of that a friend of mine from just outside of London looked into visiting us, he found out it would be cheaper to travel to and stay in Spain for 10 days just for the price of traveling to us. The thing that was most on my mind was the poor housekeeping displayed in my shed, I am rally poor at clearing up behind me. Most of the other stuff in the shed is broken and awaiting repair. I'll do it some day!

Oh man... you should see my private work space... Lets just say that yours is not half the mess mine is

Oh no more shame. I'm back at work and hardly anything done on the Christmas break.
Bit of reading, that's about it, I'll be getting the sack.