New Member, Central Scotland
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Hi folks,
Long term DT owner and new member to the forum. I've been lurking around the forum for the last few days and felt it time to formally get involved with goings-on.
Quick back story, bought my '02 DTR back in 2011 as my first road going bike. Rode the bike for around a year and sat my test on her (back in the days of the old-style 2 part test and no CBT in NI!). I put around 12,000 miles on the bike that year then bought a Bandit as my first big bike and left her to decay in a garage.
The last time I did any work on the wee DT was when I attempted an oil change and found it looked liked Bailey's - at least now I knew where all that coolant had been going during the year!
The years have gone on and many bikes have come and gone in that time. Due to a change of circumstance however the DT will be returning to my possession within the coming months, prompting my renewal of interest in her and desire to get it up and running again. I've found invaluable info on the forum already and look forward to learning a bit more. Hoping to document and share the restoration with you all, I'm pretty excited to get the project started as soon as I can.
Anyway, longest introduction aside - glad to be here, expect silly questions in the very near future. Working on getting pics too, unsure how to link just yet.
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Hello and thanks for the introduction!
We love a good project, be sure to post up lots of piccy's.
Get a build thread going and we'll be sure to follow.
Yeah, so the water pump failed on you. I had a 2001 DTR where that happened. Ran absolutely fine.
You'll want to split that engine however, for this period of time all the gearbox bearings are bound to have suffered.
Easy enough job to do though, we'll all here to help.
Welcome to the forum!
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@liquid-snake Welcome aboard, throw up some pics of your bike, as we all love a good slide show in here!!!
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Many thanks for the welcome guys, always good to meet new folks. This forum can be a dangerous place - too many Gucci bits and tasty ideas on display!
@Calum appreciate the early diagnosis. I had a feeling it might be the water pump seal last time I looked at the bike - is it likely to be just the seal or the whole unit needing replaced? As a bit of background I rode her the whole year on the basis of carrying a 2 litre bottle of water with me to keep the coolant topped up after every stop. Certainly won't have done the bike any favours but it always started and ran wonderfully. Chalk it up to beginners luck and newbie's ignorance to all things mechanical at that time.
The bike and I are separated by a large body of water at the minute after I moved to the mainland, hence the older pic's and no solid info/problems to describe to you guys yet. Going from memory it also had a seized swingarm pivot which was a damned nightmare to try and tackle. It remains in the bike still. If I remember right this might have been around the time I called it quits on her as I couldn't pull the engine without getting that bolt out. Have looked into it a bit online and it looks like that'll be a fun job once the bike gets to me.
In my planning atm I'm factoring in a few jobs: swingarm pivot, top end rebuild, clutch replacement, rear brake service/reassembly and good bit of cleaning and tidying on her. I had really hoped to avoid a full engine rebuild but we'll have to see how it all plays out.
I've attempted a pic attachment on this post hopefully it's worked ok. Many happy memories coming back atm as I dig up the old pics I have of her prior to this project.
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@liquid-snake Lovely look DT there.
Yeah you got to be careful with the images. Make sure the photos are not geotagged.
I'm very paranoid, which is a shame.
I would rebuild the whole engine, due to the contaminated oil having separated with the water and will have rotted the bearings.
Catch it now before the bearing spins. If it spins, it'll destroy the crank case.
It'll be £100 for all the bearings for the bottom end. That won't be very much. Certainly a lot cheaper than a new engine.
It'll be the waterpump seal.
Grab an engine gasket set from Athena. Has to be GENUINE or ATHENA gasket for the cylinder head, else it'll just blow.
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@liquid-snake very clean and tidy ride there bud!!! :thumbs_up_light_skin_tone:
