Old_Man_Time

Drilling a hole in the center and using an easy out is a good way to go. I would use heat and and a penetrating oil before atempting to remove it. Then lightly tap the broken stud will help the oil to penetrate around the threads. If you take your time it should come out. Use the same technique on the unbroken studs if you are going to replace them or you may end up with this same issue over again. Heat, vibration by lightly rapping, and penatrating oil. Be patient.

I had Millenium Tech do my KX500 and so far so good. Cheaper than ordering a new cylinder but next time around I may order a new cylinder. It just depends how much you like the bike.

Hey, I don't know if I am going to be much help but I use the Dunlop 606 as my go to dual sport tire. https://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/p/1095/4399/Dunlop-D606-Dual-Sport-Tire

You can take a butane torch to them. It melts the edges of the scratches rather quickly due to how thin they are. It makes them shiny. Do not linger in one spot very long and make quick passes you will see the edges of the scratches change quickly. Do not melt your fender or overheat the fender. The goal is the edges of the scratches and it does not take much to do that. It is not perfect but you may find this helpful. Just don't overdo it. It should go without saying - do not try this on your fuel tank unless you have filled it with water. 🙂

It has been a while since I posted a ride report. Glad you enjoyed the pics. Yep, with Jay's monster side by side it would have been easy to pack your can out.

Here are some of the pictures of the herd of Elk we came across. About three weeks before this Jay and I went in the opposite direction. Instead of riding in the forest we went down to the Columbia River and rode the desert portion of the Green dots. Hope you enjoyed the tour. Ride on and keep the rubber to the ground. 🙂

Last Saturday 8/20/2016 Dave, Jay and I went riding in the Colockum, Naneum Ridge Green Dot road system. Dave on his Polaris ATV, Jay on his CanAm side by side and me on my Honda XR650R motorcycle. Even though I have seen some game this year, mostly deer but the elk herds have been absent. With only an occasional stray elk being spotted. I have ridden this area for many years and it seems strange that during the last couple years sitings of large elk herds were becoming rare. I knew the elk were somewhere but we just were not seeing them. Well, we had an awesome ride and plenty of game to enjoy and take pictures. The weather was very warm. We saw some beautiful deer and finally a large elk herd of possibly several hundred. This was one sweet outing. I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. Jay in his CanAm Side by Side. He is actually on his cell phone telling one of his employees what he needs done that day. Dave on his Polaris I myself am resisting going to training wheels. Here is my Big Red Couch XR650R. I dual sported it a few years ago and love it still. Jay taking in the view from the Mission Lookout Dave snacking at the Lookout This fellow was a special treat. Look closely in the shadows to see his brother It doesn't get any better than this The day was not over and there is more to come. Just keep following the thread

Just curious, if a HD rider was nuts enough to go off road would the laws apply to him then? We live in a time when quite a few of us have dual sported our bikes or purchased them dual sported. Some have after market pipes and never get bothered when on the hwy or trail. They most likely meet Wa noise standard but are still loud. Wouldn't a plate place them in the same category as a HD?

If one considers all their reasons, many of which are not peculiar to dirt bikes, it becomes apparent that what we are really seeing is a generation that has been brain washed by a Public School System that pushed the lefts agenda into the minds of generations of voters. The bias is there and quite often has no true facts behind it. Simply politically motivated so called science. We do ourselves a great harm every time we give in to this garbage as if it is fact. The folks that I have ridden with for years religiously follow the pack it in pack it out rule. I have some friends who actually pick up garbage others have left behind, really quite impressive if you ask me. Countless times I have seen rude behavior by hikers when the dirt bikers extend a hand of friendship. Rudeness is not exclusive to those who enjoy the internal combustion engine. Loudness of our bikes can be improved and has been by many. I still have several bikes that are semi loud but in time they will be replaced with new quieter machines. There are riders who get a kick out of riding trails as if they were motocross tracks by breaking their tires loose when ever they get an opportunity. But as we have become more aware of how this negatively effects our sport it becomes less and less an issue. Dirt bikes are dangerous and so is the family automobile. The facts clearly show drinking and driving on our public road ways causes more deaths than riding dirt bikes or quads. What it comes down to is the lefts and often rights political agenda is that government knows best and we need their guidance in all that we do from the cradle to the grave. We are told we need more government and ours has become huge. Not exactly what our forefathers envisioned. I realize that with freedom comes responsibility but that does not necessitate bigger government with more laws than any one man can be aware. We need to keep on being polite and doing our best to keep our sport alive. In my opinion the America of my childhood is disappearing and "freedom" is an old word which once had a different meaning than it does today.

Here we go again. Saturday 5/10/2015 I met up with another of my Quad riding friends, Brent. He like Jay rides a Can-am but his is a 800. Brent is a very experienced snowmobile rider but gave it up last year and bought a Quad. With winters being the way they have been he timed it just right. He seems to be right at home on a quad. I imagine snowmobile experience transitioned right over to the quad. I still love my dirt bikes but I noticed that they are growing taller and its getting harder to swing my leg over them. Any one else have that problem? We staged at our traditional staging area along the Colockum Pass road. We had not traveled but about 2 miles and I spotted a deer eating grass in a shaded area just off the road so I signaled Brent and we stopped and I began taking pictures.It was a young buck and he did not run off and as we talked he became very comfortable with our presence. In fact he bedded down in front of us a little later. As I was taking pictures of him I noticed about 10 yards above him was another young, smaller buck bedded down and watching us with interest. And then we noticed there was what appears to be a doe bedded down about 5 yards up and to the right of the second buck. I took pictures of all of them but it was not till I got home that I saw there was another deer bedded down right next to the doe in the picture. Its head was not visible but its hind quarters clearly show up in the picture. Really cool. Wow, what a way to start a ride. I speeded up ahead of Brent so I could stop and take a picture of his quad coming at me on the Colockum Pass road. We then followed the Swift Creek Rd. A few weeks back I posted a picture of this road when it was covered with snow and ice for miles. There are only a few patches of snow left. We tried to get up to the Wenatchee Mountain Radio facility which is right next to Mission Ridge Ski Area on the same ridge. The snow was too deep on the Naneum Ridge road for us to make it. It was a nice contrast for the ride. Where we had been it is getting very dry and the day was heating up. But up high it was still cold and the snow was not melting very fast. This is where we stopped and had lunch while enjoying the mountain views. We dropped back down onto the Swift Creek Road and followed it to the Naneum Basin Road. Here we stopped at the bridge and ended up chatting with a fellow who came in on a Polaris Side By Side. Now that thing was awesome. He was packing a pretty large hand gun and I asked him what it was? He said it was a Ruger 44 mag and preceded to unload it and hand it to me. Nice gun! I used to have a federal firearms license and I specialized in selling 44 mag hunting hand guns. You know the long barrel ones. I even graduated from a credited online gun smith school to enhance my business. Those days are long gone. I asked Brent if he was game for a long run up to Grouse Springs. I told him we would probably run into snow but it might be fun to give it a try. He was game but I did not realize this would put our ride at 75 miles and we did not know what the range of his quad was. We do know what his range is now, more about that later. It had been a couple years since I have been to Grouse Springs and I forgot how far it actually was. So we took the Naneum Basin road all the way to Grouse Springs. It was really getting hot and the forest turned out to have been totally burned up during last years fires. So with no tree cover on the road there was no snow. It was a very dry ride all the way to Grouse Springs. We didn't stay long at Grouse Springs because it was already after 4:00 pm. We had a 2 hour ride back to the trucks if we did not make any stops. We were on the Naneum Basin Road within a mile of the Swift Creek Road when the Elk started coming out of the woods everywhere. You know me, I had to try to get some pictures. I was a bit slow but if you look carefully there are elk in every one of the next pictures. We followed the swift Creek road to the Naneum Ridge road and to Four Corners. It was at this time that Brent informs me his fuel gauge is reading low. The red fuel light was blinking on and off by the time we got to Colockum Pass road. I told Brent to get in front of me for the rest of the ride. My XR650R gets 31 mpg on a 4.5 gallon tank so I would have a couple of gallons of fuel left at the end of the day. I would rather have him stalled in front of me than go looking for him behind me. As it turns out he made it back to the truck on fumes. The red low fuel light had quit blinking and was on steady. We now know he can only do 70 miles safely. We had done 75 miles and had a great time. Hope you enjoy our adventure. 👍

I still don't have problems with my KDX220 or my KX500. Other than the usual upkeep.

There almost as good as Kawasaki 2 strokes. 🙂

Good talking with you at breakfast this morning. After you told me about that New Honda CB500X adventure bike I went straight to the Honda shop. They do have one in a crate and will have it on the showroom floor later. I went home and watched several U-Tube video reviews of it and was impressed. Specially the Australian off road ride review. That was cool.

I imagine we will be doing a Grouse Springs run in the next couple weeks. I would think that we will make it all the way considering the light snow fall this year.

Your truck and any plated vehicle will need a Washington Discovery Pass to park or ride in the area. If you have an ORV permit on your bike or quad then you are good to go. They were supposed to allow plated vehicles that also have an ORV permit into the area without the Discovery Pass but that is not the DNRs interpretation of the law. So just make it a rule that any vehicle that has a plate on it will also need a Discovery Pass. Last I heard, the courts have already ruled in our favor in individual cases but the DNR continues to ignore that.