Wilsons Sandbox

I bought an '04 KLR with about 6K on it back in April--I ran it up to 10K in no time. But I recently took her for a high-speed burn through the desert; and when I hit the highway I noticed she was losing a lot of power and surging badly at sustained high RPMs, such as at highway speed. Now she tops out at 80 with the throttle pulled back to the lock and surges horribly when you back off the throttle. Low-speed performance is totally normal up to 4000 RPM. After I failed to diagnose the problem I took it to the dealer; they said it was the clutch, but I replaced the clutch myself and it didn't solve the problem. The local Kawi dealer has now had the bike for a WEEK and they're totally stumped. They've torn apart the whole fuel system to no avail. I know the whole wiring harness was replaced before I bought the bike. Also, I put a jumper on the kickstand lockout switch and removed the whole lockout switch assembly the day before my fateful desert ride. I thought this was a simple bike with simple problems! Any help would be greatly appreciated--I miss my KLR like a hot ex-girlfriend. Will

Look at the vacuum line from the intake tube to the pet cock. It sounds exactly like what happened to me. When it gets real hot, that vacuum line gets soft and the vacuum, when you have reached speed and close the throttle a bit, will almost collapse the hose, causing fuel starvation. If the hose is close to the cylinder, take it off and re-route it around the back of the carb and up to the pet cock so it isn't exposed to the heat from the cylinder. Cured the problem for me. GormL., BC, Canada divesandiego wrote: I bought an '04 KLR with about 6K on it back in April--I ran it up to 10K in no time. But I recently took her for a high-speed burn through the desert; and when I hit the highway I noticed she was losing a lot of power and surging badly at sustained high RPMs, such as at highway speed. Now she tops out at 80 with the throttle pulled back to the lock and surges horribly when you back off the throttle. Low-speed performance is totally normal up to 4000 RPM. After I failed to diagnose the problem I took it to the dealer; they said it was the clutch, but I replaced the clutch myself and it didn't solve the problem. The local Kawi dealer has now had the bike for a WEEK and they're totally stumped. They've torn apart the whole fuel system to no avail. I know the whole wiring harness was replaced before I bought the bike. Also, I put a jumper on the kickstand lockout switch and removed the whole lockout switch assembly the day before my fateful desert ride. I thought this was a simple bike with simple problems! Any help would be greatly appreciated--I miss my KLR like a hot ex-girlfriend. Will --------------------------------- Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1 /min. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I don't like to disagree with Blake but I was surprised when a dirty side stand switch caused mine to act up and cut out intermittently. I'm still trying to advance a good theory as to why but flipping the by-pass switch took the problem away. After a bit of moving the side stand the problem went away and only reoccurred once. We have a lot of magnesium-chloride used on our roads during the winter which is corrosive beyond calcium-chloride which was used. Maybe the "salt" deposits conducted enough to partially ground out the ignition primary? Sounds like a bit of a reach but that's all I can think of. Norm [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]