This morning I pulled the carby out of the bike, change the main jet to a 140 from a 142 and put it all back together which took a little under 2 hours.

My quick test showed the bike revealed it is lower on power. I’m hoping this change improves fuel economy over this last tank  (6.24L/100km doing mostly 80-100km/h

On our way to Cairns Donnie took us via Kuranda. A lovely little village in the hills. Just out of the town we stopped at Barron Falls.

Jungle above Barron falls

WOW! What a place.

Barron falls 1

Barron Falls 2

The massive Barron Falls

The road down from Kuranda off the mountains toward Cairns is really nice for a bitumen road.

We picked up a new air filter and some other parts in Cairns including some generic filter foam of two different sizes for a mod.

Part way to Daintree we stopped to watch people parasailing and hang gliding from the side of the roads.

Parasailing

The road winds its way along the coast and in places has big old avenues of mangos and other tropical trees.

A really pretty ride. All the green is such a contrast to the brown desolation of inland QLD that we have been passing through for much of the time since leaving Black River.

Daintree is quiet. Everything is so vibrantly green and the Daintree river has fish jumping in it and apparently plenty of crocs. Such a bugger being in croc country now. When its hot you just want to fall into the nearest water.

I had to clean my air filter again tonight as it is dirty from the 140km or so from Mt Surprise to Almaden.

I installed some of the generic filter foam as well around the air box intake in the hope the filter will slow the air down that is drawn from the back wheel area and redirecting most of the air draw forward.

Tomorrow we will attempt the infamous CREB track. We have heard many things about the CREB, mostly suggesting it is very steep and hard going. We have been told not to attempt it if it has been raining.

I am looking forward to seeing how it compares to things we have done. I have a little trepidation from all the stories I have heard of people struggling on the CREB.

Early this morning we made a few changes with duct tape to the air intake on Mawson hoping to duct air from forward into the air box instead of the dusty air it has been sucking from the rear wheel well.

Leaving Cobbold, Donnie wanted to check out a small track to a “quartz blowout” that he had passed on previous trips that had a more tight schedule. Mawson was running terribly. I decided to remove the air filter sock that I had oiled and placed over the filter.

Red dust roads just out of Cobbold Gorge

The bike seemed to be running ridiculously rich from all the restriction to air flow from the large amount of oil I am using on the filter in an attempt to stop the dust harvesting it all and drying the filter out.

Quartz Blowout

Coming into Forsyth

Only 40km later in Forsyth I check the filter.

40km from Cobbold to Forsyth

Bloody hell, this is a really problem!

Another problem surfaced. My fuel economy was very poor. Poorer that I would have expected given the way I was riding. In fact I recorded my worst ever fuel economy of 8.05L/100km when I filled up at Einsleigh after actually running out and needing to syphon a little out or Donnie’s enormous 45L tank on his KTM 990.

Eisleigh Gorge

Eisleigh Gorge cut through basalt rock

Eisleigh Gorge, signs of the cooling lava

Basalt plat through which the gorge has cut

I seem to be having a bad run of luck as I also seem to have an issue with my petcock as the tank never fully ran out. I know exactly how much my tank can take and it wasn’t empty. All these issues are starting to become a little frustrating. I like to learn from the issues that come up but its hard to learn when they all come at once.

We rode to Mt Surprise. Barry was not there and had not left a message for us although we did confirm he filled up fuel at the servo there.

I spoke to the owner of the servo and he offered me his shed and compressor to clean my air filters. I jumped at the offer. Thanks.

The ride from Mt Surprise to Almaden was great fun although I did run over the thick part of the tail of a Kangaroo. Yes, it was alive and bouncing. I was certain I was going to hit it in that instant when it jumped out and yet I missed its body by a whisker. It wasn’t even late in the day either. The roo was just sitting in a patch of shade by the road waiting for the hot hours of the day to pass.

Keeping the dust out of my bike has been my primary concern. We have decided to head for Cairns to get a new air filter to eliminate the chance that the filters are damaged and the source of the problem.

I came ridiculously close to being caught out again tonight as we came into Mareeba. I hit reserve at only 229km (I usually get 340km-380km before hitting reserve). Again when I filled up I only got 19.85L in the tank again even though it takes 22.26 (23L on the specifications however I tested it and found it was actually 22.26).

Lots of information. I log every bit of data I can and fuel consumption is a very important part of this. Donnie suspects the bike is running rich so we will pull it apart and put a smaller main jet in the carb tomorrow morning before leaving.

We are camped in Mareeba tonight. Cairns tomorrow.

Kidston is a lonely little place. Once a teeming mining camp, now all that is left is the Oaks Rush Pub which is housed in the old mine mess hall. The pub had no beer when we turn up, only offering two cans of soft drink and a bottle of rum. These items were placed on the bar for us to pour our own. The publican is really a parsturalist. He runs the cattle station there and maintains some of the mine rehabilitation infrastructure.

The Kidston mine closed in 2002 apparently. There are the remains of one of those enormous dump trucks in the main street.

Packing the bikes outside the old gym where we slept

One little corner of the tailing heaps of the Kidston gold mine.

Copperfield Dam (also know as Kidson Dam)

Capacity: 20400 ML

Hills detail

Copperfield Dam – Shoreline detail

Barry soaking up the view of the Copperfield

Cycad amongst the boulders

Mid morning break – A big discovery

During our mid morning stop Raman suggested I check my air filter. I put a fresh one in when I rebuilt the engine at Donnie’s. So this air filter had seen only a few hours dirt yesterday and a few more this morning. When I opened the filter door I found my self looking at a familiar sight, a filter totally covered in dust. What was worse was the inside of the filter was also dusty! Deja vu. I felt sick. Dust is getting into my new motor and I haven’t even done 1000km yet. And yes, I know for a fact that I oiled the filter. So, after all that we now see that the dust out here actually strips the oil out of my filter. Many questions have been asked and many ideas have been thrown around. Maybe the oil is bad, maybe the filters are stuffed, maybe its getting in else where…and on and on. Most of which we have ruled out by thinking things through. One thing is for certain, my bike draws air from over the rear wheel which is a dusty area so my filter is under more load than the filters in the other bikes.

I put a fresh filter in and we continued on our way toward Cobald Gorge.

Part way along Barry bailed out, telling me he would meet us at the Mt Surprise pub. I don’t quite understand Barry. He tells me he raced in the Finke and Donnie tells me he can ride and yet he doesn’t like anything slow at all. “Third gear and above!” was his comment and he rides a KTM 950 Super Enduro so third is not low. Anyway, he turned around at the first sight of winding dirt roads.

For me thats where it just began to get good. I must admit the wide open high speed stuff isn’t all that inspiring for me from a riding perspective. I prefer to do 80-90km/h on the open stuff and just take in the scenery.

It is hot and oh so very dry out here. Rolling rocky hills covered in trees and a very dusty road

After Barry left when the road became more windy

Gee the ground looks tough. It amazes me what some trees can survive in.

Termite mounds

Donnie (left) and Raman (Right) riding together avoiding each others dust approaching a gate I have opened.

Zooom and they are gone in a cloud of dust.

Thats why we don’t ride behind each other. I am either a good distance ahead or behind to allow the dust to settle.

Arriving at Cobold Gorge at around mid day allowed us to see the gorge.

Cobbold Gorge

Cobold Gorge Gallery

Checking my air filter again tonight revealed it was again in need of a change although this time the dust had not yet penetrated the filter. Ok, so that was only a few hours of riding and it was done. Yikes, this is looking unworkable.

With Mawson alive and well we prepared to leave the Lyon’s Den. We will be treveling with the Lyon for a time.

Sunken Miles, ready to leave the Lyon’s Den

Barry (left), Raman, Oli and Donnie (right), ready to hit the road this morning

An old bridge on our climb into the hills heading west a little north of Townsville

The stream beneath the bridge

Being back on the road is great. It’s really exciting to have Donnie Lyon with us as well. A friend of Donnie’s, Barry, is also with us. Raman and Donnie rode together while Barry and I rode ahead but separately. Barry isn’t into riding two abreast. Its a little like a dance and quite graceful once the two riders get into the rhythm.

The bike is a new machine in several ways. Power is definitely increased and the motor smoother in operation. We will se how fuel economy is. The new Barrett exhaust is a lot louder. I did try it without the baffle as Rob recommended and all I can say is I put it straight back in. Much too loud. I can keep it quiet if I control the throttle so thats good being able to still be reasonably discrete if desired.

All in all the bike feels great. Its certainly good to have it back together and running.

Waiting for Donnie and Raman. “They are taking quite a while. I wonder if something has happened”.

Gee, to think it was only yesterday avo I fired my bike up for the first time after the rebuild and we are now over 400km from Black River. I feel like we are in the middle of nowhere.

There was quite a lot of sandy drifts on top of hard packed road base which made for lots of fun sliding out of corners however Raman came unstuck on a corner and hit the deck. As a matter of fact Donnie narrowly avoided running over him as he fell off in front go Donnie.

Raman came out of it ok but the panniers look…”a little second hand” as Donnie put it.

Raman inspecting the damage

He is carrying a little more weight at the moment as I divided the food in half, he has water in his big bladder(I have tended to carry most of the water) and he took the cook stove that I have been carrying. This combined with a propensity to ride at the pace of those around him may have helped precipitate the accident.

Reshaping SW Motec side boxes

A little concerning is that he didn’t adjust his riding behaviour and went down again. This time he was’t so lucky. Rather than low siding as he did the first time, he high sided. Apparently he isn’t sore let alone significantly injured so he is still very lucky in my opinion.

This time it was on the left side.

Left side box after “reshaping”

Raman rides harder than I do. We each have our pace and I have learnt that it is my job to ride my bike, not tell him how to ride his. Raman will ride his bike. I have been amazed just how skilled he has become. Personally I feel less inclined to push it so much but we are pretty well match really and I am grateful for his part in the trip. I hope he learns to accept feedback and apply self regulation. 

Tonight we are camped at Oaks Rush in Kidstone, an old mining town. There is very little hear other than the old mining mess hall which is now a pub of sorts.

We are camped in the old mining gym. Its pretty damn remote out here. We’ve seen very few vehicles and the roads are long and dusty with dry country stretching as far as the eye can see in every direction. This is North Western Queensland.

Thursday

I knew things were bad when I discovered dust had got past my air filter! I immediately began to think what might need to be done to fix the damage. As I rode on it became evident that the damage was significant. Mawson used over 1L of oil in 200km.

Arriving here at the Lyon family home in the dark with an ailing Mawson, having never met them, was quite a big thing to lump on them. I was so very glad to have made it. No need to trailer the bike. Thank heavens f0r that! What I didn’t quite realise was just how much work was ahead of us. Nor did I know how lucky I was.

Donnie and Mathew (son) have a very well tooled workshop including some very specific tools that would be required to rebuild the motor like a valve grinder. Donnie did his apprenticeship recondition engines I believe.

Mawson without luggage, after his shower but before his open heart surgery in front of the Lyon surgery.

Part of the operating theatre (valve grinder left, all my crap on the benches that were lovely and clean when I started)

One things was clear to me from what I had seen, we had to open the engine and likely change at least the rings. The piston, bore and valves could all have damage too.

We wouldn’t know how bad it was until we opened it, however I was painfully aware that parts would be the hold up even if ordered immediately. I was also aware that Kawasaki Australia was unlikely to have the required gaskets in the country. There wasn’t even a clutch cable for Raman’s bike in the country. This tends to mean over three weeks wait for it to be ordered in.

I ordered some parts in Rockhampton nearly 3 weeks ago and they have not arrived yet.

Everyone is at work as it is Thursday. All we have done is arrive and tell them what has happened. Donnie said we could open it up and have a look when he gets home. With all this in mind I decided to get right to the point first thing this morning and order a full piston kit direct from Eagle Mike in the US.

The KLR guru

The go to man for all things KLR in the US is Eagle Mike. Anyone who knows KLRs knows what the “doohicky” is. Eagle Mike is the guy who makes the upgraded ones. He has very well priced and very good quality kits on his site so I ordered all the parts I might need from him and got them posted express. The whole package including US$100 freight was AU$500. All the gaskets, a forged custom JE piston, rings and KLX needle and jets.

So that was over a week ago.

Donnie and Donna Lyon have been amazingly hospitable, putting us up like old friends.

I walked up Castle Hill in Townsville with them on Saturday morning early before taking advantage of the salt water for a refresher after the excursion up Castle Hill.

Townsville and The Strand from Castle Hill (looking east)

Looking north (Donnie left)

The bike has the my primary focus although I have had a chance to do a few other things including ride Matt’s Husaberg 570 on a rough trail and on the loose sand of the dry Black River. Wow! What an amazing experience. Sore arms after 5 minutes. And, damn I can actually ride on sand…with the Husaberg at least. Amazing hardware. I was able to get up and go fast and slow down without trouble or fear of coming off. Doing 80+ on sand without a problem. Handles rough trails and huge ditches like nothing else I have ever ridden. Not a bike for what we are doing but an amazing experience none the less.

Husaberg FE570 similar to Matt’s. Matts has nearly double the horse power of a klr650 and suspension better again.

We pulled the motor down, inspected the damage and got to preparing the bike as best we could.

The head off. Our first look at the inside.

Carbon deposits on the top of the piston from all the oil burning.

We had to wait for the piston before we could bore out the cylinder.

The bike fully stripped down with the subframe off to get the air box out to allow a really good cleaning of all the mud and dust that got into every corner.

Gee, Mawson looks different like this!

Matt cleaning the head in the parts cleaning bay (kero)

After hours of porting work to blend the valve seats into the ports (and grind a bloody huge bit of a bolt that had carelessly been over threaded into the port. Presumably a design fault, not an assembly fault)

Head underside view showing cleaned up inlet and exhaust valve ports. Note they have not been polished to a high shine. That final step in port did not seem worth it on such a rudimentarily designed head.

After lots of waiting the parcel turned up early on Friday morning (over a week later). Thanks Adrian for dropping it off.

The new forged 685cc (2,5mm overbore) piston from Eagle Mike by JE Pistons.

I had the piston and cylinder to the mate of Donnie’s, who had worked boring cylinders all his life and he is 53 I think, by 9:15am.

Got it back by 11:30am, got oil, coolant and a bunch of other little things and got to putting it all back together. Friday has been a big day!

Donnie gapping the new rings

Piston and cylinder installed, head gasket going on.

Head detail

It is late. Most of the work is done. Tomorrow morning we find out if it starts.

Woke early and got all packed quickly for the ride to Charters Towers (about another 160km of dirt) and then on to Donnie Lyon’s place at Black River (another contact of Rob’s).

Just before we headed off I thought I would have a quick look at my air filter.

Gee that looks bad!

Oh, but the inside of the air filter is the same!!! F**K!!!!!!!!!!

How the heck has dust got past the air filter so badly when I have never seen the inside of the filter even slightly dirty?

The next five hours involved pulling the carb out of the bike and entirely disassembling it, cleaning it in some of my precious fuel (in a cook pot) and reassembling everything. This was a big job. I was in the shade for all but the last 30 minutes and boy did my mood degrade quickly in the heat of the sun. I have plenty of water so we both kept hydrated.

I got out a spare air filter  (I carry three), oiled and installed it.

We rode into Charters Towers. I used all m remaining oil to top the bike up and by Chaters Towers it was desperate for more.

I bought a 4L container and we headed for Black River.

It was pretty late by this stage. It was over 200km to Black River and along the way by bike began to surge. I wasn’t sure if it was the engine about the seize or just some crap stuck in the carb. I stopped quite a few times trying to decided if I should pull the pin and get it trailered (not desirable at all especially considering we had no phone service and were a long way from Black River) or if I should keep riding it. I decided it must be the carb partly blocked and kept on. The oil was disappearing fast!! There are no photos. I was not in that that head space at all.

After more than three hours we did finally get to Donnie and Dana Lyon’s place. Boy was I glad to have arrived!

So the reason why yesterday was bad is because I “dusted” my motor yesterday. For those of you less mechanically inclined, dust is like a grinding paste for motors and wears them away very quick.

I guess that is the end of chapter one for Mawson. 41,000km. Time to rebuild the engine.

A big day today and one I will aways remember fortunately and unfortunately!

Raman capturing some of the great view

Sunrise over the Dam from the lookout

Got up early. The first hour and a half were the best riding of the day. The light was behind us and low angle. A little track leading through the hills and eventually dropping down into the valley. Some images that I never quite found the spot to get (too many trees) but I have them in my mind.

The descent to the plains was fantastic beyond what I have captured in this image

Water in a few big rivers is a fantastic contrast to the dry of the plains

Fuelling up at Collinsville for a long haul to Charter’s Towers. The Liquid Containment 12L fuel bladders pictured with 7L each. My fuel economy is quite bad after the carb “tune” in Brisbane. Under the same riding conditions and taking it just as easy as I have in the past I am now getting about 5.8L/100km up from 4.1L/100km.

Plains west of Collinsville

Raman stopped before crossing this causeway. It is as slippery as ice. I went down as soon as I hit it. The bike slid only a little way as I had slowed up to about 20km/h.

A little scar on the right side box from the grind. This isn’t the bad part of the day! In fact I was fine.

A rocky knoll by the way

View back over the plains from which we just climbed.

Here we are out in the middle of no where (on a route suggested by Rob of course) and there is a familiar sticker on the sign.

Tyres for Bikes

Lunch under date palms

I didn’t realise this was still happening. Scrub clearing chain pulled behind a dozer or two. Yes that chain is huge! Possibly the biggest I have ever seen

View south from the red dirt of the Turton Highway

Termite towers next to my tent, camped near Doongarra Downs

Today was a long day. Over 400km of dirt. There were places with really bad bull dust!

So you are thinking, “you’ve got to camp without anything untoward happening, what was the bad part of today?”

I noticed my bike was idling a little low when we stopped to camp just on dusk. This was the first sign for me of an emerging iceberg! Raman then mentioned he had seen a little puff of smoke from the exhaust late in the avo when I took off. Oh!

I went to sleep with these little, and yet damning, bits of information running around in my head. Maybe it is running really rich from a clogged air filter…I’ll have a look in the morning.

Raman got the required parts from town. I had asked him to get some bar risers for me. The guy at the Kawasaki dealer assured Raman they were the right ones. They won’t fit. Called them up and they were all excuses (the computer system was down, they guy is only young etc). They didn’t want to find a solution. I eventually got them to agree to give me a refund and pay for return postage. Before I sent them however we discovered the Yam dealer had done the same thing with Raman’s sprocket. They guy had looked it up in a book and still got it wrong. So Raman headed back into Mackay and returned them both and got the right sprocket. Apparently this is a real problem as most of the semi-intelligent people are getting high paid jobs in mining so many of the people employed in town are the ones that didn’t managed to get the higher paid jobs. Might have just been bad luck but it doesn’t seem like it was after talking with a few of the local farmer friends of Rick’s.

Anyway we did finally head off.

The narrow gauge rail that services the cane fields, taking the cut cain to the refinery.

It was pretty late so we headed for Eungella Dam again.

This time we camped at the lookout.

Just out of the wind behind Eungella Dam lookout

Rick took us for a drive out to some of his bees and then we had a wander around in the bush. Rick is interested in photography and has recently got himself a nice camera (Canon 7D). I have been giving him a few pointers photographically.

It was really nice to have a morning of photography. No hurry just honing my eye and looking for subjects in the bush. Rick choose a good spot. I have posted a little gallery of my images from the walk.

Shooting with Rick: Old International Truck

We packed up or things and said our goodbyes after several days with Rick and Nanette. Thanks for all your hospitality guys; we’ve had a great time.

Goodbye Rick and Nanette

So we head off down the road only to find Raman’s new chain is making a funny noise. He installed it yesterday. Turns out, after much roadside fiddling that the counter sprocket is too worn and is sort of flicking the chain making a noise.

Hmmm, it Saturday….afternoon.

Rick and Nanette were heading out to check on some of the bees but the road was blocked by a huge diesel truck that had spilt 27,000 litres of diesel everywhere. We saw them in Eaton and explained what was going on. So it looks like we will have to wait until Monday to get a new counter sprocket.

Back we went to to Rick and Nanette’s.

Another ripper camp oven dinner. Feeling a little deja vu? We were 🙂 and yes its the same picture. Luckily hanging out with Rick and Nanette was lots of fun as life had us scheduled for a few more days of it.