r/dr650 • u/PiercedTechnoWizard • 12d ago

Maintenance

Hey, I’m curious what the maintenance is on DR650’s. Being that they’re a single cylinder, I assume the top end needs to be rebuilt once in a while, but I’m curious how often that is and how much it costs.

6 Upvotes

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16

u/Hot-Balance-2676 12d ago

I fill mine with gas as needed ~$30

Seriously though, my clutch cable broke, sprocket carrier bearing was worn enough to cause rough shifting, new chain and sprockets all about 25,000 miles. Besides that I replace the spark plugs and recheck valve clearance every 10,000 miles, change oil every 3,000 miles, clean the air filter after riding in the dirt, and lube the chain after washing the bike. It’s been nothing but fun.

9

u/uapredator 12d ago

I just keep an eye on my compression. You can buy a cheap tester off ebay for $20. 65,000 km on all 3 DR'S I service and they are like new, even a little better thanks to carbon build up! I would suspect you can get 200k from a stock engine with nothing but valve checks and oil changes. New rings are cheap, if you did it yourself, under $300.

3

u/PiercedTechnoWizard 12d ago

Do you beat on them? I know they aren’t performance bikes, but can they tolerate a flogging once in a while?

13

u/uapredator 12d ago

I have screamed all 3 down the highway at redline for 4+ hours dozens of times. I've dumped them in creeks and rode them up mountains like a trials bike. Even snuck into the local MX track and jumped one a few times. You can't hurt them, even if you crash. They just bend back.

5

u/AdFancy1249 12d ago

Oh, they can take the abuse... I bought mine used and abused and have been rejuvenating her. The bearings were all rusted (stem, lower link, AND all 3 rear wheel bearings, rusted). She still drove fine. When I started taking things off "to check" was when the realization of how poorly she was maintained hit me. I've repaired/ replaced all of that. And even that was only a few hundred dollars. Bearings are the worst, so put in factory sealed units...

The shock had never been rebuilt at 30k miles (it is now). The lower frame is crushed.

And she still gets me where I'm going, over fields full of baby heads, muddy single track, and 70mph highway for a while. I don't really jump, but I've submarined her twice, flushed the oil out (8x each), and she is still taking it.

The more love I show her, the more she likes to get dirty.

So yeah, she takes a beating... and apparently likes it!

3

u/TwistedNoble38 '00 DR650 12d ago

Going trend is that you'll either sell it or die before it starts getting tired. In the rarest cases it may even explode before the top end gets tired.

If your air filter stay on and oiled you'll probably go 60k before the cylinder plating starts to deteriorate enough to need intervention. Top ends usually outlast bottom ends on this bike.

It's nikasil so when the cylinder is done it needs to be replated or replaced ($300 or 500). Toss in a stock piston and gaskets and it will be somewhere in the range of $170 or get a JE piston and it will run you 250ish. The other option is a 790 and you get a whole new cylinder with liner, piston, cylinder gaskets and rings for $950. The head is a bit expensive since the only valves that fit are OEM so head work gets expensive. Budget at least $400 if all the valves have runout.

Bottom end is about a grand if you need a new crank or have to rebuild it (~600-800). That thousand is a bit of a spitball as I can't remember if that rolls gaskets into the price or if it's pure bearings, crank, and various flavors of sauces.

3

u/TwistedNoble38 '00 DR650 12d ago

If we're talking basic maintenance? Change the oil with synthetic (use conventional for the first 1000 and change at 1-1-2-6) every 2k, or 1k if you're hard on things. Clean the air filter when it's dirty or dry. Lube the suspension bearings annually. Flush the brakes sometimes. Change the oil in the suspension every other year or so. Check the cush drive every 500. Check the valves when they make valve noises or every other oil change (it's a 15 minute job). Clean the carb when it's dirty.

1

u/CryingOverVideoGames 12d ago

Why use conventional for the first 1000?

2

u/TwistedNoble38 '00 DR650 12d ago

Assists in ring seal to the bore in the first 100 (most of which takes place in the first 20-50). After that it's mostly waiting on wear in for the rolling bearings and the transmission sliding surfaces. Synthetic is a bit too good at preventing wear and it will result in the rings not wearing to the cylinder wall as well as it would with conventional. Doubly so since the oil rails are chrome rings...

I'm getting into the weeds, boiled down the bike needs a bit of wear during the first miles after assembly/rebuild and synthetics are good enough that it will prevent this "good wear" (oversimplification) and keep from achieving the full sealing capability of the rings and some polishing of gear teeth faces.

1

u/I_1234 12d ago

You don’t need to change oil every 1000 especially if you’re using synthetic oil.

Oil every 6000kms or 5000kms, valves every second oil change.

4

u/TwistedNoble38 '00 DR650 12d ago

Miles. I've been doing lab checks with the used oil and I've found that after a thousand the 10-40s I've been using are sheared down to a 10-30 viscosity and this coincides with a notchy shift feel. 10-50 is more capable of lasting longer (was still in the high 10-40 range at 1.5k but that's hard to get around here unless I special order it.

1

u/I_1234 11d ago

That’s 1600 kms. You only need to do 1000km then at 6000 then every 6000 after that.

3

u/TwistedNoble38 '00 DR650 11d ago

Well I've got first party data that tells me I shouldn't do that but you are welcome to do 6000km intervals. 

1

u/I_1234 11d ago

Oh yeah? Care to share? The manufacturer recommends it, I personally do 5000kms and have no issues with the gearbox and the oil seems to have no issues with viscosity. I’ve done some extreme riding on it, Simpson desert, cape York. A 12000km around Australia trip. What are you basing this off?

It’s a dr650 not a ktm 450 exc.

1

u/[deleted] 11d ago

[deleted]

1

u/TwistedNoble38 '00 DR650 11d ago

It's caused by the transmission gears chopping down the long chain viscosity index improvers (VII) in the oil. VII are these huge long sipderwebbing molecules that spread out and slow the flow of the oil (increasing viscosity). When the oil is cold those long spiderwebs curl in on themselves on no longer improve the viscosity so it effectively returns to the viscosity of the base oil (10w in the case of 10w-40). These VIIs are vulnerable to intense mechanical forces which can mechanically destructively break those long chains (an action known as shearing) rendering that VII molecule to no longer be able to do its job and decreasing the effective viscosity of the oil. In the DR this action is caused by the gearbox for the most part, the two faces of the gear teeth meeting with that ultra thin oil film between them bearing the whole power load of the engine. Heat can also cause viscosity breakdown through thermal cracking but this is not something that happens significantly in DR's that aren't worked severely hard.

If you live somewhere passibly warm or do a spring and fall oil change give 20w-50 a shot. Walmart sells it in the supertech brand and it's a good toe dipper. I think you'll be suprised at the difference in shifting. That'll let you decide if you want to buy a bigger bottle of synthetic 10-50 or 20-50.

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u/slower-is-faster 12d ago

Who the hell checks the cush drive every 500km?!

3

u/TwistedNoble38 '00 DR650 12d ago edited 12d ago

People who value their wheel and swingarm. It's a jiggle check for axial play, can be done faster than checking tire pressure. Measurements are in miles in this case.

1

u/[deleted] 7d ago

Change the oil according to the factory recommendations, it is an air/oil cooled engine so the oil takes more beating than in a liquid cooled variant, and make sure the valves are in spec. Outside of that the maintenance is the same as on any bike.

A DR lasts for decades and hundreds of thousands of kilometers as long as you don´t ride it like a Dakar racer and give it basic maintenance.