Mike's Tenere & Motorcycle Blog

DirtRacks Tenere 700 Crash Bars  DirtRacks is a Canadian company located in Langley, BC (a Vancouver suburb) operated by brothers Robert & Fred, whose passion for Kawasaki KLRs led to their development of luggage racks, crash bars, etc for that bike that has expanded to other makes/models such as the Tenere 700.  The Tenere 700 crash bars utilize 1" diameter powder coated steel tubing that install in just a few minutes, without any need to remove body panels, that bolted up with no issues...they come with longer engine mount bolts  & the rear frame crash bar mount holes are elongated to facilitate easier fitment.  They should fit all current non-World Raid Tenere 700 models. DirtRacks designs & products are simple, straight forward, hand made solutions that offer similar functionality as most mass production manufacturing without the sometimes hefty price tag...a case where good value also equates to a good functional product...reminiscent of Camel ADV products, anothe

  M5 Well Nut For Windscreen & Side Deflectors Replacement M5 windscreen & side deflector well nuts for the expensive Yamaha oem #90179-05523 part can be found on Amazon in various quantities...I opted for a 24 pack that included stainless screws sourced from China. Note that some have a raised ridge on the body that may not fit the Yamaha holes, so opted to duplicate the Yamaha continuous diameter design & some packaging includes multiple sizes such as M4, M5, M6. Despite some minor manufacturing size differences from the dimensions advertised in the picture above, they fit & work similar to the oem well nuts.   Tech Tip:  The brass nut will pull though the rubber housing with repeated use and/or over tightening & if comes in contact with the windscreen/side deflectors can stress/fatigue the plexiglass mounting holes & cause cracks.  They are a wear item that should be replaced when needed, of which the frequency of windscreen/side deflector removal & % of

Tenere 700 Throttle Body Sync Procedure At 12k km it was time to check my 2021 Tenere 700's throttle body sync, which I suspect is out a little, as the bike is no longer quite as smooth as it once was.  This requires some form of vacuum gauge & about 1 hour to remove body panels & tank to gain access to the throttle bodies, sync them & put it all back together....not a difficult job, just a little time consuming.  Bike Specs 2021 Tenere 700 Canadian model (Japan Factory) 12, 218 km 7,591 miles oem original spark plugs valve clearance oem factory Guglatech Ultra 4 Air Filter + FunnellWebFilters Pre-Filter Chevron regular 87 RON unleaded fuel  Required Tools #4 & #5 allen, T30 Torx, small diameter punch for push pin connectors, long needle nose pliers, small slotted screwdriver differential manometer or vacuum gauges - years ago I made an inexpensive & easy to make differential monometer.  It consists of about 6 meters or 20' of 5/16th" OD / 3/16th"