Hagbard

And BTW, thanks for the info about these OEM+ upgrades, I cut my teeth on MK2 VW's and that was like the essence of my experience - junkyard tuning with hot OEM parts from other VW/Audi/Porsche models that were pretty much bolt on, or a little jury rigging required. I kind of got the sense that it *should* be possible from my experience hybridizing the LT160 with a 230E engine and seeing the similarities between those two, my old LT185, and the KQ300. The basic engine design is essentially the same in all of them, to the point where there must be some similar undocumented mods to be done.

I used SearchTempest and found a couple leads, but lookit this beaut. https://richmond.craigslist.org/snw/d/quinton-suzuki-quadsport/7381641051.html

Does the pope sh&t in the woods? I set a saved search for it. I see one on there for 170 or so. I’ve gotta wait for a preowned model to come around I think, or someone just liquidating some NOS

Not seeing anything there. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, I don't know?

Ordered the last 2 Good tip! I guess I have to set some alerts for 250S cams now.

Can't find the cams anywhere except from Japan at $160 a pop. I'm searching thru parts diagrams for the springs you mentioned, but haven't found anything yet. Got a part #? Earliest I see for a LTF4WD is 1987, and all the valve springs listed show as being used throughout a large range of models and years, nothing specific to one year.

Just for grins, I sprayed a ziploc bag with the paint to test for cracking/elasticity. It held on REALLY well, and not until the bag was ripping did the paint even flake a smidge. Just need to track down a quart of clear from my paint guy with some "flex additive" whatever the hell that is... I mixed PPG Deltron system back in the day, and painted a crapton of bike frames, never heard of such a thing, but I never was painting plastic, so... I figure it must be more common now with all the ABS bumpers and body panels. Gonna swing by and do some jawing with the guy tomorrow. But for the price, and considering the durability/flexibility of the paint - at $17 a quart its a BARGAIN. Clear will probably cost me 3x that. Oh, and for anyone so inclined, TSC also has 80 grit Aluminum Oxide blasting media for $11 per 50 lb bag, compared to $60 for the same product and quantity at Harbor Freight. Plus I picked up a roller chain breaker there. Tractor Racing Supply for the WIN.

Already have a fan on the way, and some replacement valve inspection caps to try and stem the tide of oil leaking right onto the exhaust. It’s like a friggin James Bond 007 car with the smokescreen button 😂 Might just pick up a couple of the 250s cams and throw the other one in my Frankenquad (160 with a 230e motor swapped in, and a DG RCM neighbor annoyer) to spice things up Threw a coat of paint on the plastics after a lot of media blasting and priming and sanding. JD Yellow from TSC Racing is a damn near dead ringer for the Suzuki yellow.

Gotta love Facebook Marketplace, and the crackheads that you can buy things from on there... Naturally, I'm like "Hook up the trailer, let's go get this pile of eBay parts!" and hauled as* to this dude's house with 3 crisp Benjamins to wave under his nose. Showed up about 20 minutes early to find him and his buddy hastily reassembling the pile of plastics into a semi-presentable quad, using some real sweet bulk bin galvanized hex bolts from Tractor Supply Racing Co. Looked it over and handed him the three bills in exchange for a transferrable registration from 11 years ago, and a STACK of handwritten bills of sale from the last 11 years, since apparently no one has gotten it functional (for long). Average ownership period ranges from 6 months to 2 years. Fingers crossed, lads! Got it home, and hit it with a healthy dose of bike wash and the pressure washer, more bike wash, a lot of scrubbing, and more pressure washing to get years worth of crud off of it. The entire left side of the crankcase was covered in an eighth inch of caked oil mud, as though there had been a catastrophic loss of oil at some point in the past, because it was nowhere near the drain or fill holes. Totally opposite side. Managed to find the VIN hiding in there and ran it for giggles. PO mentioned that he "had it running at the beginning of the season, but it was 'rough' " and that he had cleaned the carb, but it didn't help much. And now it just plain wouldn't fire at all. Kind of threw his hands up and shrugged. So, after cleaning it up enough to turn wrenches without looking like a Texas oilman, I took off the plastics and started poking around. Found a few fishy spots in the harness where previous attempts at repairs had been shoddily made and hidden with black tape. Sorted those out, drained and filled with fresh oil and a filter, and hooked up a battery. Turned the key, got a green light, hit the starter switch and got a little grunt and squeak out of it, then nada. No light, no nothing. Pulled out the DeOxIt D5 and started pulling apart all the connectors and giving them the business. put everything back together again, turned the key, got green light, and starter cranked! Then nothing again. Started fiddling with the wiring and connections while watching the green light, and saw a flicker when I bumped the 25A fuse holder. Gave it a squeeze, and sure enough, the light came on. Thing was full of powdered remains of spade terminals, so I installed a NOS replacement model from RADIO SHACK that had been swimming around in my toolbox for nigh a decade. Sure of my fix, I tried the starter again, and NOTHING again. More fiddling revealed that the OTHER fuse holder (15A) was the same. Homebrewed another fuse holder from spade connectors and shrink tubing, hooked it all up and everything was good. Now that I could crank it, I poured a couple cups of gas in the tank and pulled the plug to check for spark. Good blue spark, once I cleaned up the theretofore fouled plug and gapped it. Screwed it back in, with a healthy dose of ether, and gave it a crank. Not even a wheeze or a sputter. Off with the carb! So, I think our old friend PO has a drastically different definition of "carb cleaning" than I do. I'm thinking maybe he wiped down the OUTSIDE of the thing, and was shocked that it had little to no result. That white stuff is a combination of powdered aluminum oxide and near-varnish fuel. Has the consistency of slight dried mayonnaise or white library paste, but no pleasant wintergreen aroma to match. A quick perusal of the Amazon bargain bin turned up a carb (BST31SS) and non-vacuum petcock for $25, with a caveat that the carb required minor modifications to fit. Four days and a lot of sandblasting and surface prep on the plastics while I waited, the carb arrived today and I drilled out the ferrules for the choke and throttle cables to accept slip-fit cables instead of thread-ins. Other than that, the only difference was a lack of one vacuum port for the petcock, which I had anticipated and purchased a regular old one with no vac diaphragm in it. Safety first, amirite? Now with definite spark, and reliable fuel delivery, I started cranking and fiddling with the idle and air screws, managed to get it to fire up - almost literally~ There was a LOT of smoke coming from near the exhaust port on the head, thought I had loose header studs for a minute, then realized it was just more of the old oil mud I had missed while cleaning, burning off between the fins on the head and the exhaust heat shield. First fire up - lots of smoke While I was changing the oil, I took the opportunity to pull off the access covers and adjust the clutch and valve lash, so I was feeling OK about running it a little more. Got the idle and mixture set a bit better and decided to test out the transmission and shifting a little. Testing reverse Realized I left the parking brake set, so it stalled out. Oops. Another thing I did while waiting for Brown Suit Santa to bring my carb was to remove the diff lockout pin from the shifting mechanism and I wanted to see if it worked. Here's the quad, up on the lift, minus the LF wheel (due to a seized cylinder I've since replaced) with range set to HIGH, and Differential Lock engaged. Worked like a charm. Had to holler at the dog who was camped out below the rear tire Dog under the tire. Again. I think she has a death wish. Or perhaps aspirations of being a jackstand in the pro-leagues. Testing Diff Lock in High Range Put the wheel cylinder in, (Dorman w38750 for a 1991 Geo Metro/Suzuki Swift was a precise fit and only $10) to replace this crusty POS: put the wheel and hub back together, put seat back on and fired it up. Made sure it would start again after turning it off. Long Live The King All the repairs appear to have been successful all around! I took it out for a quick rip up the street and back, needs a little bigger main jet (it came with a 145 installed, which I swapped out for the 120 OEM spec, but it feels boggy at WOT, so I'm going to experiment a little after I get the airbox back together, but 145 seems like a big jump. I'll try to post an update once I have the plastics all refinished and installed next week. Pretty sure it's going to be yellow, no camo or green bullshit for me thanks Hope you didn't hate my post.

For anyone who happens to land here from google - HELLO FROM THE YEAR 2021! Figured it out, at least I think I did. Went back with a fresh set of eyes this morning and realized I had the shifter linkage (tie-rod looking piece) swiveled around 180 at the end that attaches to the shifter spline on the bike. Pulled it off and re-installed it correctly and the shifter now works, albeit the lever itself is sloppy as all hell. Re-adjusted the clutch according to the LT160E manual's procedure, and it all feels right now. Going to test fit a few short throw dirtbike shift levers on it and see how they feel.

Have a long story that I'll attempt to make brief. I picked up what was advertised as a 1987 LT230E with no cam or valve cover, harness dangling, no plastics, and all kinds of slop in every bushing and bearing, but hey, it was free and I love a challenge. Local guy had a couple 87 230E motors he was selling on craigslist, picked up one of those and a pisspounded DG RCM and header for $100. Went through the harness to start sorting things out and noticed a few key differences, like the stator connectors didn't mate up, one round and one square. Rubbed some of the grime off and found a VIN, Lo and behold - I have a 1990 LT160E, not a 1987 230E... By the grace of who knows what, the 230 just so happened to mount up directly to the 160 frame with no mods. Wasn't until I had broken the seal on starting to chase down the harness leads that I found out. As it stood, advertised as a 1987 230E After a bit of elbow grease and some eBay raiding. Made a new seat cover and found a set of plastics, New carrier bearings, and brakes all around. Pulled the steering and front suspension all apart and gave it some love with new bushings and tie rods Ordered a small fortune in NOS and China parts from eBay and RockyMountain and after a couple weeks of wrenching and soldering I have a nearly complete wheeler, in pretty decent shape. Cleaned up a Mikuni carb I had laying around and mounted it up with a cone filter and a Lowe's Racing™ intake boot, and fed it some gas, primed the carb and tugged on the started rope a few times, and sure enough it belkched out some soot and fired up, ran for a couple seconds and died. No sputter, just shut off. Checked for fuel startvation, vacuum in the tank, no problems there, plenty of gas in the carb. Suspected clogged air jets, so I pulled it out of the boot and gave it a shot of ether, and it did the same thing, fired up, ran strong for 2-3 seconds and shut off. Then suspected I f*%#ed up the wiring harness somewhere, and re-traced all the leads with my newly colored wiring diagram, thanks to my kiddo's Crayola marker collection, and everything looked good. Started to suspect the CDI, solenoid, or coil might be faulty and was flipping thru the manual when a buddy stopped by with a pair of boat seats for me to reupholster for him. He's a little bit of a savant with engines and electronics, and he got curious when I told him my predicament. Three minutes later he said "Hand me a pair of needlenose?" which he used to short the neutral switch to ground, and had me give it another tug. Fired up and ran great, no shutting off, so we deduced that the neutral switch must be at fault and after he left, I pulled it off to troubleshoot, and decided to flick the shifter a couple times with it off to see the little nubbin go around in a cricle. It didn't. I should mention at this point that I had previously changed the oil and while doing so, I took the opportunity to adjust the clutch without consulting the manual because I'm the dumbest guy I know. I did it according to the procedure I had learned for the LT185 I have, and figured the adjuster itself looked the same, they must be the same thing. I loosened the 10mm lock nut, and started turning the adjsuter screw clockwise waiting to encounter resistance, and then back it off 1/8 turn. I was really surprised when it kept turning and turning, but figured it must have been WAY out of adjustment, and went on with business. Figured I might need clutch plates at some point. Encountered this problem, and actually read the manual and the procedure is entirely different, and I realized that I had basically "adjusted" it into oblivion. I have since drained the oil and tried to re-adjust it twice, with no luck. Anyone have any idea what I can or should do to correct the issue, or am I missing something else entirely here? (chain is off and sprocket nut is loose, if that makes any difference.) Any insight or advice would be appreciated, thanks.