Rebuilding 2008 KLR Part 1

It’s been a while since I last posted but I haven’t been sitting idle! A few months ago I purchased this 2008 Kawasaki KLR with a blown up engine off of craigslist. And when I say blown up, I mean blown up! This was what the previous owner shared with me from his mechanic who looked at it:

• When removing the cylinder head he noted that both intake valves are bent from hitting the piston
• When flywheel mounting hardware was removed the flywheel fell out of position
• The cylinder head has a lot of metal/debris and is rendered unusable
• Exhaust camshaft is rendered unusable
• He noted there are many steel and aluminum chunks of metal in the bottom end
• Magneto is damaged and not usable

So, all that being said I decided to buy a replacement engine instead of trying to rebuild the old one. I found a decent deal on a 2017 engine with only 6k miles on eBay which I purchased. It arrived relatively quickly and appears to be in good nick:

I’ve not done anything with the new engine yet but I do plan on doing a 685cc kit just for funsises since the engine is already off the bike.

I have started tearing down the bike to get the old engine out. It’s been a slow-going project but I have made some progress as seen below. Since those pictures were taken I have also removed the exhaust, radiator, and a few more bits and bobs. More updates to come!