My 2009 KX500AF [picture heavy] (SHE'S DONE!!!)

[FL_Sharpshooter]

I ended up buying a 2000 KX500 from my neighbor almost a year ago. I rode it one time and decided to turn it into an aluminum frame build. Sadly, I won't have much basis for comparison between the steel frame and aluminum frame, but that's ok , it's for the better! This is a project that me and my dad decided to take on, knowing not entirely what we were getting ourselves into, but that's the challenge and fun of it, right? Luckily, I am able to do research and use a lot of ideas from this forum! If I can, I'm going to break my posts up by about 5-6 pictures at a time. Starting off from the beginning with a 2000 KX500 and a 2009 KX450F (please ignore my messy garage - it is clean now ).

My neighbor's wife made him get rid of it. Lucky for me, bad for him . He said he could only ride it for 15 minutes or so before his hands went numb - maybe old man syndrome?   He is interested to see what the end result is though. This thing came loaded with goodies - oversized tank, fmf fatty exhaust and silencer, e-line pipe guard, e-line stator  , talon hubs/excel wheels, etc, etc.



First thing was first, the engine was pulled, and the frame was stripped.



..and the donor 2009 KX450F

[FL_Sharpshooter]

Sadly, I didn't get engine disassembly photos, but you've seen one, you've seen them all. The cylinder definitely needs replated, the piston is the original piston, the base gasket also had coolant blowby, which allowed some down in the crank area. The power valve assembly was 90% frozen, it wasn't even opening up correctly! It had rock solid carbon build up on it, wish I would've got a picture of it before I cleaned it. Oh, and the trans oil was the nastiest thickest black sludge I have ever seen. It's like it was painted on there, made a total mess in the garage on disassembly. No worries, we were able to get everything spotless. It's safe to say that he never changed the transmission oil. The crank is in great shape, but I decided to have it rebuilt (more on that later). This engine will see an entire rebuild - transmission clips, all bearings, seals, etc, etc. Back on to the build!

Couple of things we did notice on disassembly. Not sure what the scuffs marks are around the bearing - looks like the crank may have rubbed?


Previous owner installed a heli-coil, shouldn't be a problem.



Was able to buy some JFAB frame rails and a CR500 pro circuit works pipe with a 304 silencer. Should've ordered the frame rails straight instead of bent, but we got them to work (more on that later).


With the new parts, it was off to boring the cases for the larger swing arm bolt. Thanks to you guys, I was able to determine that a 43/64 bit was the way to go. Some high tech stuff here, we only have basic tools - drill press, table saw, drum sander, grinders, etc. We'll make it work - luckily my dad was a woodworker for over 20+ years, so him working on metal is not much of a transition.


Chopped up the original kx FMF pipe and blued it out in an effort to match the PC pipe. We need this part to weld on to the CR500 pipe. It'll be a pro fmf works pipe when its done  . We'll look at this part later in the build.

[FL_Sharpshooter]

The engine was fitted into the 450 frame. We can now see how big of a challenge we have ahead of us.



Luckily, I have a friend that was able to help with some beginning welds and frame surgery. Unfortunately, he was just too busy with other work obligations to continue with the build, so we will change pace later on the build.

Here it is, ready to be brought over and cut up.


I had to order a pile of aluminum for this build - I had to order some other pieces as well, but you get the idea. Most to all of it is 6061, but there's some pieces that are lower grade for such things like the airbox adaptor plate (we'll cover that later). Let's get started with cutting up the frame and fitting the engine first.

[FL_Sharpshooter]

The frame was cut and we got to work.



Sorry for the dark lighting, it was late at night. Here's the engine in the frame. This was all we got done for the night, it ended up getting too late.



A couple of days later, I get a text from my friend that he worked on the y piece (we're using the stock one). Not bad, not bad at all - but we'll have to clean it up some more (more later on that).

[FL_Sharpshooter]

Since the frame was at a friend's house being mocked up and tack welded, I decided to remove the stuck bearing on the crankshaft. I went ahead and ordered a Tusk puller for this, which worked absolutely perfect.


Meanwhile, the frame was welded. Everything was tack welded in place, everything seems to fit reasonably well.




A shot from the exhaust port.

[FL_Sharpshooter]

With the build going in a good direction, I decided to call up Packard racing and order a Lectron. He was able to set me up with a 44mm one with a power jet and his oversized billet bowl. He also supplied the throttle cable (terry cable?) and new throttle housing (domino duo 314). Just recently, I found out that this would not work with my build. The cable he supplied is entirely too long (by probably 4-5 inches - not sure how this would work on any build). Also, the cable doesn't have any threaded ends going to the throttle or the carb (very dangerous - I would've wire tied them). The domino throttle housing hits the front brake lever and there is no way to correct this. I phoned Dennis and he couldn't come up with a solution for this. Frustrated, I opted to go back to the stock throttle housing. I called Motion pro to see if they may be able to help with a cable for the stock throttle housing to the Lectron carburetor. They said yes, but it would be custom and I would need to send everything in (throttle housing, carb, etc) so that they can make one to fit. I would have gone this route, but just by chance, I decided to phone Lectron directly to see if they might have a cable that would work. Fortunately, they did have a cable that works with the stock throttle and their Lectron. Motion pro makes them a specific cable for this application (part #07-1340). I believe you can only buy this cable direct from Lectron themselves. It works with both the stock throttle and Motion pro's vortex throttle. I also needed Lectron's tool to adjust the needle (didn't want to risk damaging with pliers), so I went ahead and bought both the new cable and adjustment tool. So, a week passes and I get my new parts, everything looks great. The throttle cable fits the stock housing, but doesn't fit my Lectron. So, a phone call to Lectron it is. Unfortunately, I found out that my carburetor came with a double nut, instead of a threaded fitting  . I give Lectron a call (they were very nice), so more $ later, and I've got a new threaded piece headed my way now. Hopefully this will fix it up.




We can't be having any yellow on this bike, this isn't a suzuki!  


Seeing as how the transmission oil was dirty as crap, I decided to replace every bearing. Starting with the clutch hub bearing. After reading sandblaster's terrible experience with chinese OEM Kawasaki NTN bearings, I opted for a Koyo. No Chinese bearings for this engine!  


I also sent my new OEM rod kit off to crankworks

[FL_Sharpshooter]

Meanwhile, I had some down time. I decided to re-grease every single bearing on the kx450. Linkage, swingarm, steering stem, rear shock bearings. Everything. Rather than bore you with pictures from that stuff, I leave you with a single pic of me re-greasing the wheel bearings...don't get too excited  .



My dad had to order a new top end kit for his ktm 300 sx. We found the size difference between his piston and the 500's to be pretty hilarious. Bet you can't guess which is which  .


Meanwhile, I was able to snatch up a set of brand new beautiful raptor titanium footpegs off ebay for an awesome deal.


...and the crank came back from Crankworks! Sweet! They did a fantastic job. I had them true it up and weld the pin. Nice guys over there, and incredibly reasonable on price. I didn't want have the crank balanced.

[FL_Sharpshooter]

No fancy tools here. He's making something....what could it be?


Getting the idea now?


Bottom motor mounts! Cut from 1" thick 6061 aluminum. Man! Them suckers are thick! Don't think we'll have to worry about these breaking  . Not bad for having just a table saw, jig saw, grinder, and a drum sander!


Top motor mounts.


Ah...the mock up...

[FL_Sharpshooter]

Remember that y piece? We removed the old four stroke mounting point. Don't worry, we sanded it flush and got it looking nice.


Amplifier mount? We don't need no stinking amplifier mount! This was sanded and polished (you'll see later).


Old four stroke mounting ears. We won't be needing these.


I think it's ready for our new welder...


Sip going at it. Careful, don't stare - you'll burn your eyeballs!


Looking good!

[FL_Sharpshooter]

1 1/8" thick 6061 aluminum headstay piece


Works very nicely with our 1/2" thick headstay mounting plates. We're really fighting for room on our bolts (we'll talk about that later).




Our original fuel plate with the barb. It turned out that the barb hole was smaller than the lectron's hole, so we swapped it out for a larger one (you'll see later). The bolts were all changed for genuine Kawasaki bolts throughout the frame as well.


Here's the silencer fitted on the rear stock mounting hole for the 450 pipe. We later have the welder add an additional mounting tab for the silencer's front part. We were able to use conversionparts500.com's mount for that. We were also able to use their pipe mount for the front part of the exhaust head pipe. I have to really thank cp500 for supplying me with their "hex rivnuts". We've used these throughout the build.


The head pipe has by far given us the most amount of trouble. I wish I would've been able to use Service Honda's fmf pipe, but it just wouldn't of worked. I really wanted to do a pro circuit exhaust on this build anyways. We made an insert for the back half of the pipe to mount on and pressed a rivnut inside. It was then welded inside the frame (sorry no picture of that). We then replicated a cr500 mounting tab, just had to make one a little bit longer to reach the pipe.

[FL_Sharpshooter]

...and back to the welder it went. We now have the cdi mount welded, the fuel tap tab, the exhaust pipe, silencer tab, head stay, etc. The fuel tap is a remote tap off of a crf250r. We pressed a rivnut on the back part of the tab in order to mount it front ways. This concludes the welding of the frame, it is fully complete. All that we will have left to do is rebuild the engine and fabricate a skid plate and some other odds and ends. Obviously, there WILL be bling .



Everything mounted nicely on the exhaust, very pleased. We had to do so many changes to this pipe, it was pretty frustrating. I think it came out looking pretty good, especially considering what we had to work with. Needless to say, this pipe will be getting a carbon guard before it is used.


Front shot of the exhaust. The FMF's nose was welded to the pro circuit pipe.


He did an awesome job with the welds on the coil mount.


Showing the back part of the silencer. Clears the wheel with no problem.

[FL_Sharpshooter]

I was able to polish up the frame some. May or may not leave it this way. I would like to get it a little bit brighter - we'll see.




Our next step was to have some radiator work done. As you probably saw in some of the photos, we're using the service honda radiator hoses. So, we'll be using their routing as well. I also bought some specific silicone hose clamps from moto hose. We elected to send both radiators off to Myler's Radiators in West Jordan, Utah. We sent them off with very specific pictures and a drawn diagram of how we want them.

Radiator fill side:




Radiator left side:



Hopefully they can understand these  

[FL_Sharpshooter]

I heard they were making the VF2's again on here. Was able to buy up a set from moto tassinari  


We made an airbox adapter plate out of 5053? aluminum. Works great. After some research on here, we settled on a 2003 KX250 air boot. We used the adapter plate to convert over to a kx250 air cage, so this bike will use a kx250 air filter.


Riveted and good to go .


The boot fitted up relatively well, but there still leaves some tweaking to do. It does clear the shock, that's the main thing.


We also sorted out the cdi mount. We simply made an adaptor aluminum piece to mount the CDI to the old 4 stroke mount. We wanted to use this piece because it makes the wire and cable routing much cleaner. Also, we thought the best place to mount the CDI was behind the number plate. We did have to extend a couple of wires from the CDI approximately 5-6 inches. The wires were soldered then heat shrinked. We then put the wires in 5/16" wire harness tubing, I think it looks pretty factory, I am pleased with how it came out.


Meanwhile, we got the radiators back from Mylers, everything fit up perfectly. I put a light polish on the radiator tanks.




The next post will be the last post, which brings you up to date with the current build.

[FL_Sharpshooter]

Since we used Jerry's frame rails, we'll have to make our own skid plate. Rather than making it out of aluminum, I decided to make one out of HDPE plastic. The reason was because the plastic will be much easier to conform than aluminum, it should also be able provide more protection all around.

I ordered up a 2ftx2ft section of 1/4" thick HPDE plastic, was even able to find it in green!

Man! that thing is huge, it's about big enough to cover a football field! We'll make a cardboard template later and get to work. First, I want to get a 2 piece clutch cover with a hinson cover on it before doing any heat forming/cutting.

Seeing my dad's KTM, it gave us an idea. I wanted a skid plate similar to the TM Designworks one.


We determined that we would be able to use the KTM's mounting z brackets and u bracket, as well as the mounting hardware for the ktm mounts and kx450 crossmember. A simple call to TM Designworks and we were able to make it happen. A big thanks to Jerry @ TM Designworks for hooking us up. We will have to shim the center mounting bracket with 1 washer on each side, but everything else works perfectly. I did have to stop by the hardware store and pickup 2 longer bolts for that plate, because my mounting tabs are a lot thicker than the ktm's. I wasn't able to find the allen head cap style, but found miniature hex head ones (8mm head) that are the same width on the head size. Should look great when it is installed.


As I mentioned earlier, we replaced the fuel plate barb with a new, bigger one. It was then welded. The headstay mount was welded with very thick and beefy welds, I told the welder to go nuts on it. The head stay mounts were cut down about 1/4" in the back, and 1/8" in the front. The back plates were cut to give room to remove the bolts. The front part was cut an 1/8" to match a little bit nicer. We now have a fully disassemble-able head stay! I love the thickness, I think it is absolutely vital to have a strong head stay.



Remember I said that there was going to be bling?  . This is just the beginning. Radiator stickers.


I was also able to get an awesome deal on a Pro Moto Billet Kickstand. Score! These are absolutely necessary for us trail riders! Awesome piece, I have one on every bike.



..and this brings us to where we are currently on the build. I am waiting for a 2 piece clutch cover so that we may begin fabricating the skid plate. I plan to have a decompression valve installed in the head. I will also hopefully be getting with Roostius on buying one of his extended clutch arms. We have a little more ways to go. Everything beyond rebuilding the engine is small. Graphics, plastics, possibly wheels, etc. I'm really excited and happy with how it has turned out so far!

[alward25]

Where in Florida?