The Bike

After 87 days of searching CraigsList almost daily, I found the bike.  Actually, my boss found it, which doesn't surprise me much since he's a CL ninja.  A 1990 Suzuki DR350S with a clear Colorado title and a bad engine.  Several phone calls with the owner later, my wife and I drive to Salida to check it out.  We got the price down to $300 from $400 and drove home with Mad Max's non-running battle bike.

On paper, this bike hits all my main criteria and even checks off almost all bonus criteria.  In fact, the only thing this moto doesn't have are USD forks, but not many did for this vintage of dirt bike, so there's no points lost there.  The 6-speed transmission, rear disk brake, and wiring for turn signals, headlight and brake light (S-model of the DR350) were huge perks.  The bike also came with a Clymer manual, all original tools, spare tubes (F & R), and spare rear tire.

The dented tank, scratched plastics, worn seat, tired fork, and 4-bolt front hub won't survive this project, so their wear doesn't bother me.

The damage to the piston and cylinder is significant and apparent.  My plan is to have the cylinder bored from 79mm to 83mm to make it a 385cc bike.

The previous owner had disassembled the engine and did a pretty good job of bagging and tagging everything.  He used a cool trick for the bolts that I have never seen before.  I'm not sure I would have purchased this moto in the condition it is in if all the parts came in a shoebox.

One thing I didn't notice until I got into the garage and under some decent light was the significant scoring on the cam journals.  I noticed the rockers were seriously worn, but figured I would just replace those.  I did not realize I would need a whole new head too.  [insert frowny face here]  My guess is that this engine was starved of oil.  I only hope this was a user error and not an oil-feed problem that resurfaces after I replaced everything.

CRF disapproves of DR and is not afraid to show it.  CRF... behave.