Suzuki DR-Z 400 S MOT Uplift

[Jay]

My DRZ has been SORN for a while. I wasn’t using it. I decided to rectify that. Went to the MOT station after replacing the battery with a new Lithium one and got laughed off, with the tester saying there’s much you need to go and fix. OKAY, it passed an MOT last time, so not sure what the issues was… Anyhow, got a list and have been working to rectify the issues:

• Rear indicators not working (they were at last MOT time)
• Rear plate has incorrect reflector
• Rear plate has no white tail light
• Engine exhaust manifold is blowing
• Rear passenger pegs missing

Oh and during the works I discovered my tail is bent! The whole seat/tail (subframe mounted) of the bike is listing out to the right. Must have been like that before I took ownership of it. I’ve not done that.

Old battery exposed. This one didn’t like being left to discharge whilst laid up. Note the Noco boost pack extension that was needed to revive it after coming out of storage.

New Lithium battery installed. Works a treat and weights nothing. Shouldn’t discharge anywhere near as much. The ones I have on the sports bikes just don’t seem to drain on their own.

Legit exhaust.

Oh, what’s this? The tail leans to the right? Oops.
New tail unit with working plate light and indicators going on. Wires too short, I need to lengthen them.

Tail unit wires too short. Time to Lengthen them.

Melting solder joins. Quite nifty. Automotive grade so should be water resistant.

Testing the continuity after lengthening the wires.

Bought a new subframe to replace what I hope is the old bent one. Despite asking the eBay seller if it was straight, I’m not sure it is. Hrm.

She’s in the garage now, for the exhaust manifold fix. Worked out after fitting the aftermarket exhaust, that it did in fact need an o-ring between the exhaust port and the exhaust header, despite it not mentioning this at all. Got one from eBay.

Need more room to work on the exhaust manifold. Taking the left radiator off. This has seen better days. Will try and clean up/improve later.

Drained the coolant. It had dirt in it. Need to work out how to flush it. Don’t want crap in the system.

Will most up as I get more done.

[TheMonkey27]

Hose in the bottom rad pipe outlet and run it. Has cleared all the crud I’ve had in any cooling system,

[Jay]

Using non-distilled water? Won’t that cause limescale? I’ve seen some terrible results of people running water in their coolant system.

[TheMonkey27]

Only for flushing purposes. Once it’s drained out there is no issue.

[me_groovy]

I’m confused how the rear pegs missing is an MOT failure?

[nivag]

My understanding is if they were factory fitted they should be there for the MOT unless the rear part of the seat has a seat cowl.

[TimR]

If it has a “rear seat” then pegs must be present

[Jay]

Exactly what the MOT man said.

Trouble is, they’re quite hard to come by. Have ordered some pattern parts from some random website, but after three weeks, they’ve yet to ship. Think that money might be lost.

[nivag]

Stick something like this over the back part of the seat

motorcycle Pillion Rear Seat Cover Cowl Solo Cowl Rear Fairing For Honda...

Or maybe a pillon seat bag?

[Boris]

I might be able to find mine if you want some for an MOT, they don’t fold up anymore though

[Jay]

Thanks all. I’ll continue to look for some pegs. They’re not a bad thing to have, just in case you need to rescue someone.

[me_groovy]

Could you stick a couple of long bolts in? I mean technically they could be pegs

[Jay]

Hrm. Maybe not bolts, but some eBay special pegs might go in. Will have a look at bolt hole placement. Ta.

[T_cat]

Have you checked what other models the DR Z ones fit? You may already have a pair you have previously taken off another bike in the past.

[Jay]

Exhaust manifold was blowing. Turns out the standard cooper o-ring was missing. Put one in and tried to use new OEM header bolts but they didn’t seem to want to go in, so found some aluminium bolts I had laying around and they fit perfectly. Hopefully I won’t regret this. I do prefer to replace with original or performance parts where possible.

Will check soon to see if it’s cured the blowing. Can probably do without the washers now after finding shorter bolts in my bolt drawer.

Did want to remove that emissions management pipe thing in the way of the header to get better access, but for the love of me, I could not find what hex bolt it needed. 4, 4.5 and 5mm would not fit. Bizarre. As usual, Suzuki documentation doesn’t say what it is.

OEM header bolts

The left radiator is in worst shape than I thought. It’s taken a hit at some point and been dented. The fan was actually touching the radiator in places, so I heated up some bent tabs and got it back into alignment. one bolt hole is unusable though, but that doesn’t seem to affect things.

[Jay]

Manifold seems fixed. Not blowing anymore. Yay.
Engine ticks. Can’t remember if that’s normal or not. Maybe cam chain needs tightening?

Suzuki DRZ 400 S post exhaust manifold fix

[Jay]

Test-fitted the Brand-New Second Hand subframe. It’s straight! There’s a very slight amount of deflection still, but well within limits of what’s acceptable and worthwhile fixing. Phew

Just got to re-thread all the electronics around the subframe and re-assemble the fairings and we’re good to go. Oh, and I need to sort the rear pegs.