The Shures Network

1. A single bolt on my trailer ramp is needed for a reason.
2. Even at only 330#, my motorcycle is still heavy.
3. Hindsight is 20/20

This is the side case from my motorcycle getting fixed with J.B. Weld. After I made a hole in it, I discovered that there really is oil in there and it will come out.

While de-trailering the bike, the ramp slipped off because I didn’t put the nut on the single bolt. As the bike was dropping half way off, I had to man handle it the rest of the way down. This resulted in a gentle lay over on its side which was enough to do the damage.

These side cases are made of extremely light weight magnesium, it’s a great material but very weak and brittle. If the Suzuki DR-Z400 gets dumped on its left side, there is a risk of punching a hole in the side cover with the gear shift lever.

This is a common occurrence on this particular motorcycle and the fix is well documented. J.B. Weld is perfect for doing the job. I knew about this ahead of time and also already had the aluminum side case shields that would have prevented it. But I hadn’t gotten around to putting them on yet. Doh…

Here’s the shifter after a little re-engineering as it should have come from the factory.

The knife edge is gone.

Here is the DR-Z400 all fixed, back on the road, and better than new. Now there is a soft aluminum shield sandwiching a layer of silicone protecting the side cases on either side of the enigine. The best part is you can’t even tell there was ever a hole there.

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