Doohickey

Estimating and Project Management

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The Kawasaki KLR 650 is a very durable bike with a durable engine. However, there is one small flaw which if left uncorrected can cause huge problems later. The problem is that the factory balancing chain idler shaft adjuster (commonly called a "Doohickey") often breaks. The solution is to replace it with one manufactured by Eagle or Sagebrush Machine.

There are several places that give detailed instructions on replacing the Doohickey, so I'm not going to try to improve on that here. I ordered the tools and parts to do the job from Arrowhead Motorsports, and followed the directions at Mark's KLR pages.

Here's some photos of my Doohickey-ectomy. After opening things up, I noticed I had only a tiny amount of clearance between the balancer chain and the case, which many others have also reported, so I had to trim the case a bit with my Dremel tool to allow for future adjustments.

Only 0.018" clearance - yikes!

Ahh, much better. A new spring too.

Backside of inner cover - old spring was smacking it I guess

Old one didn't look bad at first, but notice the fracture. Crack kills.

The new Eagle Doohickey installed - Joy!