My old mechanic/engineer had a hydro-locked klx with a bent con rod taken to him for repairs. He was a guy with 40yrs experience of fabricating, welding & machining customs parts & he looked at the crank very carefully to see if he could do a cheap rod swap & weld but he said NOT possible on this type of pre-made crank & bought for the customer from Kawasaki the fully assembled klx rod & crank to fix the bike. Sorry
So when old Scottie says it can't be done....I believe him!! Buy a second hand item from ebay or buy a new item from Kawasaki for less than 150 bucks.

 

JT, I was afraid of that. Since Kawasaki was showing the option of a con rod replacement on the KLR and old air-cooled KL, but not the KLX, I suspected a proprietary assembly on our KLX crank/rod setup. Man!...that's a nicely bent con rod there...LOL!

 

That con rod just proves you can't compress water.
Adrian is parting out a bike in Cyprus, he might have one.

 

Looking at that diagram, it is clear that the conrod is a one piece unit. The problem with changing it out is that when you split the crankshaft to put the new rod in, how do you ever put it back together with the 2 crankshaft halves centerline of the shaft lined up???

If you can answer that, you may be able to do it. If you can't you should just save up for a crankshaft assembly or try and get one from a parted out motor.

 

Brass hammer, press, a roller balance platform, and a pair of dial guages...at least to start with...LOL!

I've seen it done by a real mechanic at the shop I used to work at part time, but I can't/won't do it. I'm a hack.

 

I am gonna try klr con rod

 

I would start by seeing if local machine shop can press crank apart. If so, then measure to confirm klr rod will work.
good luck
marc

 

I've done a couple two stroke cranks - same concept. The pin can be pressed out. We used a hand pump type set up. It can be a bit tricky. Once pressed together again it takes some fine tuning to get the proper bearing side clearance, plus the run out has to be checked to make sure the halves are in line with each other and neither pinched nor spread on the side opposite the rod pin. It's not easy, but it is definitely doable.

Harley uses a similar set up, but they use a tapered fit pin and large nuts to hold it where the KLX crank is simply using the interference fit of the pin to the crank. I'd bet if you knew an open minded Harley mechanic you could get some help and possibly access to a crank truing stand.

 

Mark, I'd agree with you for cranks that are designed to be split and reassembled. I wouldn't be surprised if the KLX crank has something a bit different that might complicate a rod replacement. That said, apparently that company "Stroker" did a stroked crank for the KLX300...same crank as far as I can tell...so obviously they figured out how to split it and reassemble. Most of the cranks I've seen cracked open for rod replacement were full-circle style cranks. The KLX is what I've always seen referred to as a "porkchop" style crank...but...I don't really think that negates rod removal. KLR250/650's have removable rods and parts available from Kawasaki. It's odd the KLX250/300 does not.