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The foot peg bracket bolts are another common TE610 failure point. The brackets are welded from multiple pieces of thick stamped steel that are bowed by the stamping process and never get flattened. Further, the thread inserts are welded into the frame with lumps of weld bead above the plane of the mating surface. The resulting mess makes it impossible for the bolts to properly clamp the parts together and stay tight. As a result, the bolts eventually either loosen, break, or loosen and then break.
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| The contact area on this bracket clearly shows the curvature of the bracket (high in the center), making it impossible to achieve a bolted joint with integrity. |
Mark DiBella at MD Automotive made the backs of the brackets flat and spot-faced the fronts so the bolt heads would clamp parallel surfaces. Removing the stamping flash from the edges of the brackets and deburring sharp edges makes them look better.
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| The footpeg brackets after the mating surfaces were flattened and the areas under the bolt heads spot-faced to be parallel, eliminating massive bending stress on the bolt heads. |
The most ideal way to correct the frame would be to put it on a mill and make the contact points perfectly flat and coplanar. To avoid making the initial setup of the bike a complete frame-off job, I filed them very carefully by hand, which is how most people do it. My main focus was to knock off weld filler that prevented the brackets from contacting a flat surface on the frame. If you check, you'll see that the contact surfaces of the thread inserts are not coplanar. File one insert at a time, or you'll end up just making an angle between the two of them. The more you file, the more you're likely to screw it up, so rather than filing one more than the other to make them coplanar, buy or make some shims for the low one.
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| You can “approximate” perpendicularity to the thread set by using a Sharpie on the flat part and threading in a reasonably quality JDM automotive flange bolt to indicate the contact areas until you get even (enough) contact all around. When you're done, chase the threads and clean with solvent, because Loctite doesn't stick to oil. |
Factory finish on the frame is a heavy phosphate layer with powdercoat on top, which you're not going to be able to duplicate. To restore the frame's corrosion protection, I used a zinc-rich primer with a top coat. I keep LPS Cold Galvanizing Spray and Rustoleum Machine Gray around the garage, and haven't had that combination suck yet.
I'll admit to having moments of doubt about having chosen the right bike before all this work was complete. But the fixes are all one-time corrections, not recurring maintenance, and at the end of the day, all of this was a lot simpler and cheaper than fundamental re-engineering of a bike's design, like changing forks or building the engine. True, you might not get some of these flaws on a Japanese bike, but no Japanese company builds a bike with all the TE610's positive traits, and even the Honda XR650R has proven to need attention to the foot peg mounting hardware.
The next installment will continue on basic setup and maintenance that's peculiar to the TE610, but all things you can accomplish with hand tools. It'll be minor fixes and updates not requiring welding: standard motorcycle stuff, plus a few checks unique to the TE610.
Zenith Performance Fabrication
