The DR650 is an awesome bike once you fix basic problems Suzuki has been too lazy to fix. One of
these problems is when your starter motor sounds like this... or this. Or this. It often happens in
the warranty period. Some suzuki dealers are as lazy as the Suzuki designers and will say "It's
normal, don't worry about it". Crap! Suzuki try to save money by not putting enough grease in. Insist
your starter motor noise is fixed under warranty! Suzuki only fix key issues if it starts to cost
them money. Force the issue! If you aren't under warranty here is how to fix it yourself. Here is
our squawking starter motor. Suzuki have done nothing to make things accessible on this bike.
So, first we take off the header pipe bolts here. Take this off so we can loosen that. Next we take
the header pipe off. Next we take off this mount for the clutch cable. Next we want to disconnect
the oil cooler line up here and here so you can make room to get the starter out. Remove the cam
chain tensioner then disconnect this electrical lead, and then we can we get the starter engine
out. While we're here, one thing I should mention is... see a little hole down there?
There's a drain hole right there at the rear, and this is where water catches in this stupidly
designed cavity here. If the starter motor is not perfectly sealed, pooled water can get into here.
So you always want that hole clear, and you really should leave your bike on an angle when you park
it to get the water out of there. Pull it apart, make sure your lines are very clear here and
here so we can align it on reassembly. The reason the starter motor squeaks is because they put so
little grease in here, so we're going to be grease all these bearings up nicely. This next bit, we're
going to ease off very carefully. We're going to put a lot of grease in all these different bits
to get rid of that squeaking sound. This bike is still nearly new, but you really want to make sure
that all your brushes and everything are in good condition. Let's get some decent grease into this
bugger. Because of this stupid design with water pools and can get into the motor I think it's
good to put grease around your rubber seals here. And of course make sure these are lined up. Make
sure your rubber seals are in perfect condition or greased up, we want to keep this baby waterproof.
Tighten the bolts on top and put some new grease on the splines. We easer her back in carefully,
there we go, and remember you do not want to move your bike while it's in gear or otherwise these
splines will not mesh up. A very important part, we've put the cam chain tensioner back in, we need
to wind this back in because it's sticking out. This is spring-loaded and it put a screwdriver
in here and turn it and retract this, so we can squeeze it back in. And now it's back on with
this lead and cable, and of course remember to do up your oil line again and make sure these little
washers haven't dropped out of the way. You don't to be springing oil leaks. Something I should
mention, the gasket for your campaign tensioner can rip, so I put a bit of this on just to make
sure she's going to be okay. and yep no oil leaks, all good! Let's hear how she sounds... beautiful!
We've done a whole series of vids on how to fix and modify the DR650 on our adventure on channel.