Boss. I have exactly that same seat cover on both my Bashan and my KLR.

i am amazed how much better the bike runs with the nibbi carb. started right up and idles even without choke (which is good cause it aint got much of one from what I can tell). Also the low end acceleration is better, paired with that nibbi filter I felt slight increase on power. like I said, nothing to write home about but definately worth the small expense. at this point, i am ready to head out to alaska to convert the hawk into a hybrid/snowmachine and stock up on bug spray. I am sick of this heat! im a sweaty mess. Take care fellas. Im not even gonna grammar chek this one.

edit. I was mistaken. choke is fine. nevermind.

this bike is sexy!
 

gas mileage
 

finally did a definitive mileage check. with new carb, 44 tooth rear and 17 tooth front and the air filter I got 83 MILES PER GALLON (yes i corrected for units vs miles) . BUT a good 30 miles of that was on backroads puttering around 4000-4500 rpms at most. I am going to do another check today and see if I was mistaken.

I just put on my 16t front to go with my 47t rear sprocket. It just doesn't have the low end I need in 5th gear with the 17t front. 4th gear is great and would get me up above 50mph, but as soon as a shift to 5th she just gives up. Of course this is going into the wind a bit, but we're only talking like 10mph to 15mph winds. Will report back soon on how she does. The next thing I need to look at is the carb. She's lean, but not too bad. I will pull the plug at 1000 miles and get a pic posted.

part of the fun is learning and tinkering.

speedometer needle broken
 

Well, after banging and banging, my speedo needle finally broke. I am hoping the digital cluster doesn't sell out before my payday. They had 9 left yesterday and I have two weeks to wait. I am sweating it.

My needle is bouncing around. Is there no fix for it? It just dies and you have to get new cluster?

did another mileage check. went 215 "units" on 2.1 gallons of gas which after my calculations = about 78 mpg from that tank. Not bad.

mine danced and danced until the needle broke off. it was banging pretty hard.

Yeah, there is a reason most of us upgraded to a digital cluster. The most impressive feat I have seen from a Hawk is a guy that has a perfectly functional stock speedo with 5000 miles on it.

Well, I've been sitting around worrying about my head gasket, even though I've got the new head gasket. Even though it doesn't appear to be leaking any worse than it did in the beginning, in the interest of reliability and the fact that the folks at powersportsmax.com hooked me up, I will install it. But in the short term, I'm about to jump on my motorcycle while it is wonderfully cool out, and the leaves are changing. I'm going to some covered bridges. Oh, and I will post the pictures here. Don't worry about me; I have full coverage, roadside assistance, and everything that a poor boy can have. So, I'm about to embark on this journey, and there's only one way I could have achieved this journey, and that's through the Hawk 250. Thanks!

is the leak impacting the oil level significantly and or causing smoke/burnoff...If not it can be 'lived with' for a while...

No harm in replacing the head gasket/oil feed o'ring as you don't have to replace the cylinder and piston.

Hopefully you already have a torque wrench for the head bolts...

Push rods make your task easier! No cam chain to deal with. Just keep it all clean, rods back in the same place and orientation. Maybe you can leave them in place during the gasket change. This is a remove and replace job. Don't sweat it.

I bought a torque wrench and learned how to use it. I rode two hours today with no issues, but like I said I have to remove the tank to do the speedometer so I might as well do it all at the same time. Anyway, I rode out to two covered bridges (I don't really like them that much but they are a great excuse to get rural). here are a few pictures.