Dong Fang 250rte-a dual sport

[vomitis]

Hey everyone, Finally got caught up with things to tell everyone about the dong fang dual sport.
The bike looks better in person than in the pictures they show on the web.The fit and finish looks alot better than I was expecting, until you take something off. None of the bolt holes lined up, except for the bolts in the engine and one for the air box. Start a bolt then pull, push, or pry to get another bolt started. Then tighen bolts. The factory even filed a hole wider so they could attach side cover. After its together its fine.
The plastics are nice looking. They are painted then decals put on and then clear coated over decals. looks nice. I wish the decals weren't painted over though. Better paint job than whats on my 2011 silverado.
I don't think the plastics would hold up long to any kind of abuse, they are made out of a hard resin type material. They have no flex. I hope I'm wrong on that, lol.
It runs great. Its a 229cc pushrod motor based on honda i think. Starts on the first try 80% of the time. The weather here has been near or at freezing and wet, so I've not been able to get an accurate impression on road manners. The little bit i have ridden it is a blast to ride. Agile, peppy, Lots of torque. I weigh 250 pounds and it pulls me good around town. I wish first was a bit taller. I have to shift pretty much as soon as i take off. Top speed so far 55ish down hill full throttle. Up the same hill in 5th gear, 40 to 45 depending on when i start getting on it before i get to hill. Speed limit is 45 and changes to 55 at bottom of hill.
Would a sprocket change fix the last two problems?
When the weather warms up I'll go for a longer ride and get a better feel for it.
The truck that delivered it had a lift gate which i hadn't paid for nice little bonus. The bike was wrapped from top to bottom with black shrink wrap and on a pallet. There was no damage at all to the wrap or cardboard under the wrap. It was dropped shipped from scooterdepot. They pack it good. Assembly went quick and straight forward. Front fender, front wheel and the handle bars was it, except battery. Started first try after changing the packing oil, ran like crap. I am not a carb guy in any way, so I follewed everyone example and did the c-clip trick then could not get the thing to idle right. Acted like it had a vacuum leak, so i checked using a propane torch, turned on but not lit, pointed it around anything that I thought might be leaking. No change to the way it was running, I assumed I had the carb all out of wack and/or a bad carb. I'm stupid when it comes to carbs. Then read about the carburator cleaner trick, Found the vacuum leak! The Intake manifold oring on the engine side had a chunk missing from it and there was a bit of silver sticker wadded up under the oring. Peice of cake after that. The valves were to tight. I adjusted them. I watched a video on how to do that not much different than a car. I had to drop the engine to get valve cover off. I have maybe a half inch of clearance from top of cover to the botttom of frame. I tried everything to get it with out dropping the engine. I didn't remove the engine just the exhaust and most of the mounting bolts and it piveted down enough to removbe cover. As mentioned earlier none of the holes lined up when i went to put it back together, they were off just a little bit.
This is a decent bike welds are good. There were no loose bolts, nor has any came loose...yet. I have 31 miles on the odometer, which brings up another question. Is the odometer in kilometers or miles? Speedometer? Speedo says miles but it seems slower than the crf250l at 40.
Looks good if you like that style. its growing on me though. Is it worth the 2000 i gave for it including shipping. No it wasn't. 1600 including shipping maybe.
oh yeah the brakes are better than the crf250l and the seat height is not 31.5" its 33.75". I'll try and post some pics. photobucket changed there site.

[Weldangrind]

Looking forward to pics!

Good job solving the vacuum leak. I worked on one atv where the o-ring groove was cut too deep; I stacked two o-rings for a hillbilly fix.

Yes, it sounds like a sprocket change would help first gear and the top end a little; what sizes are the stock sprockets?

I've struggled to get the valve cover off of a pushrod engine in an atv, and my solution was to wiggle the cover and rotate it sideways enough that I could access the exhaust valve. Once that was complete, I wiggled it the other way so I could access the intake valve. A nuisance, but it worked.

[SpudRider]

Thanks for posting the nice review! We eagerly await your photos.

Spud

[jjn]

How is the bike going now that you've had more time to ride it?