I Bought a Diesel Dirtbike from the Marine Corps(1 of 214)

Klondike is dead wrong for discontinuing the Choco Taco.

The headlight is an IR light that is meant to be used while you are wearing NVG’s (night vision goggles). It’s invisible to the naked eye but when you’re wearing goggles, it makes it look like daytime. Same with the tiny little taillights. This was the same way that we flew helicopters at night when in combat.

Also, by looking at the metal shavings, that thing worked while it was broken. You don't get that much shavings if it just break and stall suddenly. A good small diesels mechanic could probably figure this thing out in a few minutes. Also i'm pretty sure the company who made that thing used commonly available parts to keep the cost low, so the fuel pump, injector and all might be random kubota, yanmar or john deere stuff. The small diesels mechanic would be able to recognize those parts.

This one will definitely be a cool one to get going!

Those blackout lights are standard equipment on military vehicles. The reason there is 4 lights Lin the back is for proper following distance. If you were following too close to the vehicle in front of you, you would see all 4 lights. At the proper following distance, the lights on the left would appear as 1 light, and the lights on the right, the same. At too great a following distance, it would look like only 1 single light. Source: I was a motor transport driver for the USMC in the 90's.

I was Marine Corps Motor T in the early 2000's. I went to Camp Johnson in NC for Training on the Military Motorcycle. Back then most Marine units had the gas model but a select few units had the diesel model. the school was alot of fun and we got to tare them down to the frame and then put them back together plus ride them through the trails at Camp Johnson. I treated it like a paid vacation.

I was an instructor for the MILMO program for the Marine Corps. We taught how to ride and maintain both the diesel and the gas KLR. I was an instructor from 2006-2009 at camp lejeune NC. That was one of my bikes. 599133

The decompressor lever is to enable you to spin the engine freely without compression on starting. Once the engine is spinning, release the lever so that it fires up on compression. You can also stop the engine by pulling the lever in.

Used this bike in the British forces, it's a land rover on 2 wheels, just Diesel. We had rifle racks and extra fuel tanks. Its bullet proof rode around with NVGs at night.

The decompression lever is used because the starter would have to be massive to over come the compression, so you let it gain some inertia and you release the lever and it should start.

Marine Veteran here. This was the bike that got me into motorcycling! My MOS school was next to where other Marines worked on these, and I was always wanting to have that opportunity. So then I found some busted bike in a barn and the rest is history!

I hope you are able to get it running soon! It was awesome meeting you guys the other day! I should have told you guys about my experiences with different bikes. This one will definitely be a cool one to get going!

I own one of these. DO NOT use ether to get it running. I learned that lesson the hard way by shearing the woodruff key on the flywheel (which coincidentally resulted in the exact same sound you're currently hearing when you crank the starter). I know the guy on ADVrider you're talking about, he's a great dude and a wealth of knowledge. Good luck getting her running!

Edit to add- that motor sounds like it's spinning really fast to have full compression. Once you get the fuel and starter situation sorted out, make sure the decompression lever is fully disengaged when starting. On mine it has a tendency to stick so push it as far forward as you can on the side of the cylinder head; if it's partially open you should feel it snap into place and seat firmly. There is a very large bolded CAUTION in the operator maintenance manual saying the decompression lever is to "only be used for bleeding the injection system and for help in push starting" and "not to be used for normal, electric starting" (all bold, italic caps in the book). Good luck!

I LOVED the KLR-250! The tactical driving course at Camp LeJeune was a BLAST! Driving across Saudi Arabia with random invisible wadis that collapse into a “sand slide / sinkhole” when it’s too late? Not so much….

Another reason why they like to keep all of the fuels the same is to prevent confusion. I was on an exercise where we had some privates on a detail to keep our camp's diesel generator running all night. They grabbed gas cans from the back of one of the HMMWVs and proceeded to prevent us from having power for the rest of the exercise. Lessons learned dictates that it is best to keep things as simple as possible when dealing with large populations with varying levels of knowledge/experience!

Being a Motor T Mechanic going overseas to Iraq, I only seen the Diesel KLR out in Ramadi and a couple gas ones in 29 Palms, CA. Never got to work or ride it but a very interesting video nevertheless. Hope you guys get it running. Maybe another jarhead who still has access to the Motor T Mechanics page can get online and look up the Service Manuals.

I have never even heard of a choco-taco until now and I feel terrible for Klondike, they are running away from the rush! Unreal, what foolish lads. Great epi thanks boys🙌🤘🙌

The last 30 seconds were the BEST. You guys Rock and thanks so much for all the hard work and FUN that goes into this Channel. I love KLR’s and cannot wait to see this one run.

A wise man once said don't buy a diesel bike. Unless you got a parts house around the corner. LOL. Hope you guys can get it all figured out at some point.

Almost bought one of these on gov auction. But it went for like $17k and I just had bought a 2022 KLR. So wife didn’t approve, but think these are awesome (being a marine myself). Would be cool to have in a collection