I owned 4 KLR’s, and even got to ride one of the military diesel conversion models.
That one, I would own, if it didn’t cost about $20k.
Some company near Victorville or apple valley California produces them for a while, don’t know if they still do or not.
As far as the doohickey is concerned, I never changed one in any of my bikes, and never had any issues.
It’s just my opinion that the folks who had issues never services their bikes correctly (see comment in post 10)
Every oil change, I inspected and adjusted, and life was good.
My thoughts are folks who just used them as a turn key ride and didn’t do this had issues.
My last one went from San Jose to Daytona beach and the only issues were a broken chain (cheap OEM one) and the side stand switch which I bypassed.
Heavy pig, capable bike for travel.