nickza
Pack Dog
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2013
- Messages
- 467
- Reaction score
- 16
- Location
- Durbanville, Cape Town
- Bike
- Kawasaki KLE 500
So as if I dont have enough problems in my life I went ahead and bought a fairly munted Yamaha WR250F, 03-06 steel frame with the old school distance ticker thingy.
It was sold as not running, owner claimed it just got hard to start so he gave up on it and it has clearly been left outside most of its life as the plastics and tank show a lot of sun damage. Plastics are replaceable and I want a long range tank so that part didnt phase me. Was worried the starter was toast as he said he never had a battery in it but when I got it home it spun over happily on the starter.
First thing I did was a compression test just to see if it actually had any, WOT throttle and it shows 85 PSI so as I assumed a little tired on the top end. Not sure if some auto decomp is affecting the reading but it sounds fairly healthy still when kicking it. Pulled the carb off and went through it and the pilot jet was blocked but I cleaned everything as best I could and put it all back together. Hit the starter and on choke it seemingly idled happily, which is a good sign.
Tomorrow I'll check the valve clearance to see how badly that is out.
So the big negatives:
1.) the front forks are pretty bad, the top tubes are suffering some form of break down of the aluminum(?) where its just flaking away. See pic. Any chance of finding a second hand nackered set to make one working set?
2.) rear shock is non existant. Its physically there but its all spring like a pogo stick. Assuming this is also rebuildable?
It was sold as not running, owner claimed it just got hard to start so he gave up on it and it has clearly been left outside most of its life as the plastics and tank show a lot of sun damage. Plastics are replaceable and I want a long range tank so that part didnt phase me. Was worried the starter was toast as he said he never had a battery in it but when I got it home it spun over happily on the starter.
First thing I did was a compression test just to see if it actually had any, WOT throttle and it shows 85 PSI so as I assumed a little tired on the top end. Not sure if some auto decomp is affecting the reading but it sounds fairly healthy still when kicking it. Pulled the carb off and went through it and the pilot jet was blocked but I cleaned everything as best I could and put it all back together. Hit the starter and on choke it seemingly idled happily, which is a good sign.
Tomorrow I'll check the valve clearance to see how badly that is out.
So the big negatives:
1.) the front forks are pretty bad, the top tubes are suffering some form of break down of the aluminum(?) where its just flaking away. See pic. Any chance of finding a second hand nackered set to make one working set?
2.) rear shock is non existant. Its physically there but its all spring like a pogo stick. Assuming this is also rebuildable?
