XTDR250, clamped in jig.
Other day i chopped off the this badly welded on foot peg. Haven’t put it back on yet.
Today i turned up with this, now i can use the very powerful pillar drill to make holes in my 6mm thick steel 🙂
Missing this spacer, probably gonna have to make a new one.
Engine all blocked up and level, frame now clamped at the rear.
used two blocks of wood to make sure the engine was aligned properly to the frame, will change these for some thing smaller later, gotta get the engine further back.
I needed the rear wheel on so i could sort the chain run, that made the rear very heavy so i put the front wheel on too, this reveled that the chassis wasn’t quite on the level so i raised the front of the engine again so it should be level in the frame when it’s finally on its wheels.
Cute little clamps i bought ages ago coming in handy.
Used a front spacer temporally on the back to align the wheel.
now gotta find out what squat i need, at the moment the axle to the sprocket is 10cm and the sprocket up to the squat line is 3cm, once the static sag is taken up  that 3 cm will drop quite a lot so i gotta figure out what exactly i need before i start welding.
xt350 with tzr250 motor
Well not too much done today, took the frame off the engine and took out the rear suspension, then arc welded a plate onto the frame for the rear engine mount.
Can’t see too well in the pics but the welds turned out beautiful!
Used 6mm steel because it’s all i had, 4mm would have been lighter with a little brace around the back probably stiffer too.
Gotta place the engine back into the frame now and continue with the rear mount.
Had a look on bikepics.com last night, some hardcore xt’s there and as a supermotard it really looks well as, not tempted to do that unless i really can’t afford tyres. More then a fair share of pics with blown engines in them 🙂
XTDR250, appetites back!
zipping around on the runner 180 and has brought back my mojo, must get bigger faster harder two-stroke!
First rescue rear axle from seans stalled rd400, after i had gotten it out it looked a little similar to a tzr axle, since we only have one xt350 axle that would be handy if they were the same
Slot axle into second xt350
And haul out, looks a little low in the seat area for my idea of a hard core off road tdr, aww well, it’ll still be fun though.
this yamaha cruiser thing (bloody cruisers!) came up with a dead battery, got it started and everything seemed ok… then it seized repeatedly, an engine that won’t turn seems a lot like a flat battery. bloody cruisers.
Right frame on the table and with the help of the rolling bike i got it level.
Was gonna use the other bike but it looks like some sort of wierd acid rain left blotchs of rust on the whole arse of the bike
By comparision, just have to fix this and she’ll be right! (well appart from the welded on right footpeg, will have to work around that)
Had to have a sit on one to see what their like, it’s just like my old xl250r paris-dakar ‘cept a bit lower, that xl was brilliant on bumpy back roads.
Right on to real work chopped off the the xt’s down tube and chopped in half the farmers tzr subframe. Now i can slide the engine back in up and down all i want
Will have to pull the top of the brake pedal out a bit to get the engine further back.
Done for the day, little too much procrastination going on but at least i got something done.
The sprocket is 2cm further forward then then on the xt350 engine, probably can shorten that to 1cm when i mod the brake pedal, other then that it’s not too bad width wise, the kicker probably won’t work and the gear change is gonna need a linkage, just hope a set of tdr pipes will fit without melting the seat or clouting the tank.
Gilera runner rollers
Well, the test spin with just the clutch springs went only mediocre, only difference I could tell was the clutch closing earlier, which made slow speed corners a bit of a pain. Logically if it close’s earlier it should open earlier, but there is no acceleration? DOH! as it revs higher the gearing goes up, it needs lighter rollers! which i handily had to hand. When i went looking for them i also found some high quality malossi clutch springs i had totally forgotten were there, they look like the right diameter for my clutch as well so yep another rebuild 🙂
So, with three 8.7g roller and three standard rollers (least i think there standard) and green clutch springs, it fucking flys, no discernible loss in top speed and loads of get off the line and go. This is how a two stroke should go!
Can’t wait for the xtdr to be going, gotta pull myself up and get started on it, think a fully functioning riot runner 180 could help with that 😀
Gilera Runner 180 clutch springs
But first
Loncin 125 into a vintage 60’s honda 50.
Goes quite well actually, it’s made for the honda 50 ring of kerry challenge, more time would have seen a bigger carb installed for more speed but as it is now it’ll fly up the hills and pull wheelies everywhere.
Right to business, change the clutch springs for faster getaway from the lights.
side case popped off at a click of my fingers I’m so used to doing it, next I have to get the clutch off the rear assembly, no 45mm spanners or sockets to hand so I put it in a vice and used a strap wrench to open it, turned it the other way up and gently opened it the rest of the way because the contra spring will unload the clutch in your face if you aren’t paying attention.
That’s a long contra spring!
My choices from weakest to toughest, left to right, according to the little leaflet. Choose the green ones because they were impossibly tough compared to the original spring. Wrong choice, we shall explain later.
Ninja death star clutch?
With one spring finally on it looks as if the extra diameter of the spring is getting in the way, also it’s nearly impossible to get on.
As shown here, not shown is the other three hands holding the clutch the hammer and the camera (New phone btw nokia e52 recently made foss software, hoping for a half decent UI soon)
And the test drive showed: bugger all difference! well maybe I should have gone for a pre test spin to get a feel for what the old springs were like, which from memory were runner 125 springs.
okay heres the theory of why stiffer clutch spring don’t work:
the springs are meant to hold the clutch shoes in until a high speed is reached, but these bigger diameter springs actually (check the third pic up) rub off the side of the shoe and push the next clutch shoe out a little which in turn lightens the work of the next spring over, slightly dodgey theory I know, but just look as the leverage those shoes have over the springs, it’d break solid metal at a high rpm, stiffer springs will actually wear the shoes spring mount eye holes, there applying useless pressure, bit like american engneering cheap heavy and all the forces in the wrong place. A bandage masking the real problem, the shoes are too heavy!
So, my plan is to fit the standard springs again, then buy a analogue kitchen weighting scales, and take off weight from the shoes, no need for heavy springs, less wear, less forces going into the pegs holding the clutch shoes. Cons I’ll either have to do heavy maths to find the right weight to take off or I’ll have to take the clutch off many many many times and take a little off each time. If it all goes tits up a new racing clutch is quite cheap actually.
Spin tomorrow, I’ll see how she goes.
XTDR 350 er 250!
fresh tyre on the way! and damn it is useful having a paddock stand
So some more garage cleaning up was done, I found both xt350 heads and promptly chucked em both outside and then played with an nsr 80 gearbox cluster self learning all about dog engaged gearbox’s, much easier then reading about how it works.
Now that there was some space, It was time to restart the xtdr project only this time with the tzr250 motor instead (cos I swapped the ypvs350 for complete gsxf600), Can you spot the tzr250 engine in this pic?
I own both xt350’s now so this frame is on the table for the time being but I think the other one is in much better condition. Footpeg’s not welded on for a start..
So busy nothing got done.
this c200 honda will look very nice when it done, hardly even recognise it now.
got a little busa work done today, head light bulb wasn’t coming out so I took the fairing off as I needed to put the grill back in one of the vents and the clock cage needed more straightening, I haven’t a hope in hell of getting it any straighter .
Kawasaki’s today
Got sarges vn1500 over to his new place finally, did have to part dismantle it and borrow straps to get it in the van. Clubmans would look awesome on a chopper, getting silly urges lately to build a monstrously huge chopper with a 2 litre turbo diesel auto car engine, some thing that would punch holes in anything that got in front of it.
whiles i was at a sarges old place had a quick look at the fx400 bar’s,
think we better get them on the gpz stat, it just looks so ass heavy.
engine management check light
you need it to be out these days to take your driving test, so fecking annoying, bulb is a little led soldered to the board so I filled the hole above it with chewing gum, take that opel corsa! and Irelands stupid laws!.
Sat and looked at these for a while, yellow one has a dead four stroke engine and the blue two stroke one has dead electrics, could I make a series hybrid motorcycle out of these? big capacitors are quite cheap compared to battery’s just need an ac controller that can handle 230v.
Then we went to stick niki’s 500 back together, paint is way too soft but it looks good from miles away.. will get some pics soon, phone battery died 🙂
clear the shed!
The brothers gone to canada for a while..
So i got the garage all cleared..
His bedroom all filled..
an I don’t know why this ended up in the front room.
