Project XT250

Last updated: Sun, 17 Oct 2010 06:05:00 GMT

Gah! I start these things to give me something fun to furkle with, but it's taken me so long to realise that the point is not to feel bad when I don't get round to it that you'd think that feeling bad was my hobby. Hmm.

Never mind. For the first time in a while I managed to pull a couple of hours out and set to today. An exciting week on call left me feeling like I deserved a few hours' in the man-cave, but I wasn't entirely without female company.

So, I got the workship cleared up a little and started stripping the old XT down. Seat, tank, side plastics, front and rear guard came off without issue. The front guard is toast, but I was planning on replacing both guards anyway -- they're a part common to a number of Yamaha models through the '70s and '80s, and there's someone in Thailand feverishly banging out now plastics from the old molds as I type.

Everything came apart with surprising ease, barring the exhaust. I figured it'd be trouble, and it was, but just a little. The exhaust itself came off easily, and though I was wary of the poor condition ofbolts holding it into the head, they came away without any drama. Unfortunately the various guards took a little more effort. Much impact-drivering got all but one of the cross-head screws out, but that last one eventually required hacking out with an angle grinder. Ah, well, I was planning on painting and wrapping that thing anyway.

TradeMe has been useless, to be honest, apart from finding me a Clymer manual for the thing, but eBay's come in handy, and I've scored a repro decal set and a pattern carburetor rebuild kit already. I've also got a full engine gasket set and a complete set of (so the guy claimed) NOS indicators. My local dealer found me a replacement throttle tube, and I have a half-worn set of Dunlop D605s (my favourite 50/50 tyre) waiting to go on at the end of the project.

I'm still on the hunt for a replacement headlight. I'm not sure how much I'm going to need to buy -- the previous owner seems to have kludged on some random crap at some point; at least the beauty ring isn't right, but it matches the glass so well I'm wondering whether the glass is wrong to match.

A lot of this is coming from the States which is a mite inconvenient, especially when traders refuse to ship. Luckily I've got peeps on the ground over there, (thanks, Elliott!) In my travels I've also found a couple of exceedingly useful online shops in the UK, in the form of Wemoto and Trail and Trials UK. I've yet to buy, but they've got stock, which is a start.

So, a little work done, and little money spent. But with the work started, I'm hoping I'll find a couple of hours a week to push this forward. Enough that it might see some sunshine this summer...