Hello from the latest FNG to the forum

Morning All
Just joined up this morning (as part of that pre Christams trawl through the web for sites of interest while desperately trying to make the last day at work inetresting).
My name is Paul and I am from Southside Brisbane. I only recently got into bikes (about 3 years ago) primarily cause I wanted to test drive my restoration skills on something easy before I did a car. Lets just say the car thing never happened after I discovered that riding a bike was much more of a hoot than any sports car or other type of car could ever be. I am now onto bike restos 7 through 9. The current fleet is about 36 bikes (or 39 if you include the sons PW50 and two Quads but they don't really count) of which about half are registered for road use.

The 250's are:
- Arpilia RS250 (runner but needs a tune and tidy up and tyres for rego)
- Honda NSR250 MC21 registered (was given to me by a guy I met at a lunch but did cost $2k to get on the road - has 10,000km on it)
- Suzuki RGV250 VJ21 (almost ready to go)
- 1981 Yamaha RD250LC (was a runner but took it off the road to be repainted, in that time the crank seals failed so needs that done to get back on the road)
- 1984 Yamaha RZ250 - basket case resto project that came as a gift with the RGV and the 1986 RZ. Have accumlated most of the bits to start including a YPVS engine.
- 1986 Yamaha RZ250 - fixer upper, tank was swiss cheese but found a replacement one so needs a general clean up and tank repaint
- 1984 Kawasaki KR250 - Needs tyres and ready to go
- 1984 Kawasaki KR250 - I bought it as a parts bike but can't break it as it looks like someone was halfway through resto - so that one is a WIP as well.
There is also the Yamaha XT250 which is my practice MX bike that needs some wiring work.
I'll stick some photos up soon.
Cheers
PK

 

If you only like 250's read no further. For those who are interested in other bikes the shed also has:
2012 Ducati Panigale S*
1981 Ducati Pantah 500*
1983 Honda VF750F*
1986 Honda VFR750F*
1985 Honda CBX750F*
1982 Honda CB900F2
1963 Honda C92 - finsished resto and is now a house decoration
1982 Honda CX500^
1981 Suzuki GSX1100SXZ Katana*
1981 Suzuki GSX750SZ Katana*
1986 Suzuki GSXR-1100^
1975 Suzuki GT380*
1976 Kawasaki G7*
1975 Kawasaki H1 Mach 3*
1984 Kawasaki GPz750
1985 Kawasaki GPz600R^
1985 Kawasaki GPz900R^
1988 Kawasaki GPX750R*
1981 Kawasaki Z1300^
2003 Kawasaki KLR650*
1999 BMW R1100S*
1984 BMW K100RS*
1981 Yamaha XJ750*
1983 Yamaha XJ900
1985 Yamaha FZ750^
1976 Yamaha LB80AC Chappy^
1981 Moto Guzzi Le Mans MkIII*

The ones marked * are on the road, ^ under restoration and the others are waiting patiently.....

 

So there is a couple of themes to this madness
Theme 1 was the 250 GP replica set
Theme 2 was street versions of bikes that ran in the Castrol 6 Hour production event (hence the 1980's focus)
Theme 3 was engine configuration and design. The '80's seem to be a time when the bike designers got adventurous so there is some strange and quirky stuff in there. Engine configurations? Well parallel twins, V twins (parallel and vertical - two and four stroke), tandem twin, single 2 stroke, single four stroke, tripple two stroke, in line four, V four, in line 4 (along the frame), boxer twin and in line 6.

 

A couple of pics

 

A couple more of the 250's

 

If I had to pick one as the crown jewel though it's this one - with apologies to 250 fans everywhere of course

 

Here is a picture of the Slabbie
I do as much as I can but i know my limitations. Engine stuff is outsourced but as I get more confident I try to do as much as I can myself. The guy who does my paint work is brilliant but does take a while to get stuff done. But he isn't cheap though the quality of his work and his repairs are faultless.