Project My '87 Yamaha XT250 TS 57R

Getting there slowly.
Bead blasted the cylinder today, cleaned up the piston and ring's then swapped them over
Cylinder, head and cam's back in, just waiting for some paint to dry on the rocker cover and that'll go back on too.
Then it's just fit a new spark plug, the decomp cable, carby, exhaust, drain and refill the oil etc and it'll be ready to start once the urethane cure's on the intake

 

Everything was drenched in 10w40 oil before fitting the cam's and again after that pic was taken before the cam cover went on, plus there's some moly grease on top of the shim's.
Everything else is back on now, just need's to be filled with oil and i can kick it over.
I even fixed the horn, it was a bit dry inside so i loosened the bolt's, sprayed it with Inox MX5, wiggled the plate around then tightened it all up again and it work's perfect.

 

Thank's,
it's just dry bead blasted, wet make's it look a lot shinier, but i haven't had a chance to make my wet blasting cabinet yet.
I really need to get some white cotton glove's to handle the part's once i take them out of the blasting cabinet
Head was painted previously so i grit blasted that first, then bead blasted it to smooth it off.

Just kicked the XT over a few minute's ago, that auto decomp work's too well, i had to back it right off to get some feel through the kick start lever.
With the decomp cable backed right off, i put the choke on, ignition on and kicked it over, it fired and idled the first time
Valve's are pretty quiet, no pop's out the exhaust, no hesitation's off idle, no funny noise's, sound's sweet.


Now all i have to do is put the chain back on and take it for a ride to test it out

 

Detailed the XT and fitted the chain and rear sprocket today.
I got a pic of the freshly painted handlebar's, they were blue anodised but look much better in satin black, and now also have some Troy Lee Design's ODI grip's




I noticed on the new bottom end that the tacho drive cable had snapped off in the holder on the front of the clutch cover when the previous owner had it, so i swapped the original clutch cover onto it so i can use the tacho.
Connected the cable and tried it out, it's working




I have been trying to clean up these white plastic's since i got the bike, the stain's are quite hard to polish out.
The r/h number plate below the seat took me about an hour to clean up, i mainly used thinner's and some boat fibreglass cleaner/wax, it take's a long time to clean
In a quest to find a better/quicker way to clean and polish them i think i'm onto it.
I tried some Threebond Super Engine Conditioner and ball of 0000 steel wool the size of a golf ball
Omg, it took me under 10 min's to clean up the l/h side number plate just below the seat.
I just worked the Threebond and steel wool in a circular motion, no pressure needed, then once it's clean all you need to do is wipe it off with a clean cotton rag

The headlight cowl is off atm ready to clean with Threebond

I haven't been out for a ride yet, but hopefully will tonight after tea

 

Thank's, it's coming up pretty mice
I can't wait till the new seat cover arrive's, i also ordered some new red Yamaha hand guard's for it along with a nos tail light lense so they should be here in the next week or so.

The old owner won't recognise it if he see's it again, what a difference 2 week's can make!

@kiffsta i son't know if your interested in these for your business but damn they're cheap at $22.90 a pair (red one's are listed seperately @ $14.90 a pair), and they have different colour's, white, black, red, blue , green and yellow
I recon you could tripple your money on them

http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/m.html?_odkw=&_ssn=lpmotorparts-au&item=262389995426&_osacat=0&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_from=R40&_trksid=p2046732.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xhandguards.TRS0&_nkw=handguards&_sacat=0

 

Cleaned the headlight shroud after tea,
It took about 10 minute's to do with the Threebond, 30 year's of dirt and grime all disappeared










Inside the shroud









Took the bike out for a ride tonight, went up through the hill's and back, was gone just over an hour.
It ride's pretty good, the suspension is a little firm for me but would be fine for anyone over 85/90 kg's,
the brake's are all good, gear's change nice, power is good it pull's cleanly to 9,000 rpm.
Cruising at 100km it's doing 5,000 rpm in 6th
Worst thing for me is the seat height, i'm 5'6" and can just touch the ground on one side when i pull up at the traffic light's

 

The new Handguard's and seat cover arrived yesterday which is a lot quicker than i thought they would,
the handguard's had an expected delivery time of 4th - 10th of may,
and the seat cover was expected between 20th april and 10th of may
The Handguard's were sent from Botany NSW, so they must have an Aussie warehouse ?

The quality of the handguard's look's like oem part's.
I put them up against the bike and could see that the r/h one would need a slight mod to fit, left was perfect





I ground away about 8mm of plastic from the top one (bought 2x set's) to get it to clear the brake master, and found some bolt's to make it work




Fit's perfect now






Left side handguard






Front on in the sun to show the true colour properly, couple of the pic's ^ look pinkish

 

Cheer's

I have been prepping the seat for it's new cover, pulled the 70 staple's out and cover off.
I found a couple of bit's that needed some attention so i have repaired them,
i used some old seat foam and glued it over the low section's then sanded it back flush.
The new cover is now out in the sun softening so i can fit it soon.

 

Got the seat cover and new strap fitted and back on the bike
And cleaned up and polished the disc brake protector too
The seat cover is a lot better than the hard original one, much better grip with it being new

 

The new genuine tail light lense arrived from Germany last week so i put that on, was only $26 inc delivery








Also had an issue of no neutral light since fitting the new engine
Took the stator cover off today and found out why, someone had broken the screw that hold's the wire to the neutral switch, the fork terminal on the wire had also been snapped off and the wire was just tucked back with the other stator wiring.
I used the original switch off the old engine and it's now working again











Now i need to try and quieten down this muffler.
I've had it apart and am trying to work out how to do it.
These muffler's have no packing in them, instead they have a washer welded in the middle of the perforated pipe so the exhaust gas goes in the front, hit's the block off washer, move's through the perforated pipe into the outer chamber then goes back toward's the tip back through the perf pipe and out the tip.
There wasn't even a spark arrestor in the tip ?

I have tried some fine mesh wrapped around the perfeoated pipe and that did nothing, now i have a couple of bit's of smaller i/d pipe tacked to the tip.
I have reduced it from 22mm i/d to 19mm i/d, the noise has only dropped about 10%
Next i might try wrapping the back section of perf pipe with some stainless steel scourer's and tie wire them to the pipe
If that doesn't help then i guess i will have to reduce the tip size with some more tube again, but that may start to restrict the power if it's going to be around 15mm i/d ?
Might try and make a baffled tip like the US model's
I'm trying to do it the cheapest way, any idea's ?
I have a spare muffler i can play around with but it's slightly different, the peforated section at the inlet side is 2/3 the length of the pipe and the outlet side is 1/3, the clamp is stamped XT550 but the inlet/outlet size's are the same as the XT250 muffler


Muffler on the bike atm, note the tip has a couple of smaller piece's slid in and tacked to reduce the size and noise which didn't do much




Spare muffler

 

I'm guessing that the packing would soon get compressed from the exhaust gasses hitting it through the perforation's due to them having nowhere else to go, then it also will push all the packing toward's the rear of the muffler and would block the exit perforation's

It work's in a normal sport's straight through type muffler because most of the gasses go down the middle of the tube and some gasses go through the perforation's into the packing

I've made plenty of 2 stroke silencer's and a few straight through 4 stroke sport's muffler's before but i was hoping there'd be an easy fix for this one
Will see what i can come up with tomorrow
Maybe i could use my Scalvini Carbon Fiber pit bike muffler on it, nah don't think so, that exhaust system owe's me more than this whole bike