Sorry for the massive delay, so onto bikes... I picked up a 1990 ZXR250A2 in early 2018 after being contacted by the wife of someone that owned one. She had seen that i was looking to buy one, and the price was good (even if it was only 60% complete) so i picked it up in my car and got it back to the garage. The guys i bought it off bought it in 2003 and decided they wanted to race it/make it into a trackday only bike, so they hacked off loads of bits, cut the subframe in half (see my finger in the pic below) and ditched most of the electrics and then never touched it, so it was left to sit for 14 years in a slightly rundown garage. I also discovered that they had declared the bike as "scrapped" with the DVLA...long story short 4 months of haggling with this agency and i got themm to issue me a V5 and the original numberplate that the bike was issued with (result!). I also managed (with no wiring diagram) to figure out all the wiring faults the bike had, take out the part of the ignition that actually turns the bike on and off, and hey presto got it to fire up...but she sounded rough! The source of the roughness was traced to a combination of camchain, and plastic tensioner blade, as i was in there i changed almost all of the tensioner components as well, and got myself 9 shims (all 7.95mm wide) from precisionshims, so now the engine is timed correctly, tensioned correctly and the valves are all bang on in the middle of the useable range, again another result! I then decided to fully strip and rebuild the bike. Now i am a bit of a perfectionist, so this has been taken to mean "remove every bit of weld splatter, any and all damage, all casting imperfections, bad welds"...the lot! So this is where i am up to, i have just finished on all the parts i have, i still have a few brackets to purchase for the front fairings as well as side panels and a nose cone so i can do a dry build, then it will get 2k paint on the frame, all new bearings/bushes/oil seals. I have already made a new loom and headlight sub-loom for the bike, ive made the PCB for the fusebox, and soldered up a new one with all new relay and diodes. Anyway enough dribble, time for some pics...
Most of the "still to do parts" - this box is also a work in progress as i buy the few remaining brackets for the rebuild The box of parts that have been sand blasted and required no modifications, so are ready to go... [ The box of parts that have been stripped, sanded/filed, and now need another quick sandblast to "key" the surfaces The frame has been blasted and sanded...mainly along the rear as this part is 2 halfs of a 2-part casting...now has all the casting bosses and parting lines removed as well as any bits of damage/weld splatter/nasty welds etc. Subframe with finger pointed at where it had been cut - now welded up and impossible to ever tell. I have now fully removed the rear seat footpeg mounting bracket on the left hand side as it had been part-butchered by the previous owners. This just needs a little bit of body filler now to hide some of the cut marks they made. And ive also noticed that they have hacked off the "loop" for the rear seat...so i will fabricate one (got a seat being delivered next week) Swingarm is in good condition, needs a bit of filler to the flat where i think some stones have smacked it at one point, and there was some previously unseen damage to the bottom of the LHS chain adjuster where the marks are...i have fixed this as much as i can without cutting and wending in a new piece... Most of the remaining pile of bits, once i have finished the metal i will delve further into this, i did restore the clocks and the idiot lights before i started on the bodywork, but all the rest of it needs attention
Now thats a full blown nut and bolt resto if ever I saw one!! will be watching with interest as these are super rare in the uk..good luck and progress so far looks bob on
