Project My '87 Yamaha XT250 TS 57R

Some of you may have seen the Yamaha XT250 i picked up the other day.
It has a kickstart issue, the kick lever is stuck, so i'm guessing it might be a problem with the kickstart gear, shaft or spring, or possibly a problem with the auto decomp.
It need's a few thing's done, new tyre's, chain and rear sprocket, horn fixed, and need's the muffler to be repacked or replaced.
And an overall tidy up.
Best thing is it came with 2 month's rego on it still.

Here it is as i picked it up

 

The XT was an ex farm bike, so it has done reasonably low k's, only 26,000km's




I had a couple of good Bridgestone DOT tyre's sitting in my shed, so yesterday i swapped the rear tyre on and cleaned up the surface rust on the swingarm etc
Rear brake shoe's have already been replaced, and i painted up the brake backing plate with some satin black at the same time
Also painted the chain adjuster's and rear wheel spacer's




I gave the seat cover a clean up with some thinner's to get the built up grime off for the time being.
I have ordered a new oem style red cover from Taiwan which should arrive in a couple of week's.


The engine is pretty clean so i repainted the cylinder etc with so\me satin black engine enamel to tidy it up
And i made up a new red sticker for above the headlight and fitted that.
I gave the r/h air scoop a good scrub back with hand cleaner then polished it up a bit with Fibreglass polish/wax, that came up a lot better, got rid of most of the chalky white colour

 

Next thing to do is get it running.
I pulled the clutch cover off, took out the kickstart shaft and gear etc, it's all good.
Next i took the clutch out basket and all, the gear on the back of that is good too.
Thought i'd try turning the crank over and might have found the issue, it's making a grinding noise from the cylinder/head ?
Hmmm, might be a top end rebuild ?
Don't think the seller has told me the full story.....

If it need's a piston etc i might think about a big bore kit

 

I've just tried turning it over again and i think i know what's wrong, i've heard that noise before !! finger's crossed

 

Well i thought the noise might be the flywheel rubbing on the stator.
Took the stator cover off and yep it is, so either a dodgy flywheel key or dodgy crank bearing's
Just need to find my Flywheel puller now to take it off and check it out further

 

Thank's, it is in pretty good condition for a farm bike

I took the flywheel off this morning and have found the crank is out of alignment.
So now need to decide what to do, whether to pull the engine out and split the case's to have the crank aligned again or to buy another complete engine and fit that.


This is the flywheel and stator showing where it was rubbing
Luckily there is no damage to the winding's, i should be able to sand back the inner of the magnet and get that smooth again where it's rubbed, it's not too bad






Also the old owner told me he pulled the carby's off and cleaned them but it wouldn't start after that.
I looked at the 2x intake manifold's and noticed that the rubber part is only connected to the alloy manifold inner's at the top

Pushed the carby up and this is what i saw
I might be able to temporarily urethane them back together again, otherwise i have some Nos Suzuki intake manifold's that may fit





And what the new one's look like

 

I found a good used bottom end today, $120, will try and pick it up over the weekend

 

Yeah they're related to the SRX, SR and TT engines

I wouldn't go with silicon hose, it swell's with petrol and won't last too long
@maelstrom was making some intake pipe's to adapt a flange manifold to the carby

 

Swapped the old worn out King's tyre for my one of my spare's today, i've got a decent Bridgestone Gritty on it now, and cleaned up the rim and fork boot's while i was at it
It's starting to look like a decent bike now, it is slowly losing all its' farm patina

 

I picked up the replacement bottom end today, and a couple of other bit's i needed

 

Engine came out reasonably easy, just 1 bolt that was a pain in the butt,
the right inner header bolt needed to come out with vise grip's at 16th turn at a time
All the wiring look's unmodified and pretty clean

 

Head and cylinder came off the old engine today
Cleaned the head up in my blasting cabinet (all opening's sealed off), then degreased and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned
Also match ported the intake's to the head, not sure why but the left intake is 25mm, the right is 27mm ?
The left side manifold was 4mm smaller than the head port, the right manifold was between 1mm smaller and 3mm smaller, i smoothed them out with the dremel and carbide burr, then finished with a course grinding stone.
I checked the valve clearance's and i only need to find 1 smaller/thinner shim, i need a 25mm o/d 236 to 242 (2.36mm to 2.42mm)