XR250 hopeless, but at it again!

Paint it red like the XL600R.

haha, yeah, thats actually not a bad plan. however, i thinks its really hard to find heat resistant paint that looks good for a long time, without looking cheap. Also, i kind of like a bike that doesnt look new, because the chances of it getting stolen are lower. I also want to use this one for some more serious offroading, so it doesnt need to look good.

There’s some stuff at Michaels Craft store. ‘Rub and shine’.....something like that. Restores metals. You want the ‘pewter’ color.

Tuckers, does that even work on an engine? it says it wax based...
its called Rub 'n Buff, right?

I am told it works wonders. Pewter for alloy. BMW airhead guys swear by it.

mmm, might be worth a try. but the clutch and coil cover have a bit more of a magnesium look, almost like anodised alumium or something, hard to explain...

Yes. That’s why they say Pewter does the best job. So I am told, never tried it.

allright i will check it out.
went out today to get some motor mounting plates, as apparenty i didnt have any. returned home after almost 2,5hours drive, only to find they are not the correct ones. Going by a bike wrecker tomorrow, hopefully he has what i need!

finally, some succes! the wrecker had the parts i needed. overpayed, but then wreckers are always expensive here.
here's some pictures for you guys.
i decided to just clean up the engine as good as i could, i didnt want it to look new. might do it someday, but at the moment i just want to get it on (or off ) the road again.
look at that cute little engine:


so small

cleaning up time, even if just a little.
dirty engine:


cleaner engine :


put the engine in, when i didnt have the mounts yet:


looking sharp allready!

then got the mounts + bolts today:


cleaning:


dirty bolts:


almost brand new










need to find a shorter bolt, but its all there



so there you have it! also found the little bracket for the oil line from the engine. little by little its getting somewhere .

Keeping at it.

almost brand new


This is when you need aluminum jaws for a vice. Or at least some angle aluminum over them.

Don

You don’t use alloy inserts for steel bolts, it just dents the alloy.

thanks for the advice guys, but trust me, the dents where allready in the bolts before i put them in the vice. and i have more important issues to worry about, such as an airfilter box with a crack in the rubber boot and a clutch that is not working correctly. all will be revealed soon, with pictures ofcourse .

Don’t worry Man. You are doing great....stick to your budget.

ow you mean the budget that i allready threw out the door But i appreciate the encouragement.

motormounts where 45 euro!!! used airfilter box was also 45, and i still dont have everything i need haha. i thought i was almost done spending money after throwing about 800 in for the engine, and at least 500 in parts for the rest. still not done in a long shot.
but hey, the bike will mechanically at least be like new!

allright, so as promised, pictures of more stuff going wrong...
airbox cracked on the rubber:



the clutch is an interesting problem. the little lever that operates the clutch, goes up almost till the end, before the internal lifter pin moves. so something was up. at first i thougt maybe the little lever/arm was worn out:


but after further examining, i noticed that the lifter pin itself seemed kind of short. when i added a washer, it seemed a bit better. so i asked around a bit, also on the xr250 thread, and turns out this little bugger is supposed to be around 22mm, where as mine is 17mm. wich would be possible, as i bought the clutch from someone seperatly.
offending pin:



so i need to find another one to take care of that. most ones i find are around 17mm, so the search is on.

did get around to cleaning the new air filter box:



after:



looked worse when dried, but still a good step forward. the carb is now installed, i also removed the little snorkel, as i know it is of little use.



then i turned my attention to the ali express keyswitch that was giving me trouble. had intermittent contact on that thing. i had allready opened it and tried to fix it, but with little succes. So i ordered a new one. upon installing it, i had the same problem, so i also opened this one up.

as you can see in the pictures, both middle bronze pins seem to be lower. this has to do with the spring not working correctly, and also apparently the fact that the little bearing ball beneath it makes contact with the outer metal, basically creating a short. so i took 2 and made 1 good one, and isolated the spring using a piece of heatshrink tube. how long this will hold up, time will tell. i might replace it with something decent along the way, but at least its working now.



so thats the progress so far. need to find the clutch pin, and some brackets for the automatic and manual decompressor, to be able to advance some more...

right, so last few weeks i spent some time figuring out why the clutch wasnt working. found out that the push pin i have, was too short, thanks to a forum member here. Took a while to find that actually, as it was easy overlooked. Apart from the length, there is no difference between the 2 pins. I would say 1 is about 3mm longer than the other one:



this made a huge difference in where exactly the arm starts moving the pin inwards:
with the short pin:


with the long pin:


then i found out, that the clutch lifter plate was also incorrect. I was very fortunate, as CMSNL still had 1!! in stock. Ordered right away, along with some seals for the oil lines:
the top one is the one i had, the bottom one is the one i bought NOS honda.



all this resulted in a correctly engaging clutch, thankfully.





another thing i needed to do, was remove the old studs for the exhaust. My mechanic removed all of them but one, because he was scared to break something. I tried with a lot of penetrating oils, a bit of brute force, but to no avail. in the end i just heated it up with the blowtorch, and used both a spanner and a vise-grip together, to get it out!



all new, mounted with some copper grease:


also cleaned up the wiring with new wiring tape, non sticky.






clutch cable and manual decomp connected:


front looks like this now; i allready put on the montana mount too.





so far so good. Still need to do some more wiring, and mount a few things. After that i might try and see if it wants to build oil pressure from the pump.

Good stuff Man. It’s coming along nicely.

thanks man! i agree.
i think you are the only one still following though