Yz250 1987 restoration project

7/17/2015 9:31pm
I actually really like the colors! Itll stand out, thats for sure! Plus, itll be mechanically tight and thats what matters. Great job, bro Smile
Andy86
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7/18/2015 1:28pm
I actually really like the colors! Itll stand out, thats for sure! Plus, itll be mechanically tight and thats what matters. Great job, bro Smile
Cheers for the replies lads glad to hear your thoughts

As for your question max it's like pete said the shock body is steel and unscrews from the top it will only be zinc plated on the outside

Also cheers aceofspades glad to hear you like the colours

Few more pictures of the ongoing work, managed to find the time to finally clean the garage out

So i have moved the bike out of the spare bedroom and into the garage lol

Fitted the forks now i have the extra room in the garage along with a few other bits and bob's

Also fitted a rubber lined P shape cable clamp to one of the stator cover mounting bolts as i am not to keen on the old zip tie the wiring loom to the frame trick

The fork lower leg tubes have also been painted, i would have gone for the polished up alloy look but after nearly 30 years of abuse unfortunately they looked like a pitbull had been chewing on them, so i had to sand out the minor chips and dings and then bodyfill the major stone chips and then paint them up to get them something like











7/18/2015 2:42pm Edited Date/Time 7/18/2015 2:45pm
Man, I ached to rebuild my 2000 kx250 into a nice "factory style" bike so that I could post it on vital, but I finally said fuck it and just built a nice reliable bike to please myself lol. Ill never be newmann, djfmx, barkhard696, ryan lester, or any of these other guys who have patience, skill, and enough fundage to do it right lol. I made myself happy, and it looks like youre doing the same. Nicely done! I wasnt slamming newman or djfmx or the other guys by the way- they all, and others as well, do nice restorations. I just dont have the tools or the space to do a build like i would prefer.
Andy86
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7/21/2015 9:43am
Man, I ached to rebuild my 2000 kx250 into a nice "factory style" bike so that I could post it on vital, but I finally said...
Man, I ached to rebuild my 2000 kx250 into a nice "factory style" bike so that I could post it on vital, but I finally said fuck it and just built a nice reliable bike to please myself lol. Ill never be newmann, djfmx, barkhard696, ryan lester, or any of these other guys who have patience, skill, and enough fundage to do it right lol. I made myself happy, and it looks like youre doing the same. Nicely done! I wasnt slamming newman or djfmx or the other guys by the way- they all, and others as well, do nice restorations. I just dont have the tools or the space to do a build like i would prefer.
Thanks for the comment ace, i know what you mean i have seen some truly stunning bikes on here, i think a lot of it is like you say down to cash flow, tools and space

But the problem i see is a lot of these restoration's are done with intention of selling for a profit or to have a garage queen

A lot of restoration's are not actually enjoyed by the guy who put in the wrench time, which to me is a real shame

For me the purpose of my build was to take an old school bike, give it a modern flare and to know the machine inside and out

To gain a true connection to the machine that nobody else would understand

For me it was just something about this bike that grabbed me from day one, i have owned and ridden quite a few bikes, quad's and trikes over the years (2 and 4 stroke) nothing has ever come close to this bike

I would never want it to be that pristine that i would be too afraid to ride it and get it dirty

I can't wait to get out on it and enjoy all that wrench time and cash i have put into this build

But that's just me everyone has their own belief's and idea of whats best and rightly so

The Shop

Andy86
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7/22/2015 10:58am
Hi all few more small bits of progress recently, fitted front brake caliper still waiting on the piston's for it but the rest of it is done seals, bleeder etc









Andy86
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7/26/2015 11:42am
Made some more small progress fitted a set of progrip fork boots in blue, decent fit too my forks measured in at 42mm tops, 62mm bottoms and 330mm in length

The progrip boots were listed as 42mm tops, 45/60mm bottoms and 350 maximum length

But the actual resting size of the boots was more like 40mm top, 60mm bottom and around 300mm in overall length, so overall a decent snug fit top and bottom and just had to stretch them in length 30mm or so to reach the underside of the lower triple clamp

Hope this info helps somebody in the future if they are unsure on fork boot sizing

Few pictures below, more updates and pictures to follow soon, waiting on a few deliveries









Andy86
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7/29/2015 6:46pm
Just spent another £800 ish on parts

Think that works out at about 1300 dollars in the usa

Should make some real good progress in coming weeks though

£360 on the rear shock rebuild, going to pick it up from the guy later he sent me a few teaser pictures it looks real nice

£100 on a set of blue ASV F3 folding levers from ebay

£55 on a 2008 model front brake master cylinder from america so i can mount the ASV front brake lever

£60 on a white UFO front and rear fender, the blue universal one's i bought were no good the front one was ok fit but the rear was way off

£40 on the two front brake pad support plates from fowlers

£60 on an EBC front brake disc and pads from ebay

£50 on renthal RC bend handlebars in blue from ebay

£40 on a gunner gasser throttle cable and a rear drum brake cable direct from venhill

Also a few other small bits a set of progrip triple density grips, an aftermarket anodized blue front brake hose clamp, an aftermarket PSR oil filler cap in anodized blue from america and also a couple of front fender collars

I'll try and get a few more pictures up once all the parts arrive and i get the time to bolt them all up

On a side note i think the local postman is starting to hate me lol the poor fella his mailbag looks heavy
Andy86
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8/2/2015 9:38am
Picked the rear shock up, was quite the transformation compared to when i started work on it

For a recap few pictures of the various stages of the refurb











Andy86
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8/2/2015 10:28am
Few more pictures of the shock after the refurb and also the receipt detailing the work done in the rebuild













Andy86
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8/5/2015 7:08am
A few more parts arrived recently, the ASV levers, the brake disc and pads and the venhill cables along with the Handlebars and grips etc

Still waiting on the 2008 model master cylinder and oil filler cap from the usa

Also fitted the aftermarket front brake line clamp to the lower fork leg, it was form a 2001 yz250 but it was a perfect fit

I borrowed the oem clamp from my brothers 01 yz250 just to make sure it fit, then purchased the aftermarket clamp via ebay once i knew it would fit, it worked out ok as the oem clamp for the 87 yz250 is now obsolete

Few pictures below













8/5/2015 7:49am
Have you lacquered all your flip paint? Can't tell from the finish.

Having rattle-canned a frame in the past, I wore through 4 coats of laquer and 4 of colour within two 3-hour events, and hit primer.

Frame guards would be a great idea.
I just get everything powder coated now.
Andy86
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8/5/2015 8:17am
Have you lacquered all your flip paint? Can't tell from the finish. Having rattle-canned a frame in the past, I wore through 4 coats of laquer...
Have you lacquered all your flip paint? Can't tell from the finish.

Having rattle-canned a frame in the past, I wore through 4 coats of laquer and 4 of colour within two 3-hour events, and hit primer.

Frame guards would be a great idea.
I just get everything powder coated now.
Yeah mate i went with the proper 2K clearcoat with activator/hardener valve in the underside of the can, expensive too at £20 (none of that £5 cheap crap) a can, seems to be really durable though much like a factory coating

Way i see it is even a brand new bike or a powdered coated bike will get chipped and dinged fairly quickly

As long as it looks nice when everything is finished i am happy, i have just never seen anyone brave enough to do an offroad bike in these kind of of colours, i just wanted to be different

Its not flip paint its chromaflair pigment, its about twice as expensive as any flip paint out there

£800 a litre or £40 for one 500ml aerosol

Search chromaflair on google you will be surprised how different it is compared to ordinary flip paint

But yeah your right if i ever did another build i would go down the powder coating route, mainly for the ease and cost effectiveness of it
8/5/2015 8:30am
Great to see that you've fully committed to it. Hopefully it'll hold up well for you.

When I had the wheels done for my car, they did a powdercoat primer, then painted the colour (just boring old gunmetal), then powdered the clear over top.
some of the shadow chrome finishes they can do now are pretty amazing though.

By the look of the colour(s) you have, that's a paint only job though, I'd imagine.

Eagerly awaiting a pic of it all in one piece.
Andy86
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8/5/2015 8:48am Edited Date/Time 8/5/2015 8:49am
Great to see that you've fully committed to it. Hopefully it'll hold up well for you. When I had the wheels done for my car, they...
Great to see that you've fully committed to it. Hopefully it'll hold up well for you.

When I had the wheels done for my car, they did a powdercoat primer, then painted the colour (just boring old gunmetal), then powdered the clear over top.
some of the shadow chrome finishes they can do now are pretty amazing though.

By the look of the colour(s) you have, that's a paint only job though, I'd imagine.

Eagerly awaiting a pic of it all in one piece.
Yeah its a paint only job, acid etching primer a rather unique vibrant blue basecoat, then the chroamflair and then the 2k clearcoat to finish off

Its a shame as camera's really don't do the colour justice at all, with the human eye it changes to about 5 different colours the jade green and ultraviolet purple being the most dominant but it also flips to a really nice neon blue (not seen by camera's) in really vibrant sunlight it gets a nice gold tint and sometimes their is even a bit of red and orange to be seen

I guess it doesn't help with the fact that my potato of a camera phone is quite old, i have just borrowed a HD camera from girlfriend's mother so hopefully i should be able to get some better pictures up soon

Thankyou very much for the replies goodluck its been nice to exchange a bit of proper conversation with someone
barkhard696
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8/5/2015 10:32am
>Yeah its a paint only job, acid etching primer a rather unique vibrant blue basecoat, then the chroamflair and then the 2k clearcoat to finish off

So the finish is polychromatic? You should be able to capture the color shift in strong, outdoor lighting -- even with an older camera.

I've never seen a dirt bike finished like this, it will be really unique. Way, way back in 1996 (i.e., the year I finally graduated from college, shortly after they invented electricity), the Ford Mustang Cobra had a similar, special order one-year finish, I believe it was called Mystic. It was really impressive in person.

Pulling off a paint scheme like this takes a lot of work!
Andy86
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8/5/2015 11:39am Edited Date/Time 8/10/2015 12:01pm
>Yeah its a paint only job, acid etching primer a rather unique vibrant blue basecoat, then the chroamflair and then the 2k clearcoat to finish off...
>Yeah its a paint only job, acid etching primer a rather unique vibrant blue basecoat, then the chroamflair and then the 2k clearcoat to finish off

So the finish is polychromatic? You should be able to capture the color shift in strong, outdoor lighting -- even with an older camera.

I've never seen a dirt bike finished like this, it will be really unique. Way, way back in 1996 (i.e., the year I finally graduated from college, shortly after they invented electricity), the Ford Mustang Cobra had a similar, special order one-year finish, I believe it was called Mystic. It was really impressive in person.

Pulling off a paint scheme like this takes a lot of work!
Hi barkhard yes you are right it was originaly developed by a company called flex products now called JDSU they developed it in 1996 and the mustang cobra was the first car to be painted in a chromaflair colour scheme, see the link below

In dull indoor light especially at night a lot of the other colours get buried and you mainly see the green, but in any form of outdoor light even on an overcast cloudy day all the other colours reappear, especially in vibrant sunlight

If you go back to the first page of the thread their is some better pictures of the parts just after painting outside on a really sunny day, you can see the affect a lot better

Apparently a black basecoat gives the the chromaflair a more vibrant and deeper shifting effect, but i used a blue basecoat just because of the modern yamaha blue, in hindsight maybe the black basecoat would have been a better choice

See the link below for a better description on chromaflair apparently it cost $ 6.400 a kilogram when JDSU first invented it damm !!!

http://www.sommers.com/aboutchromaflair.jsp
barkhard696
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8/5/2015 8:54pm
It's ironic that I'm talking with a fellow hobbyist in the UK -- and you're writing in Metric measurements and I'm thinking in terms of the old Imperial! (I come from a family of architects, home building here in the States is still largely done by the old feet and inches. What's metric? LOL)

AMAZING that you remember the old Mustang Mystic! Days gone by, buddy.

Just the humble .02 of a guy who admittedly, regularly goes to Comic Cons and is still morning the loss of Leonard Nimoy (i.e., I'm a nerd). But, it's really novel to see a different approach, one that comes from the heart.

At lot of us -- as Ace of Spades sited above -- get really caught up in "period correct" and "would this be what rider XYZ used" -- when, all most of us are doing is just building *replicas* of the real thing.

It becomes a kind of obsessive chase and we need other approaches, too. I personally am going in another direction -- want to acquire two stock later-model Hondas -- then brother I am done. Not even sure I'll post much anymore by the end of the year. The Hondas are going to be my closure.

With the folks here, really, only a few have bikes that have a real-deal connection of some kind to the factory (or satellite) team. Rob Martin has an ex-PC Simple Green practice bike, for example, and there have been a couple of bikes with real provenance like the amazing collection of Vital stalwart Newman.

So continue to have fun! You may be spending a lot (all of us do!), but you've having fun, enjoy yourself
8/6/2015 1:06am
I see some folks that state "it must be true works parts for my replicas!!" And i laugh because to me its just not worth the money. I nearly bought a set of works side cases for my kx, but realized that $700 could pay for my ENTIRE engine build; so thats what I did instead. Now that im not working id have been screwed if id bought the cases. My bike wouldnt be finished but i guess i couldve posted pics of my mag side cases lol.
8/6/2015 1:35am
Barkhard, whats funny is, everyone in the building industry over the age of 50 here in the UK still works in feet and inches.
Boards still get referred to as 8'x4's, timbers get referred to as 4"x2", 6"x2" etc.
I'm only 33, but have to put everything into feet and inches to visualise it.

We pick and choose our measurements, like Miles per gallon, people are feet and inches, stones and lbs.

Hey, we're the only country in the EU that didn't adopt the Euro.

As you and Aceopspades said, it's great to see people building their own take on a bike. My '91 CR's becoming the bike I wanted it to be as a kid. As with Andy here, when it's done it'll look like no other Bike out there.

If you make a factory replica, there's at least one other bike that looks like yours, and who wants to be the same as someone else? No matter how cool they are?
Andy86
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8/6/2015 7:58am
Thankyou very much barkhard, ace and goodluck for the kind replies, this build has really started to get me down recently, the cost the constant searching for all the parts the snags and little problems you come across with a restoration project etc, these kinds words from all of you was just the pick me up i need to finally finish it

Apologies to everyone if my terminology or spelling is a little off sometimes, colour vs color etc

Barkhard i have to agree newman has some spectacular bikes, but that is not to say their are not other awesome builds on here by truly dedicated people on here, i know by the time my build is finished the cash i have put into, i could have easily bought a brand new bike fresh of the showroom floor, but some of these builds on here look like they have had at least 15K if not more put into them Woohoo

Ace like you say i think people should do what makes them happy either period correct, works parts or something custom

As you put it goodluckmonkey i just wanted something a little different, that nobody else has

Being my first ever restoration project i have learnt a lot, hopefully if i ever do another bike it will be better next time
Andy86
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8/6/2015 10:07am
It's very easy to blow your budget to pieces. My Honda build cost me somewhere near £1500 in parts the first time round. A little over...
It's very easy to blow your budget to pieces.

My Honda build cost me somewhere near £1500 in parts the first time round.

A little over half that went into what was already a perfectly good motor because I got carried away.

http://m.vitalmx.com/forums/Old-School-Moto,22/1990-CR134-Resto-Mod,126…
Dam that looks nice awesome build i think i have seen that build before over on mxtrax stunning work pal

I think i spent around 2 grand just on the engine alone unluckily for me not much was reusable, around £400 on the gearbox, £400 on the clutch around £500 on the top end, and the rest on all the other miscellaneous bits and pieces crankshaft rebuild, water pump, reed valve, crankshaft primary drive gear and all the bearings and oil seals etc

The engine is what ate all my cash and really annoyed me, but at least now in essence its like a brand new engine and hopefully i should not have to worry about anything other than a rebore and piston kit for a while thank god

I have never been a fan of honda's but yours does look really nice

I have also kept all the old parts from the build at the end when its all finished i think i will have about 75% of a bike in trashed ruined parts, i will take some pictures of all the junk parts together, i think it would be a good end to the thread

I have kept every receipt from my build and the folder is about 2 inch thick i am dreading adding it all up at the end, i think i will need some strong whisky on that day
8/7/2015 7:32am
All this talk of Chromaflair paint, and I hadn't seen anything with it since it first became trendy about 10 years ago.

Then I see this little Peugeot parked over the road from work. I'll see if I can get a pic on my way out of it's still there.
BROOKSIE
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8/10/2015 4:02am
Nice thread mate! Very well documented. I bought an 86 yesterday and am planning on doing a full nut and bolt resto on it, original colours though. From the small bit of research I have done its looking like the 86 and 87 are fairly similar if not the same just with different decals... am I right?

Any tips? like something you would have done differently during the build?



ky_savage
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8/10/2015 6:50am
BROOKSIE wrote:
[img]https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/forums/2015/08/10/100747/s1200_IMG_3018.JPG.jpg[/img]


I'm about half way through an '86 build myself. 125 though.
Andy86
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8/10/2015 11:55am Edited Date/Time 8/10/2015 11:56am
BROOKSIE wrote:
Nice thread mate! Very well documented. I bought an 86 yesterday and am planning on doing a full nut and bolt resto on it, original colours...
Nice thread mate! Very well documented. I bought an 86 yesterday and am planning on doing a full nut and bolt resto on it, original colours though. From the small bit of research I have done its looking like the 86 and 87 are fairly similar if not the same just with different decals... am I right?

Any tips? like something you would have done differently during the build?



Hi brooksie yes you are right the 86 and 87 are pretty much identical, only real differences are the 86 had a red frame and red radiator shrouds, were as the 87 had a white frame and white radiator shrouds

The 86 model i think is meant to have a six speed transmission were as the 87 is a 5 speed, also the top end, head and powervalve is different between 86 and 87 a lot of the parts do interchange between 82-87 you will have to do a lot of careful research on part numbers 86 is 1LU prefix were as 87 is 2HH prefix

It depends what build your planning on, a garage queen or racer ?

I am happy to help with anything you get stuck on feel free to give me a shout with any parts you need or advice on problems you hit along the way

Try this place for parts they will probably have 80% of the parts you need

http://www.cmsnl.com/yamaha-yz250s-1986_model9213/partslist/
barkhard696
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8/10/2015 12:10pm
The basic architecture of the YZ250 motor was essentially the same from 1982 through 1996. Yamaha is the all-time King Kong of recycling parts, keeping parts in production for years, and general parts interchangeability. I know guys who will own nothing but Yamahas for these reasons.

There are a couple of $25-$40 or so Yamaha Cross-Ref software packages available on eBay -- you'll be surprised how much Yamaha (re)used parts on streetbikes or dual-sport that were on enduros, YZ forks that later appear on streetbikes, disk brakes on YZ taken from street bikes, etc.

I have a '94 WR250, which is basically a '94 YZ250. I'll bet that in terms of the engine, there are far more similarities than differences, by a long shot.

Supposedly, you could bolt a YZ250 engine up through 95 into earlier-model chassis; Yamaha even kept the engine mount bolt pattern.

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