1977 Bultaco Pursang 200

The owner didn't seem to know much about it and told me "it's stuck", so I figured I was in for a full engine out strip down and rebuild. When I got there, it looked even cleaner than the original pictures. I walked up to it and grabbed the Kickstarter by hand and pushed it thru: "thumpthump, thumpthump" ?????

Not stuck. Compression is really good. Stopped there for fear that I was going to drive my price up!

He also had 2 other Buls there: a really clean 74 Matador Six Days and a awful looking '60something ?? No interest in the really old one, but worked a deal for the Pursang and Matador and brought them both home.

I didn't check spark until I got home, but happy to report it is all good there as well.

Plan for now is to get the Pursang up and running
with minimal upgrades to make it safe by mid-June and give it a quick shakedown ride to see what else it needs.

Talking to some of the Bultaco experts and parts sources I believe it is original right down to the stock tires!

Initial parts list:
- carb to intake boot (torn)
- kill switch (mangled)
- throttle housing/cable (damaged)
- handlebars ( right side damaged: crease where straightened)
- air filter (nothing left of original)
- tubes ( tires are pretty dry rotted too, but finding out they are original has me tempted to try to salvage them...)
- chain (missing)

That should be enough to get her running.

Yeah, I am aware of a lot of the pitfalls of the old Bultaco, so I'm not really expecting it to turn out quite as easy as it so far seems like it might be...

I've also been told that the stock 6 spd trans often barely made it out of the showroom before failing, so I may be in for something there as well.

Thanks. I already have my first order in with Hugh's. I consulted with them prior to the purchase to try to figure out what it was since the previous owner didn't seem to know much about it.

I hadn't checked out DC before but definitely looks like a useful site.

Been making some progress on the Pursang. I stripped it down, though still planning a semi quick initial job to get it running now. Probably will do a complete teardown to paint the frame over the winter.

Found a mouse nest where the filter was supposed to be.


Someone has done an interesting "paint job" on the frame. Looks like they took a brush with some silver paint to a few areas of the frame that they could reach without actually removing any parts.



Got to love the Genuine Bultaco bolts!

With my girls off school for the summer, they have been able to stay up a little later and have been helping me a little each night putting it together.

We got the front end put back together a couple nights ago. Wheel bearings feel fine and the brakes are serviceable.



The steering stem bearing don't feel awesome, but they will work for the few short rides this fall before the complete teardown. I decided to go with Renthal "Vintage High" bars. Not sure if purists would frown on not sticking with steel bars, but I am partial to Renthal products.



New throttle and brake cables, new Magura throttle housing, some Renthal full waffle medium grips, and a new front number plate to finish it off for the night.

The intake boot was in really rough shape and torn.



Pulled the original Bing Model 84 32mm carb apart and again surprised to find it to not be full of crud, just some residual oil in the bowl. Just documented the jetting, cleaned it out a little and stuck it back together.



Oiled up the new Uni Filter and called it a night.

I do really want to give a shout out to the guys at Hugh's Bultaco. They have have been great with advice, had everything I have needed so far, and at very reasonable prices to boot!

If all goes well, I will finally be trying to fire it up either this weekend or sometime next week.

We did some more work on the Pursang tonight, though in the end, I won't claim to have made progress. More on that later...

Putting the tank back on I really realized how much the paint is peeling. I will have some decisions to make later on as to how pretty I want to make this thing.



The bracket holding the seat on only had 1 of 4 rivets still somewhat holding on. The girls cleaned and prepped it, then we drilled out what was left of the old rivets and put in some slightly larger ones that would grab the rounded out holes.



Got it hung back together minus the pipe and chain.


I was getting excited to put the last couple things on and fire her up, but after searching my garage, I realized I didn't have any pre-mix on hand (sold my last 2T in '17, but thought I still had some oil laying around). So I figured i would just change the trans oil and call it a night.

...and that is when the project went sideways!

As the drain plug slipped thru my fingers into the drain pan, I noticed something else drop. I proceeded to fish around in what looked like fairly clean oil...



A few shavings, I'm okay with, but getting an entire tooth out with the oil was a real bummer.

One of the Bultaco experts I consulted with ( Woody Graves from Midwest VMX) before buying it told me at the start that these are great little bikes, but the 6 spd trans was garbage. His suggestion was to immediately pull the engine and swap to the 5 spd. I thought (hoped?) I could put that off...

Oh well, guess she is coming apart now. We have a lot going on this summer, but should have time to get it swapped in time to get some rides in ahead of the Sept race.

So... after a long summer break filled with kids softball games and an epic road trip out to Yellowstone (totally worth the time away from moto!), I have finally been able to make some progress on my Bultaco projects.

My dad has an engine with a 5 spd laying around that I am going to harvest the necessary trans parts from, but I decided to put the Pursang on hold until the winter.

Instead, I decided to attack the 74 Matador. For the race we are doing in a couple weeks. Our other pre76 option fell thru, and we still have the 77 PE250 for the group the Pursang would run, so we had that covered for the race, and I didn't want to rush that project.

Here is how it looked on arrival:

This one is also I pretty good shape, had good compression, but no spark and noticeably more abuse than the Pursang. I know, I probably should do a complete strip down and rebuild, but again going to try to make it function mechanically and deal with cosmetics later.

Stripped it down to put a parts list together:




Then put in another order with Hugh's Bultaco:

I did not get nearly as lucky with the carb this time. Still has the stock Amal and it was full of rotten fuel...



After about a half a day in the dunk tank, it came up pretty good:

With no spark, I pulled the ignition cover and could tell there had been a lot of moisture in there. I bought a flywheel puller and new points and condenser. Flywheel came off without issue, but I started to try to remove the backing plate to get to the points and realized I was getting in over my head.

Didn't want to break bolts off in the case, so I loaded up and took the bike over to my dad's place:


A little bit of heat and everything came apart in one piece. Then I got a lesson on cleaning points (even though I had a new set sitting on the bench!)


He still has a bunch of his gauges from the dealership, but we had to rig up a test light to confirm the timing.



After a nice afternoon hanging with my dad, we have good spark, and I now have a spare set of points!

After a few more flushes of the fuel tank, and stealing quite a few parts originally intended for the Pursang, we got the Matador running 2 weeks before race time.

A quick shakedown ride on some easy trails showed 3 key issues:
1 - she is running a little rich and I still have some crud coming out of the tank.
2 - the fork springs feel like they are set up for a feather
3 - right side shift is really weird!

I flushed the tank on more time, and also dropped the needle to the lowest spot (only 3 clip positions on the Amal). Once i figured out how to use the Tickler properly, she now starts 3rd or 4th kick cold and 1st or 2nd warm.

For the forks, I pillaged the Pursang one more time. I was surprised to see the springs were the same length even though the Pursang forks were 3" taller.


Couldn't tell actual spring rate, but they felt stiffer and someone had put in a semi-progressive 3 pc spring setup in the Pursang:


A buddy of mine suggested grabbing some straight rate 50 wt motor oil to help slow them down a little too:


Got it all back together a couple days before the race and it felt like it might be rideable.

Race day came Sat Sept 12th. This is the Midwest Vintage MX Race of Champions. It is a team race with 5 riders on bikes from 5 different eras.

Our team:


ROC 1 - bikes 1975 and older: 1974 Bultaco Matador SD
ROC 2 - 1976-1981: 1977 Suzuki PE250
ROC 3 - 1982-1989: 1985 Suzuki RM250
ROC 4 - 1990-2001: 1998 Suzuki RMX250
ROC 4 - 2002-pres: 2018 KTM 450

I'm proud to say that the Matador held together great. Only incident was toward the end of the first moto while trying to hold onto 7th (out of 13 teams) I overcooked a corner and then forgot which side the rear brake was on! Missed the rut and bailed, then couldn't find neutral and lost 3 spots.





In the end we were able to pull off 4th overall as a team!

Just after the New Year, I finally managed to start making progress again on the Pursang. Since the cases need to be split, I decided to pull it completely down to a bare frame.





Everything came apart really easily and was well greased.

Then got distracted again by another project...

My older daughter has outgrown her CRF70, so we sold that and grabbed a basket case TTR125LE that someone dumped on my dad about 8 yrs ago.

May do a more detailed build thread on this too, but here are before and after pics.



It is mostly wrapped up now with just a couple minor details to finish up.

Back to the Pursang at the beginning of this month and time to start pulling the motor apart.




Some more moisture in the ignition, but it had good spark, so hopefully just clean it up and hang it back together in the end. Also realise I don't have the right puller for the Motoplat flywheel, so back on the phone with Hughes Bultaco...


I hadn't realized initially that the shift shaft actually goes out both sides of the engine. So, I could switch this to right side shift if I so chose (not going to happen!)




The clutch is another learning experience for me. Seems to be in decent shape, but I had not worked on a set up like this before with a chain drive and metal on metal plates.




More to come...

Pulled the top end off, and unfortunately confirmed that the PO was right. At some point, it was "stuck"!





The piston doesn't look like it has much time on it, and the gouges in the cylinder aren't too deep, so I'm hoping it will clean up okay. What has me nervous is that Hugh's told me that he has standard and 1st & 2nd oversize available. This piston has a 0.50 stamped in it, so a little worried im already at the 2nd over bore...

Going to take it over to my dad's place this weekend and measure it up.