Hey everyone, I've always loved 125's and a ton of my riding buddies are into vintage racing and I could never tag along with them. So the hunt was on to find a "clean" 1999 or older 125 that I could do some refreshing during the winter before the 2024 season.
My goal was to find a bike that I could work on, and find accessibility to parts fairly easy. I found this 1999 yz125 that looked pretty good, but everyone knows that a 25 year old bike is never in as perfect of condition as you think. Even if it does have brand new plastics.
This will not be a complete OEM replica build for a 1999 because as most of you can see it's already got a 00-01 subframe and airbox. My plan is to keep it as original to that time frame as i can, I'm going to go back to silver rims, no restyled plastics. But at the end of the day, I plan on actually riding this bike quite a lot next year!
After seeing chuckdavies 1998 Yz125 Dowd replica, he inspired me to make my own build thread. I just want to have document the work I'm doing so i can look back at it, and to get some insight from some of you seasoned vets on bike building, and experts on this year Yz's. Any and all help is always appreciated since i have never undertaken a build this far in depth before!
Thanks for checking it out!
Nice.
I had two '99s - I had just gotten my first one set up the way I liked it and it got stolen. Thankfully, it was covered by insurance so I got another one.
I had lots of luck with an FMF Fatty pipe and Shorty silencer on that model. I also ran V-Force reeds and Vortex pistons. Another hot mod at the time was to convert to the CR-style brake line routing on the front.
A Noleen pipe was the best one back in the day or a true Bill's pipe from the period of time was a ripper also. I built a 01 with 98 cylinder and Bills pipe a few years back and it was fun. SSS fork conversion is easy with the swap of the triple clamp stem.
NETRA has a vintage series and 99s are allowed as of this year which is always a good time and there are few 125 bikes in the pre-modern class.
Sorry to hear about you bike getting stolen, but thankfully it was covered!
Not sure which way I’m going to go with pipe/silencer combo yet. But yes, I already ordered new brake lines and I went with the Cr style!
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Awesome! I want to do the SSS conversion, but I’m not sure how much I want to keep dumping into this bike lol. It seems like these older bikes just keep nickle and dimeing you! But we will see!
Yeah I would love to try some of the vintage NETRA races, I raced most of the NETRA harescrambles this year! I’m a part of BTR and we put on the Satans kingdom race and when I was working the event I was drooling over some of those old bikes! It’s so cool to see how competitive some of those older bikes still are!
I really wanted to dedicate this bike to moto only, I really don’t want to beat the crap out of this bike on some of those gnarly tracks rocks, logs, water crossings… they just take such a beating! In the first picture you might be able to see my woods bike in the background (2023 Beta 250 race edition)
During the tare down, I found a few surprises, one was actually pretty funny and creative!
The tank has a pretty big hole (not all the way through) where the top bolt that holds the radiator shroud on. Looks like the metal insert fell out and someone kept trying to screw a bolt into soft plastic.
On the swingarm, someone must have lost the dust cover, so the used a bottle cap off a bottle of iced tea or something
But, the tear down is complete and I just brought the frame and subframe off to powder coat!
Don't judge the series based on your clubs event. Most are fun and most clubs give us an easy loop. This year we were challenged by the weather and I did race your event in the rain and in spots it was foot peg deep ruts.
Used bikes are always a challenge but the cheaper they are the more you spend! That said you don't do this to make money, you do it because you enjoy it.
96-01 YZ gas tanks are super brittle and crack very easily. Clarke makes aftermarket ones in the OEM size.
I have a clear Clarke OEM tank I would sell, if that interests you at all. I want to go back to the blue.
Thanks, but I actually already have a Clarke blue tank ordered and on the way!
If anyone has a line on a carb for this bike let me know.
good looking bike. I’ve been thinking about the sss conversion as well.
Post a reply to: 1999 Yz125