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With this video I'm really trying to bring the parts and tools to life. That toolbox was given to me by a friend and I'm in love with the thing as a true classic, and as a character in this video. At this point I have the forks completely disassembled and most of that part edited. I just got done moving so I should be back on the reassembly before too long.
Also I had fully intended to do some behind the scenes with this video but the move had me in a bit of a rush so that has been delayed.
Enjoy!
93 KX250 Forks Loading In Vice Jaws on Vital MX
I am currently restoring the same bike (in a very slow fashion) and would like to ask if anyone out there has a stock silencer in fairly good shape? I have been looking for one for several years with no luck. I have a nice period correct Pro Circuit pipe but would like to put a stock one on to be true to the bikes' history.
Thank you for your help and I look forward to watching the build progress!
The Shop
I'm not sure yet what the best way is to share these short animations on the site, so this time I'm embedding straight from Instagram.
At long last I have a worthy update. The forks are done, and so is the video!
Oh, who did the anodizing of the forks? Thanks!
The anodizing was done by Jason at SGB Racing. He was great and I'm very happy with how they turned out. For the record I paid the normal price for the service so I'm not promoting someone who gave me a freebie. Jason was up front that the color wouldn't be a perfect match to OEM but that wasn't critical to me.
Back to the first page of this thread there are some pictures of tubes that were done by Aluminart in California. If you're looking to replicate the original forks the color match on those is incredible.
This tear down has me shaking my head at my two relatives that owned the bike after I rebuilt it, as well as 17 year me who certainly cut a corner or two at the time.
Let's start with the ignition cover. The dirt you see in the picture was all there when I removed the cover! Clearly the silicone gasket wasn't getting the job done… I maintain innocence on being the one to have used silicone, however. I know I had a full gasket kit for the rebuild!
Definitely a bit of water seeping through with all that dirt as well. I'm kind of surprised all that dirt didn’t have everything sandblasted clean in there….
Here's one I have to fess up to. That Lawson bolt was definitely from the farm bolt bin and I'm sure it was me who put it there.
There was a good bit of cranking and tapping on the puller to get the flywheel off. Rust was everywhere.
The clutch side didn't have any nasty surprises. However I did notice that my former self skipped over the step of bending that washer over to help lock the nut in place.
A bit of wear on the shaft of the shifter, but the teeth appear to be good.
The transmission output shaft has some significant wear going on, I'll probably look to replace it.
Here's one I can't be totally certain of. I would really like to think that there hasn't been any point in my life where I would have stooped so low as to throw a generic pipe plug in the engine and risk ruining the threads. But I cannot 100% guarantee I'm not responsible for this one. Surprisingly it wasn't leaking and hasn't completely mangled the threads in the case. We'll see how this one plays out.
I also dug a bit further in to the top end. Missing some teeth from one of the powervalves, so those are now officially on the parts list.
And the on that doesn't have chipping still shows significant wear.
I also hadn't noticed this before. Somehow the spring that holds the pipe in place managed to pull through the cylinder. Not sure what to do about that.
That's my progress thus far, until I get my hands on a case splitter. Let this be a reminder that you never know when cutting corners could come back to bite you 16 or 17 years down the road.
Since finishing the last video I have moved, but I am in the new place and getting the studio set up to do an engine rebuild video. I'm thinking I'd like to use Motion Pro tools and Wiseco engine components. Can anyone put me in contact with the right people at Wiseco and Motion Pro to see if they're interested in being involved? If so shoot me a PM and thanks in advance!
Pit Row
Well, I finally pulled the trigger on a parts bike for this project. It may actually be more accurate to say the original bike will be the parts bike for this one, as this bike is in far better condition all around. The critical items I was after were the frame, swingarm, and a good cylinder. The frame and swingarm were easy to assess from the outside, but I had to take a gamble on the cylinder. The previous owner didn't know if it was stock bore, sleeved, ported, etc.
Much to my delight, I pulled the engine apart to find a stock bore in surprisingly good condition.
The head, however, has had a bit of a rough go. Not sure if that's gonna be repairable or not. Thoughts?
I'll dig the rest of the way into the motor soon. If both of the powervalves are good then my engine parts troubles are solved.
Regarding the video project, I have a long road ahead. I am attempting to do a proper short film with this engine rebuild animation. There will be a story to it, which means lots of shorter clips, camera angle changes, and smaller more detailed movements. Basically I've found a way to make the process even slower.
There is a good chance I'll be moving this summer, so the clock is ticking on getting this done. A large part of the reason I picked up this second bike is so I could send the engine out for repair/replate while I'm animating disassembly and have it ready to go back together when I need it. Waiting weeks for parts in the middle of this process isn't going to work with my timeline.
Also, Wiseco sent me a piston for the bike. I'll be sharing an animation I did with it on Tuesday. I think the two stroke crowd will like it, and it gives a good idea of what I'll be doing with this engine rebuild video. I'll share it here when I release it.
Until then, here's a test clip I did with the Metro Lakes/MHR engine stand I picked up for this project.
Some other progress is being made as well. I have finally jumped on the vapor blasting bandwagon! I was about to send these out to be done but found a guy to do them local here in Bend. Surface Works Oregon if anyone is interested. I didn't get any kind of hook up on this and I'm very happy with the results. He put black cerakote on the ignition and powervalve cover which I think looks great, but I'm thinking I'll be going with Boyesen covers for the engine that gets rebuilt in the video.
Also I got the cylinder back from Race Tech. Andrew made some small changes to port timing and cleaned things up a bit. It's going to be a long time before this thing runs but I'm excited to see how it works.
And lastly a quick clip of the cases getting being joined
Did you use a bolt kit for the engine or get the original bolts zinc plated?
I used the Bolt Motorcycle Hardware kit and I'm very happy with it. I like the look of the dished head bolts and for $30 it's an easy choice for me over zinc plating all the small, easily replaceable fasteners.
There's actually not a piston in it and nothing is torqued down or anything. The bigger deal for me at this point is that I have shot everything I need to finish the video. I'll chip away at the editing and sound effects throughout the summer and the plan is to release it in the fall.
As I took down all the studio stuff to reorganize the garage I couldn't help but keep looking at it. If not for this project I wouldn't have taken this to the extent I did with the vapor blasting and everything. It's quite a step up from the rebuild I did on it in 2002, that's for sure.
When I had the fork tubes anodized they masked off the silver part, I don't think you want those removed.
After moving and not getting much done during the summer months I'm back to working on sound effects and finalizing the video. I even found a dude to do a proper film score for this one. If all goes well it should be done in November, I'm not sure I can maintain my patience and sanity much longer than that 😂
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