Winter Project(s) YZ125 & KLX125

yak651
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3/16/2017 7:01pm Edited Date/Time 1/22/2018 10:08am
Last year I picked up an '05 YZ125 that was pretty rough and rebuilt it during the winter. I always did my own maintenance for the most part and try to keep my bikes looking nice but this was my first real complete rebuild from top to bottom. I made a topic last year on my progress here: http://www.vitalmx.com/forums/Race-Shop,42/Another-YZ-Rebuild,1294526 and went from this





To this:







Original plan was to keep this but I figured what the heck I have a 250f I like to ride, this thing looks good maybe i should see what I can get for it before I scratch it all up. Listed it on a facebook page for a price I didn't think I would get and happened to have a couple people contact that wanted to buy it and one gave me a price I couldn't refuse so down the road it went...fast forward to this fall and start thinking I really should try to find another 125 to work on this winter as I enjoyed passing my time in the garage last year on the last project. Searching craigslist found a couple but no one really wanted to come down to a price that I figured would make it worth my while. Finally right around Thanksgiving (about same time as I found my deal last year) there was an '06 about 2 hours north of me that had been for sale for about a month. I threw out a low ball offer (I know sorry I'm one of those people), the person came back not offended but said he couldn't do that price as he just rebuilt it, was in good shape, blah....I told him understand but that's all I can do. Black Friday he gets ahold of me and says that if I want it come and get it, so got in the truck and took a drive. He told me "yamaha trained mechanic" had rebuilt it before I drove up, get there and ask if he cares if I start it up. You can try but it doesn't start, carb is leaking gas thru it. I was pretty disappointed as I was under the impression it ran. Look a little closer and it's dripping oil thru the crankcase, as stated gas poured out carb when turning the gas on and see leaky fork seal. Tell him no deal and begin to leave. He ask what it will take to put it in my truck a little back and forth and I took a risk and loaded it up


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yak651
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3/16/2017 7:18pm
So story was that it was one of his buddy's bike, he raced it a couple of times and smoked the crank. The Yamaha mechanic replaced crank with a Hot Rods unit and a new OEM piston was installed. I started by tearing it down. After getting seat off noticed a bunch of seeds in the airbox and filter was clean/oiled but seal area falling off. Tear it apart more and find the seeds in reed valve area and further I got it down was also in crankcase area. Wasn't going to tear it down this far but also needed to find out why it was leaking oil. Found out the "yamaha trained mechanic" must've missed the section that you require yamabond on the crankcase halves, when I got it apart it was completely clean on the case surfaces. Besides that the one issue that irritated me was the factory mechanic used a pry or something to get cases apart as there were some gouges. Cleaned them up as best as I could, seems to have a good seal after rebuild.







yak651
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3/16/2017 7:27pm
Good point is I didn't have to clean up the case halves and made easy solution to why it was leaking oil. Lucky it didn't start as it most likely would of seized from air leaks

Not a ran of hot rod cranks, but since brand new figured just keep it. He did give me the old OEM crank, will most likely eventually have it rebuilt for a spare and if I keep the bike rebuild it next year with it. Took lead from some on hear and made a fancy two by four wood engine holder... Cleaned things up and put it together (with Yamabond!).





yak651
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3/16/2017 7:35pm
Continue with teardown and clean up, cleaned frame, greased linkage, took of some casting marks etc. Don't believe the trained mechanic working on it, but do believe it was a low hour bike as clutch basket is pretty smooth, bearings weren't shot, minimal frame/engine case wear, radiators straight and no messing OEM bolts.













yak651
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3/16/2017 7:45pm
Last year I put the RTech plastic upgrade kit on and like how it turned out. The kit was realatively new and ended up paying over $200 for it. This year was cruising ebay and found a kit for $120 so picked that up and installed. Didn't take a before pic, but the after of the airbox looks like new after cleaning and putting the new sides on.

Can't afford the fancy titanium bolts with drilled washers but did update some of the OEM with better looking OEM hardware





Rebuilt the carb with new internals to fix the leak. This fall winter also did a winter kitchen remodel. With the credit card points I earned from all the purchases, used those to pick up a Vforce and new pipe/silencer thru Amazon using those points.







The Shop

yak651
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3/17/2017 6:45pm
Next up was rebuilding the leaky forks with OEM seal kit and new fluids. Also found an old Dunlop D756 that only had a couple of rides on in my basement so I mounted it up to the cleaned up OEM wheel








yak651
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3/17/2017 6:47pm
Filled up the fluids and no leaks! Checked to see if it works...
yak651
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3/17/2017 6:56pm
Around the same time I found the YZ I found a '03 KLX125 on a facebook page. Again offer accepted so asked my nephew to ride along as this was 2 hours south of me, little sketchier that way....not sure what happened to my pictures, but overall not in too bad of shape. Had some goofy stickers, missing some spokes in the rear wheel but started right up and no smoke so deal made. Plan was to upgrade to KX85/100 suspension. Stage one, front forks


Also updated the front fender and # plate to new style KX


Made a spacer to mount up the plate, will get a picture of it installed tomorrow



yak651
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3/18/2017 9:20am
So the older KX had front mounted plate where new style is top mounted so needed an adapter to convert the triple clamp mounting. Also added an hour meter while I was working on it





yak651
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3/18/2017 9:23am
Forks I picked up didn't have a brake guide so I had a bracket made to use a YZ guide I had






yak651
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3/26/2017 2:23pm
Rear suspension was a little more work. Spacing and widths are different between KLX and KX. I made new bearing sleeve for the KX swing arm bearing to allow use of the KLX shaft. Also had to bore bearing caps and then add spacers to take up the gap. Started by cleaning up the swingarm


fitting spacers


yak651
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Appleton, WI US
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3/26/2017 2:25pm
Needed to modify the rear brake pedal






yak651
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3/26/2017 2:31pm
To mount brake plunger, seen some people welded a plate to frame. As I'm not sure how this will work and I'm not s welded I figured out s bracket using the exhaust mount. Had my neighbor weld it up for me










yak651
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3/26/2017 2:34pm
Also got rid of the sloppy linkage shift lever





yak651
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3/26/2017 2:38pm
Purchased some graphics for both bikes













KooyaKooya
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Salt Lake City, UT US
3/30/2017 9:24am
Cool projects! I'm curious, what's the advantage of using the kx100 swing arm on the klx?
yak651
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3/30/2017 9:56am
KooyaKooya wrote:
Cool projects! I'm curious, what's the advantage of using the kx100 swing arm on the klx?
KLX has steel swingarm set up for drum brake. KX aluminum and set up for disc brake
yjgfikl
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Redondo Beach, CA US
3/30/2017 9:49pm
I just saw this thread, great work on both bikes! I like how you fabbed up parts for the KLX, very cool
mattyhamz2
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3/31/2017 10:15am
nice work man! Both look great
TRRideCo.
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Payson, UT US
1/22/2018 10:08am
Awesome bike builds! Quick question... what shift lever did you use on the KLX 125? Ive been looking for something to delete the linkage style as well. Thanks!

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