My dad had a 1980 XR200 (non-R twin shock model) that my brother & I thrashed over the course of our teenage learning curve. I always wished for the more modern Pro Link version; so when the sheer coincidence of my compulsive Craigslist list browsing & disposable income lined up with a decent 1983 R model, I added a trail bike project to compliment my ‘21 FE 350, and ‘83 CR 60.
A quick test ride in the gulch behind my shop brought back a flood of four stroke memories of the exploring fields & farmland, and also revealed that the rear shock was completely blown; full pogo stick effect when trying to ride over any sort of rocks or rain ruts. There was also a hanging idle issue where the engine rpm didn’t want to drop back down to idle once the bike warms up.
Back into the shop it goes for a shock rebuild, and to take inventory of its overs state of affairs.
Restored one of these awhile back.
Front ends off xr250 up to 94 fit bolt right on.
Rear shocks off the xr200r 85 through 91 fit. Raises the rear by half an inch. They perform better and there's more parts available for rebuilding them.
Footpegs off the crf150r fit and offer a path to wider footpegs. Will need pegs springs and pins.
Thanks for the info! Fingers crossed, I have a '95 XR donor chassis lined up for suspension upgrades.
Great tip on the footpeg cross-reference! That's one of the main things I'm looking to upgrade right away.
With the mud season of Western Colorado upon us, I’ve had enough free time in my shop to dig into the shock rebuild on the XR 200. Servicing suspension is a new adventure for me, and since the shock is blown anyways I figure anything I can do will be an improvement, and move me farther along the learning curve.
The shock puking oil all over the linkage & general vicinity had rendered a gooey mess of everything, so I ordered up an ultrasonic parts washer. The wait gave me enough time to get trepidatious about tearing into the shock body, so I installed the Rox bar risers, Renthal RC High bar, and mocked up one of the Acerbis handguards. The stock position feels like the bars are in your lap, and practically force you sit down, as the bars feel like they are at about knee level when standing.
How much time was spent designing, and specifying the material of the dust seals such that I could clean them out 40 years later with a screwdriver & rag, and find nary a crack or tear or missing chunk? We often wonder if the champions and team managers of the sport lurk on these forums under burner accounts. I’d be more intrigued to know if there are Honda engineers who lurk on forums for the satisfaction of seeing their designs still functioning decades later. Is the grease zerk engineer out there cheering to see me pump some fresh Lucas Red & Tacky through this old linkage? Anyone who has ever taken out the bushing out of a set of needle bearings has experienced the frustration of having needle bearing fall out, and the grease-covered watchmaker’s frustration of trying to get them into place. To just pop a grease gun on, and watch the old grease flushed out by the fresh newness is a joy made possible by the unsung folks in the trenches of industrial design.
The Shop
No, I didn’t take photos of the disassembly process. This is where the regret kicked in. The lower retainer / valve required beating on a socket over the damper rod to knock it free. In the consternation, and confusion, I forgot to take pics, and re-assembled the shim stack on a zip tie to the best of my recollection.
Arranging the bags of parts, dread began to creep in. Why are there so many parts? Where do they all go? After a bit of deduction, I realized I had doubled on my order of replacement seals from Race Tech, and the Tusk seal head assembly. The easy route of the Tusk assembly beckoned, and I decided to save the replacement seals for future use.
Since I forgot to order a seal bullet, I decided to take my chances with a liberal application of Teflon tape. It seemed to work well enough to get the seal head over the threads, and shoulder; then I reassembled the shim stack according to my best guesstimate.
With the aid of a rubber band, a large Velcro strap, and drip pan, I was able to rig up a bleeding / install arrangement on my vise.
On one of the videos I watched, I distinctly recall observing the preload collars at the bottom of the shock body before installing the damper rod assembly, and thinking, “I’ll just put them on after.” Turns out, it is much smarter to put the preload rings on first.
The hectic pace of the summer trail building season has come & gone, and now it is back to the shop to follow up on the XR saga. Attempts to re-build my shock turned into a long-running gumption trap. I re-assembled it probably half a dozen times; each time it gave the same un-damped pogo stick action as before putting new parts in. Finally I took it to a local moto shop, and eventually got the verdict back that the shock body was too corroded to allow the valving to function properly.
I found another shock on ebay of a similar vintage, and tried bolting it on, but it seemed just as much a pogo stick as the first one. At least by now I'm getting comfortable with the process of taking these shocks apart. For being within a year or two of each other, there is an amazing degree of difference in the internals.
First up is the reservoir bladder - the donor shock has a transluscent body; all the better to see the shock fluid that has leaked inside.
The shim stack and valving have significant differences between the two as well, with the donor shock (orange zip tie) appearing to have a much more refined / developed set up.
Eventually I wound up using the reservoir from the original shock, and the "new" shock body & valving, and it finally feels like we have something like controlled suspension action happening.
I have an '86 TRX250R and every time I ride it I think "How does this thing not need crank seals yet?" I know for sure they have never been done. Everything else that old has had them done at least once.
Fork Time! After getting a somewhat functioning shock back together, the forks were feeling quite atrocious in comparison. Considering the circus I had with the shock, I wanted to keep things a simple as possible on the fork, and just go for a seal replacement & fresh fluid.
This particular generation of XR forks has a locknut inside the damper rod that makes getting the fork legs apart rather tricky. From my internet research, I learned that an impact gun & a broom handle is the shortcut method to buying the special Honda tool, or stringing together a long enough set of nuts, bolts, and extensions. While part of me was a bit reviled at sticking an old broom handle with flaking chunks of varnish into my damper rod assembly, this is after all my "practice bike" - the one I I practice all my wrenching skills on.
On the first fork leg, the impact gun worked a treat; zipping the bolt out no problemo. As I was setting up for the second one, wiggling in the 8mm hex bit on my 1/2" Milwaukee impact driver, the thought crossed my mind, "Hey, you should clean out the recesses of the bolt head to make sure the bit fits properly" just as my finger depressed the trigger, and the improperly seated bit spun a perfectly round circle in the bolt head... 😬
Oh boy. The casting of the lower fork leg prevented grabbing the outside of the bolt, yet the recess of the Allen head didn't provide enough depth for the EZ-Out to engage. Onto adventures in "manual machining."
Happiness is a fully engaged Ez-Out . I was anxious about drilling out the head of the bolt for fear I would remove too much material from the head, and snap it off at the shoulder, but fortunately I managed to hit the Goldilocks depth of just enough for the Ez-Out to engage, but not so much as to result in catastrophe.
After sitting all summer with the airbox removed as I was playing rear shock bingo, the old 200 wasn't happy about starting up again. I could get it to fire for a few seconds by spritzing carb cleaner in the sparkplug hole, pointing to fuel delivery problems.
Having just gone through several rounds of carb wrasslin' & re-installing on my TW trail rig, I was not particularly eager to face the prospect of repeating the experience on the XR. Considering that the final solution to my TW carb mysteries was to buy a knock-off Chinesium Amazon carb that had the well-abused TW running crisper than ever before, I figured I was jump straight to the same conclusion on the XR, and purchased a Nibbi carb as a racier option to do justice to the "R" in XR200R.
At $75, the Nibbi carb is an amazing value, and does not seem to give up anything to the OEM options.
How can it not be fast when it is this shiny?
Womp Womp. The super-trick, extra large, fancy machined & anodized idle screw does not provide enough clearance to fit inside the constraints of the frame. Hopefully there's a more basic, lower-profile adjustment screw to replace this one and give it another try. Beside, I probably need a racing exhaust to go with my racing carburetor. 😎
Back to square one and being thankful that I have a shop to huff carb cleaner fumes in, and an air compressor to blow out plugged pilot jets. Robert Pirsig was right; there are few things as satisfying & gumption-building as taking a motorcycle from a state of scattered, non-functioning parts to a functioning machine again. The particular joy in well-abused older bikes that the bar of functionality is set so low that practically anything you do results in a very noticeable improvement in performance. I am far more trepidatious of working on my '21 FE 350 for fear that I make some faux pas of ignorance, whereas on the 200 I return to boisterous confidence of youthful ignorance.
To celebrate my wins of returning the XR to functioning condition, I bolted on the Acerbis flag handguards and I dare say she's looking racier all the time.
I just want to post to say that I enjoy your writing.
I'd love to find one of those early pro-link 200s!
Thanks! It makes me feel a little bit better about my social media consumption if I can contribute something rather than just being a lurker.
We've been having an odd winter here in Western Colorado. After some heavy snow around Thanksgiving, we really haven't had much since then. It's been warm enough to slowly melt off the sunny spots, but all the shady / north-facing aspects still hold snow. It looked promising enough to try for a ride, and I definitely needed it for the mental health. It's been almost exactly a year since I bought the bike, and I was eager to test the result of my shock combination & carb fiddling.
Next to town is an Open OHV area that has been my backyard playground for nearly 20 years, providing a familiar baseline of trails, and the re-assurance of knowing my options if I need to bail out. Today's trail menu was melting snow frosting over gooey to frozen to hero dirt. The XR's mellow power delivery was ideal for the unpredictable conditions as there really wasn't any point in trying to get in hurry. You know how they say it's more fun to ride slow bikes fast than fast bikes slow? Also turns out it's pretty fun to ride slow bikes slowly.
The local singletrack is pretty tight & dodgy, weaving through juniper trees with the occasional surprise rock move. I've put in far more laps on a mtb on this trail than I have on my 350, and it was remarkable how much the 200 felt more like a large mountain bike than a smaller version of the 350. The lower seat height, shorter wheelbase, and modest power plant made it easier to duck under the branches, tuck into rut berms, and find a rhythm through the rollers. Particularly noticeable was how I was able to take advantage of smaller dips and transitions that my longer, heavier 350 would simply flatten out. Not having much of a power delivery to worry about made it much easier to keep the bike on my chosen line rather than ricocheting about with wheel spin.
I was reveling how well the tiny, underpowered 200 was doing in such challenging circumstances, but thought I could stand to take some air pressure out of my tires given the slow speeds and sloppy conditions. After the trail side adjustment, the bike was reluctant to fire back up without the choke, which certainly seemed odd given the fact that it was well warmed up by now. Reveling in the joy of riding, I didn't care to put too much time into diagnostics, and accepted the choke position as a necessary evil for the day.
There is minimal elevation gain from the parking area to the upper trails, but the snow is getting noticeably deeper with each bend and straightaway. Someone else has broken a trail through the slush before me, and I do my best to keep in their tracks, and a steady hand on the throttle. A pipeline cut marks the halfway point on this trail, and a transition to a drier south-facing exposure. The cautious part of me advises this would be a good point to turn back, but the right hand never hesitates, and I keep my somewhat trusty steed pointed towards the next bit of singletrack. A surging & sputtering reminds me the choke is still at the halfway position, and childhood muscle memory reaches down to flip it to the fully open position as I scramble up a small embankment... and the bike stalls out.
Full choke, half choke, no choke, no difference at all. Nothing like a vigorous kicking session to raise your body temperature on a cool winter day. Based on past experiences with this bike an others, it occurs to me that few moments of rest may be just thing to restore vigor to this tired machine, so might as well snap some pics for content :
The bike does indeed fire up again, but the intervals between bogging out & dying become shorter and shorter. I try to take the upper side of the pipeline cut back to the gravel road, but the bike stalls out several more times, and I realize that though this escape route is easier, it is by far the longest, most roundabout way back to my truck, setting me up for several hours of walking if the bike continues to stall out. The parking lot is immediately below the escarpment in the picture, and there is an "Erzberg Lite" route up the pipeline cut. I've honestly never really considered this option before, but today it seems like the most viable option for getting back to the truck. At least gravity will be working in my favor, even if internal combustion is not, and the route drops me close enough that I could drive my truck in to pick up my bike if necessary.
Trusting in my mtb experience of riding fall line terrain, I ease over the edge, and begin my dance with gravity. Even with the Hand of God bumpstart, the XR is reluctant to stay running, but at least the non-running engine braking is a powerful supplement to my rear brake.
That wasn't so bad... but this is only the halfway point, and there is still this to get down :
Through some cautious skidding, carefully timed brake rolls, and determined bulldogging, I manage to get myself & my steed to the bottom in an upright & intact position. At the bottom, I am able to coax another cycle of life from the asthmatic engine, and make it back to the truck. It fires up again for the awkward dance of loading onto my hitch rack, and runs strong enough to perform a whiskey throttle wheelie off the loading ramp, tangling myself and bike in an ungraceful position that inspires much vexed language.
Washing off the mud at my shop, and reflecting on my eagerness to ride, it occurs to me that I have not considered the petcock as the source of my fueling / carburetor woes, and now I know what I am doing tomorrow.
Reminds me of my brother and I, we grew up learning to ride on my mums 1990 XR 200. Taught multiple friends and neighbors how to ride on it as well. Bike has been thrashed and been through hell and back and it still starts 2nd or 3rd kick, even after sitting in the shed for a year. I went to clean the air filter when i was 15 and it had rotted away and been sucked into the motor. Somehow the local shop had one in stock and oiled it up and threw it on. That was almost 15 years ago and the bike is still running to this day, they are bad ass. One day ill restore it.
Did you mod the aftermarket carb to work or fix the oem ?
Cool project as I grew up riding a neighbor's 1980 model like you.
I didn't figure out any mods to make the aftermarket carb work; currently back to trying to make the stock carb function. I think my cause might be bad / ethanol gas. Though I was using non-ethanol gas, but given the issuse I'm experiencing, I think I need to try a fresh batch of known ethanol - free gas.
As a former product designer (not an engineer though,) I can say with complete confidence that yes, they would get a kick out of knowing their designs are still functioning this many years later. Hearing people praise your products is like like having your kid get on the honor roll or something. 😁
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