1981 Yamaha SR250 Cafe Racer

Hi.
i am 15 and have just recently got an '81 SR250 to fix up, it was a complete wreck when i got it. I was just wondering if anyone in the UK knows of anywhere to get cheap parts for the bike please.
Also, mainly i am in need of a RHS side panel, which hides the battery. Have been on ebay and RHS ones are near impossible to find. Suggestions please?

Thanks, and great results on your bike dude :eek: hope mine looks this good finished!!!
 
I absolutely love the red color you choose, I'm in the (long) process of doing an 81 xs400 into a cafe and and going towards a red scheme like this. I'd be satisfied if my bike turns out even a quarter as awesome as this one. awesome work
 
This is the new stainless header I had Matt make up for the SR. I discussed it with him, showed him photo's of the bikes frame and told him I wanted the new header to follow the line of the down tube. I think he nailed it, good job Matt! The welding is incredible, so well blended it's very hard to see them.

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And here's another picture ..

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As I said before, I also grabbed an offcut of 6mm aluminium plate from Matt today when I picked up the exhaust and dropped off the tank/seat for their final buff and a minor repair to the tank.

Every part of this bike that I've built has been made by hand using a combination of a grinder, centre punch, drill, hand files and sandpaper. One day when I have a mill I'm sure I'll look back and laugh.

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And the finished pieces, polished and ready to go :

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More pics tomorrow ..
 
Still just tweaking the overall fit of the seat cushion but it's nearly there and though very firm, it's surprisingly comfortable. It'll get an additional thin layer of soft upholstery foam on top to cover any imperfections before the covering also.

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To reinforce the foam so that the vinyl can be pulled taught accross it, and give me something I can staple the vinyl to, I lay a sheet of fiberglass chop mat over the back. Watch out for warping if you choose this route as it will contract a little when the resin goes off. Mine needs a little tweaking but it's pretty close to getting covered now.

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this is so awesome. just so you know you've been a major source of inspiration for my GN250 (show & shine page 47), i even went so far as to buy an RD400 tank but not a fan of how it looks on my bike, glad it works on yours!! very cool. keep up the good work!!
 
Gee this is turning out to be a bloody well done bike... you seriously gotta see the fellows on youtube that clocked one of these to 200km/h. Something crazy like 13:1 compression with crazily advanced ignition and a scorching cam.

Yours looks a hellava lot better though - keep up the good stuff!

Cheers - boingk
 
Hey lunar,
Ive been following your progress for a while now and the bike looks great! Just wondering about anymore work done on the bike, looks pretty close to done.
 
Still working hard at finishing the bike just haven't been updating much .. I will try and update soon!
 
Mate your SR is very inspiring for my girlfriend who has a picture of your cafe racer on the fridge. She is rebuilding a SR 250 also. Did you have trouble finding a spring for the center stand? Awesome job!
 
Today has been an epic day of work on the bike! More was achieved today than in the last 3 months, I reckon.

I started off at 8:30am making my way down to Port Kennedy to pick up the tank and seat from Mattpack. He also graciously helped me whip up a battery tray for the SR. It's quite humbling to watch a real fabricator work .. he makes TIG look so easy.

With all the right tools and a top gun welder it only took an hour or so before it was done. Then I linished the welds and drilled the holes and so on at home.

Here's a look :

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It's basically a simple tray, but my design also mounts the CDI unit in place. Then Matt had the idea of folding the tray up with only three sides, then welding one on of 3mm ally (the rest is 2mm) as I wanted to drill/tap the holes for the CDI mount.

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Without his skills with the welder (I can't weld aluminium any more .. so out of practice I'm basically useless) I wouldn't have been able to do this elegantly.. it's all under the seat anyway, but I'd know it was there!

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The end result is awesome and I feel very satisfied with the under tail area, with the shaped electronics tray following the curve of the subframe, there is no visible protrusions from the line of the frame, and it doubles as an inner guard and protects the electronics. It's tight in there but very neat.

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Now .. the paint! There's a bit of a story to this but the long and short of it is, the original painter did a reasonable job, but got some black mixed in some how and tried to rub it out, but it left a mark so it needed to be sorted out. So Matt took it back but then due to other commitments the painter couldn't do it.

So stock to shock ended up completely redoing the paint. It is flawless, I can't even compare it to the last job which really wasn't that bad to begin with .. but this is something else. I reckon there are double figures of clear coat on it. It's deep.

I haven't had a chance to get some real photo's of the finish yet .. but I managed to get the exhaust on and bolted up firmly and the battery mounted today as well as numerous other little things. I just finished working on the bike at 10:30pm after starting the day at 8:30pm .. so here's some teaser shots and I'll get back to you with more updates soon! I'll be finishing off the seat upholstery and starting the wiring in the next couple of weeks and will have video of it firing up ASAP! Not long now til it's finished :)

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Lastly I wanted to post the details of Matt's welding and fabrication business, V&F Welding, and The Trikpaint Shop who did the paint.

The only parts of the bike build I've had to farm out have been the paint, and the exhaust. Matt's been kind enough to help me out with all of that. Thank you Matt!

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Hey Rod .. I was lucky enough to get a wreck a while back for a few hundred dollars that had a complete center stand on it. It's a pretty basic spring though, nothing fancy. Once the build is finished I may run just the kick-stand though.
 
Do you by chance have the distance from ground of the original foot pegs? I started a build and did not record this tidbit... I sized seat and everything for height and such but have now changed out the rear end and realized I did not write down the original spec.

Thanks,
 
Would you be able to explain what you did to put the pod filters on in regards to the adjustment of the carb jets? Also, where did you order the pod filters from?

Thanks!
 
Hi all,

I was searching google for a wiring diagram for my SR250 and this link came up. mmm, bike looks familiar...oh wow, it's my bike!

Luna_C had other things on his plate so offered it up for sale and I bought it, finished it (bar the wiring) and presented it at the recent 4th Jap Bike show in Perth and it won best cafe/chopper/bobber!

We've made a few changes - new 18" wheels front and rear, stainless spokes, upgraded a lot of bolts etc, had a custom stitched seat made, dropped speedo down and back etc

We're not 100% confident that the wiring would last more than a week so we're going to back to what Mr Yamaha designed. I should have the bike ready this week and will post some pics up for everyone
 
You've got me excited now, I WANT PICTURES!!

also, i know it's a bit of a long shot, but you don't happen to have a list of all the bolt lengths and sizes that you've bought, do you? I need to buy a whole bunch of new bolts for my sr250, but i'm too damn lazy to want to measure them! if you had any idea of what you've bought, that would be a great help! sorry for the slightly random question :p
 
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