Dale
Coast to Coast
Hey there.
My younger brother Adam has wanted an RS250 for a *long* time now. On the last weekend of November last year we went to look at an RS250 that was for sale. On arrival, we were greeted by a pretty tatty looking bike, but it was a rare MK1. The guy didn't know that it was a MK1, so never told us, and we hadn't seen pictures of it.
I took it for a ride - everything was passable - and the barrels had recently be renikasiled with new rings.
We came home with it, and my brother was excited like a kid on Christmas Eve. He went riding it all over the neighborhood, and asked if he could keep the bike at my place. He lives in an apartment. I was happy to help - Ive got tons of space for bikes. Not much else, but I can make an exception for a bike any day. He was happy with the bike as is, but I just couldn't let a beauty like this not live up to its potential - so the next Monday when he was at work I sent him a pic of his bike stripped down. He said "Well I hope you can put it back together again!". I said it will be done by his birthday on the 30th of December. This became the premise for a four week full restoration. No brother of mine was going to ride a piece of crap like that.
So here it is complete. I made the deadline. It was a great feeling handing the bike over to him on his birthday.
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Here is a brief overview of the restoration:
This is the bike the day we got it. The photo makes it look a lot better than it actually was.
All the bodywork had homemade (badly) inkjet printouts cutout and stuck under clearcoat as example...
The first purchase - Bridgestone Rubber
Exhausts had more repairs than original metal!
We found a guy who was selling off some spares and got decent Arrow pipes for a MK2. Did a bit of grinding and filing, and modified the brackets to fit the MK1 - then sandblasted and powdercoated. Also new head gaskets, springs, stainless bolts etc... My brother cleaned up the Cans beautifully.
This .....
Became this:
Parts like this:
Got treated to satin black powdercoating
Our other brother Greg fixed and polished up the rearsets
The wheels were oxidised and blemished - was going to powdercoat them but the bearings and seals were still perfect, so we tried polishing them up instead, and it worked very well ...
My brother degreased, cleaned and polished the engine casings and frame.
Every last component was thoroughly cleaned and all plastics soaked in silicone for more than a week...
Gaskets were made:
Every bolt was replaced with stainless cap screws
Forks rebuilt
I made up vector artwork and had vinyl decals made up:
And a bunch of other stuff was replaced, fixed, fitted etc...
And then came final assembly.
It was a lot of work in the time frame, but very rewarding to see an old beat up bike transformed back into what it should be!
Dale
My younger brother Adam has wanted an RS250 for a *long* time now. On the last weekend of November last year we went to look at an RS250 that was for sale. On arrival, we were greeted by a pretty tatty looking bike, but it was a rare MK1. The guy didn't know that it was a MK1, so never told us, and we hadn't seen pictures of it.
I took it for a ride - everything was passable - and the barrels had recently be renikasiled with new rings.
We came home with it, and my brother was excited like a kid on Christmas Eve. He went riding it all over the neighborhood, and asked if he could keep the bike at my place. He lives in an apartment. I was happy to help - Ive got tons of space for bikes. Not much else, but I can make an exception for a bike any day. He was happy with the bike as is, but I just couldn't let a beauty like this not live up to its potential - so the next Monday when he was at work I sent him a pic of his bike stripped down. He said "Well I hope you can put it back together again!". I said it will be done by his birthday on the 30th of December. This became the premise for a four week full restoration. No brother of mine was going to ride a piece of crap like that.
So here it is complete. I made the deadline. It was a great feeling handing the bike over to him on his birthday.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is a brief overview of the restoration:
This is the bike the day we got it. The photo makes it look a lot better than it actually was.
All the bodywork had homemade (badly) inkjet printouts cutout and stuck under clearcoat as example...
The first purchase - Bridgestone Rubber
Exhausts had more repairs than original metal!
We found a guy who was selling off some spares and got decent Arrow pipes for a MK2. Did a bit of grinding and filing, and modified the brackets to fit the MK1 - then sandblasted and powdercoated. Also new head gaskets, springs, stainless bolts etc... My brother cleaned up the Cans beautifully.
This .....
Became this:
Parts like this:
Got treated to satin black powdercoating
Our other brother Greg fixed and polished up the rearsets
The wheels were oxidised and blemished - was going to powdercoat them but the bearings and seals were still perfect, so we tried polishing them up instead, and it worked very well ...
My brother degreased, cleaned and polished the engine casings and frame.
Every last component was thoroughly cleaned and all plastics soaked in silicone for more than a week...
Gaskets were made:
Every bolt was replaced with stainless cap screws
Forks rebuilt
I made up vector artwork and had vinyl decals made up:
And a bunch of other stuff was replaced, fixed, fitted etc...
And then came final assembly.
It was a lot of work in the time frame, but very rewarding to see an old beat up bike transformed back into what it should be!
Dale