Revival of an enduro veteran

[Taras]

Hey all. After following other builds for many years I decided it´s my turn to document my project and share with the community.
I recently sold my KZ400 and found a very nice specimen of the old classic Honda XL250 -72 which was the first 4-stroke enduro bike that is also street legal. It was a in good shape and had 6500 miles on it.

I live in New York City so I thought this would be a perfect bike to cruise around in, enough power, lightweight, nimble and easy to maintain. The engine is in good shape so no need to open the whole thing up. Going for a clean tracker look. So here we go:

Looking pretty decent stock but there is a lot I am going to change.

Started by stripping everything down.

Chopped and cleaned up the rear frame.

Removed the engine crankcase covers to paint them flat black.

Into the blastchamber.

Loving the blaster, the part looks like new after 10 seconds


Well, thats it for today. More to come this week so stay tuned. Cheers.

 

[Rich Ard]

I would just like to say that you better make something sweet out of this thing because the XL250 is pretty fucking bad in stock trim. I'm in.

 

[Czech It!]

I like where this is going!

 

[scrambledpegs]

That thing looks to be in great nic. Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Taras]

Agreed, the xl250 is sweet as it is, so hopefully I won´t ruin it

Alright, here´s some updates. This week has mostly been about painting parts and doing a wheel swap. I didn´t like the big 21" wheel so I ordered a 18" rear wheel from ebay with the plan to use the hub but respoke it onto the 18". Never done that before so we´ll see how that goes.

Left is the 18" rear wheel I bought from ebay, right is the 21" front.

The nipples on the 18" were in pretty bad shape so I just cut them with a grinder.

Blasted, primed and painted the hub and brake.

A lot of sandblasting and painting.

Found a beautiful tank on ebay from a yamaha LT5. This is exactly the colorscheme I had in mind before finding this tank.
Now I gotta find a petcock and a cap for it.

Not much of a looker at this point.

Off to the garage now, will post some more pics tonight.

Cheers.

 

[Taras]

Started lacing the wheel but realised that I am missing the long spokes since I cut them from the old wheel. Will have to order a new spokeset.

Bought an old harley speedo from Ebay.

And repainted it according to the colorscheme of the tank.

Same goes for the headlight.

 

[scrambledpegs]

Man this thing is going to look awesome. Wjat did you have planned for the seat?

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[minibike69]

What kind of paint/setup are you using?

Is that harley speedo going to be the right ratio? (not a huge deal just wondering)

 

[Brodie]

Love the work mate. I have a 71 XL250 that looks nearly identical to yours. It is what I use to ride trails and will more than likely become my 2up bike for when the missus wants to come for a trip.

Can't wait to see what you end up with. Watching this thread for sure.

 

[Taras]

Thanks guys. I just got some dark brown vinyl for the seat, probably gonna do a simple thin seat with some vintage stitching.
The paint is standard flat black for rims (which I don´t really find flat as you can see in the images...) and a metallic copper engine paint.
Haven´t actually thought about the ratio, shouldn´t be a problem since they all use basically the same cable spinning around, or am I wrong?

 

[Brodie]

Different speedos have different ratios but that is about the extent of my knowledge. I am sure someone else will have a better input but for now I suggest connecting the cable and spinning it to see how many turns it takes to make a mile on each gauge (I would say less but it looks like the new speedo doesn't have a smaller measurement), if it is the same they will be right. Either that or check out DCC to see what the ratio is of a replacement for the XL and check that with the ratio from the harley one.

 

[minibike69]

The ratio is related to wheel size, an 18" wheel is going to be spinning at a different RPM than a 21" wheel at the same speed. so likely your stock speedo would have been inaccurate with the wheel size conversion (which is gonna look sick by the way).

 

[Brodie]

I didn't even think of that. Well if you test it the way I suggested and they are both the same they will both be out by the same amount at least.

 

[Rich Ard]

If that turns out to be the case and you are able to measure the difference, Sonreir here makes speedo decals.

 

[CBJKing]

Ah the venerable XL250 - my bike's older cousin. Sign me up. I'm excited to watch the progress.

 

[whynot]

I'm in too..................swwwwwuuuuuuuuueat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Maritime]

Find a drive from an 18" front honda wheel and the ratio should be right. The Speedos are all the same, the drive unit at the hub changes them I believe. And knowing Honda there is likely and 18" wheel drive that will swap right in.

Nice work so far.

 

[Taras]

Thanks for the input guys. I´ll just check how inaccurate the speedo is when everything is done. Otherwise it´ll just be there as decor. Who needs a speedo in nyc when you don´t ride faster than 15 mph.

 

[Taras]

Some minor updates, finally got the front wheel done. Relacing the wheel was really time consuming and not the most fun thing you can do on a bike. But, eventually I got it done and it looks so much better with the 18" instead of the 21.

Truing the wheel. Was a bit tricky since the rim wasn´t entirely straight.

Got the tire and the brake assembly on. A small little detail on the brake to follow the color scheme.

Mounted the painted shocks and the wheel.

Next thing is to get the front complete with the headlight and speedo. After that moving on to the rear wheel to get it painted.

Salut.

 

[BIG E]

This bikeis looking great. I am building one into a street tracker and I am planning on the same treatment on the front wheel. Maybe I missed it if so sorry. What spokes did you use on the 18" with the stock front hub?

Eric