GZ250 Mini-monkey Hellride

[irk miller]

A while back, a buddy asked me to store his Suzuki GZ250 when he went to work in New Zealand. It has a great running engine, but paint and body is not the best.

Since then, he’s asked me to sell it, while giving me free reign on customizing it. I get 50% of the take. Me being me, I can’t just keep it simple, but I have a Mid-Ohio deadline to get it done.

So far, I stripped the hacked up harness and pulled the seat and tank. Swapped for some apes, because it’s totally not something I would normally do.

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[Rider52]

We planned to buy a GZ250 for our middle son when they first came to the US around 1995-1996. The engine is pretty decent and the styling appealed to my HD sided brain. The salesman actually talked us out of buying anything. He was pushing the 650 single even though we had already planned to buy the 250 with cash. He kept pressuring us to go to the 650 until we walked out of the dealership. The Honda dealer was much more receptive to selling a 250 so, the kid got a Honda 250 Nighthawk (which we still have). This will be an interesting project!

 

[irk miller]

Moved the swingarm shock mounts back to drop the rear end about 3 in. Working out the mount for a trimmed down fiberglass Softail rear fender of some manufacture.

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[Luugo86]

I feel like you must be Gollum, never leaving your shop. I honestly don't understand how you make time for so many projects. MY PRECIOUS!

 

[Luugo86]

But everything you fuck with is pretty amazing.. so I'm just sitting back and watching

 

[irk miller]

But everything you fuck with is pretty amazing.. so I'm just sitting back and watching

I feel like you must be Gollum, never leaving your shop. I honestly don't understand how you make time for so many projects. MY PRECIOUS!

Ha! Thanks, man. I probably should get out more. I don't sleep much, so I can get 6 hours in after the family goes to bed. Plus whatever time around that. I've gotten to where this is what I do for fun- not much TV or anything like that. Plus, being a teacher, it gives me long blocks of time to do stuff. If I get everything ordered and in, a lot can be done at once. I have some selling to do, though. Can't hold on to all this crap. LOL

 

[irk miller]

Still waiting on some mini apes, but thought I’d try out these pullbacks. I like them a bunch.

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[JustinLonghorn]

Yep

 

[canyoncarver]

This hellride is missing from your sig.

Looks like fun and cooler than a Rebel.

 

[irk miller]

Lots of work to get a peanut tank on this thing. Or any custom tank, for that matter. The stock spine is a whopping 10 inches, nothing really comes in that short. Time to chop.

This first image is stock.

A cut and a machined lug.

Then, I pretty much changed the triangle and seat area altogether.

Here we are.

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[whynot]

damit man........that is a lot of builds going on at once..........cool.

 

[irk miller]

Seat pan knocked out. My leather came in today, so I should have a seat stitched in the next day or two. It all needs to be done this weekend.

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[JustinLonghorn]

What's this weekend?

 

[irk miller]

What's this weekend?

Two days before I start packing a trailer for Mid-O. I need to get other stuff done, and this thing was supposed to be a quickie before I dug a rabbit hole. LOL

 

[Maritime]

Well it's pretty rad now. That is a great small person or first bike for sure. Way cooler than stock.

 

[Maritime]

I'd buy it for Jill and Magoo if I had funds to paypal you!

 

[irk miller]

Well it's pretty rad now. That is a great small person or first bike for sure. Way cooler than stock.

That's sorta the plan, to cater to someone of the Harley ilk that wants a first bike for their kid or wife or something.

 

[irk miller]

Did a little petcock retrofit on this tank. I’m plugging two holes. I have a bunch of these little China petcock that actually work well. They’re threaded for 10 x 1.25mm. I drill out a brass plug and threaded it the right size, machined a gasket face, then put it all together.

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[Maritime]

How much capacity do you lose doing that? It doesn't look like much but it's a small tank. then again it's a small motor.

 

[irk miller]

How much capacity do you lose doing that? It doesn't look like much but it's a small tank. then again it's a small motor.

By "doing that" i assume you mean running just one petcock. I don't imagine I'm losing much more than a cup or two of fuel because of the angle of the tank and the shallowness of the tunnel at that end. I'm prepared to put another petcock on the other side, if the need be.