BLIZZO

Hmmm i'm a bad man. A good deal popped up on a 1982 XT250 recently which I snapped up. Even has current reg and wof. Comes with a few new parts to give it a bit of a tidy up, get spic and span. Might do a few rides on it then take some trendy photos and sell it to some hipster to fund a bunch of expensive BMW parts I need to buy.

Whilst at the Brass we were discussing some rad 250cc trips to do on our XRs as @Mitch.W is building one at the moment. I had lost the pine for mine a bit so decided to give it a bit of a birthday. I stripped it back a few years ago and had the frame powdercoated and what not but it was a bit smokey and I wanted a more classic XR look to it. Have also always pined the twin headlight Baja XRs which gave me a bit of inspiration.

Found a set of XLR250 Baja twin headlights pop up on marketplace so I snapped them up, also got a 1990 red tank off the same kid.

One thing I dont like about the XR was the fuel range, this engine was uncorked and was now running much bigger jets and only got like 120km to a tank. Thought shit, might as well go all out and then ordered a Clarke 15.8L (stock is 9) tank from the states. Didnt really want to spend like $500 of a gas tank but trying to find larger tanks that dont look rank for pre '96 XRs is rather difficult.

Pulled the bike down and gave it a good clean. Lots of the fasteners had worn their zinc coating off so i pulled just about every single bolt off the bike and sent it to electroplating to get them coated, they couldnt do the dark almost black zinc like factor so might zinc it will have to be

Because the jets were so big in this bike and it went so well i always wondered if it had a 280cc kit in it, the fact it was smokey convinced me a good idea to pull the head and see what sort of condition everything was in down there.\

Shes been burning a bit of oil, piston was even grottier.

And the barrel had a lovely mirror finish. Oh well, its going to need new rings and a hone, may as well get a....

Wiseco forged, higher compression 4mm over 277cc kit.

Now to wait for parts to arrive.

Have picked up a stock front fender, which i will painstakingly restore along with the side plastics and rear fender. will grab a blue seat cover, tool bag, fork gaiters then slap a decal kit on it and call it a day I think.

so I kinda never posted photos when this was actually finished. well here ya go..

So I got the bike all together and dropped it down to Danny, Hayhole and the team at Watermark Signs in Wellington. What a bloody transformation! I gave danny a bunch of photos of the original Rothmans Dakar NXR750 along with what vectors of Logos I could find. Danny drew up the vectors that I couldn't find, color matched everything and sized it up. Hayhole did all the application. Im absolutley blown away, its come out far better than I ever imagined. Its still not 100% complete. I still need to get the sump guard and crash protection on. This wont happen for a week or two though as the tank needs to come back off so I can install the new choke plungers when they arrive from Japan, less than a week before the rally, eeek.

I'm cheesin. Will get some lush photos done of some of the cool details once its all back together properly. I do find the before and after photo quite mesmerizing.\

got my fairings back from the painter on the weekend. he did a pretty lush job I think. Im glad I put a lot of effort into the prep.

Bit of a mockup on the bike

Really happy with how the custom tail piece worked out with the XR250 tail light. The tool bag is a cool touch I think and the colour is pretty close.

I used the original real mudguard piece mostly to have somewhere to mount the number plate. Would have looked cool without it but will also serve some purpose of stopping too much shit getting flicked around. It is also a small memento of its previous life as it has some of the stickers on it from the South America trip the bike went on.

first start - 

the latest tasks on the africa twin have been the wiring. Ive put together a custom carbon fibre dash which I will show once its finished. The existing wiring for any accessories consisted of both "twist n tape" and household TPS wiring so anything non factory got ripped out and binned. I have a few accessories that i want to run (LED lightbar, USB sockets, Koso temp/volt meter and heated grips. I thought the best way to run all those tidily would be to run a decent guage wire direct from the battery though an ign controlled relay to a small fuse box which can be used as a distribution post, the little narva 4 way ones were the most neat and compact I could find.

its all tucked nicely out of the way where it cant rub on anything. I needed one relay to switch the fuse board, and then needed a second one as I want the light bar to be switched by the full beam circuit. there is a separate switch on the dash so I can turn off the lightbar to stop it being switched by the full beam circuit. i got some relays that click together with harness's to keep that tidy.

Upon testing I noticed that all 4 of my indicators were flahsing (now LEDs). some reading and i found out this is becuase of the "turn signal indicator bulb" on the dash. it receives an input from each side indicator circuit (no ground) and grounds though the opposite side bulb. This works with the resistance on incandescent bulbs but LEDs dont have enough resistance so the voltage leaks accross and all four flash. the easiest way to fix this is remove the turn signal indicator bulb in the dash, but thats dumb becuase its handy at reminding you your indicators on so i made a fix with two diodes and modifying the factory wiring. I cut one input to the turn signal indicator bulb and ground it, then made a little loom of two diodes merging to one wire for the positive feed (for those that dont know a diode is like a one way valve). I put the diodes in an old fuse holder to keep them safe. Works a treat.  

https://imgur.com/BCPRJpA

The other wiring farkle on these old pigs is shared by many other bikes of the same era (mostly triumphs and ducatis) and that is the regulator rectifiers fuck out. They are old shunt type RR's that get really hot. the biggest issue with the hondas is the cheap shitty plug they decided to use. the plug starts burning out and resistance increases, so the RR cranks out more volts to compensate and eventually cooks itself. mine was working fine but I thought id check the plug out incase and....

It was certainly on its last legs, so preventative maintenance needed. The upgrade of all upgrades to the charging system on these bikes is to switch to a "MOSFET" type regulator off a modern bike. the tech in these farkles means they dont get hot, barely warm and are way better at providing stable voltage. problem is they are like $400 new and the $50 chinese knockoffs are time bombs apparently. A few evenings of trawling trademe and i found a 2016 honda cbr600 that was at a wreckers and got the mosfet RR off it for $100, choice.

If doing this mod you want a genuine japanese made "Shindengen" RR, the mosfet ones are idetified by the suffic "FH" at the start of the model number. the most common is the FH020AA which is what I got, it is the same size and bolt spacing as the factory "SH" type regulator. it also has choice waterproof plugs.

I had a fair bit of trouble trying to locate some 45mm stainless tube for the exhaust but @Hayholes mum came through with the goods while i was down in welly for  conference. Came home and got that all sorted and @Mitch.Wkindly tigged it up for me. looking bloody lush. you can see the new RR mounted here too. im yet to tidy the wiring but its being upgraded and wired direct to the battery with a 30a fuse in the positive line.

and here we have it... the first start in almost 2 years, and since all the new carbs and shit have gone on it....

Smacked out some pannier racks on the weekend.

There is one more re support thats not completed yet in this photo, its a removable strut back to the lower point of the rear mudguard.  Its my 3rd set of these ive made with my little 16mm plumbers bender. usually use 1.6mm tube but steel and tube was all out so these ones at 2mm. Nice and strong, gave the bender a work out though. started to the hang of it nicely:

The aim was to get them as slim as possible. think i achieved that, didnt want to risk the bag melting on the exhaust so left a bit of room there, ive got a wee heat shield to go on it for a wee bit of extra safety there.

Managed to get a morning with no wind so slapped a few coats of 2k high build primer on all the fairings. will give them all an 800g block back one evening this week then drop them all off at my painters for a coat of white. Making some progress now!

feels like ive been making no progress on this thing even thoough ive been slamming heaps of time at it.

Discovered the possible reason why it had a full engine rebuild 5000km ago, at 65,000 kms, when these things are known for clocking up 200K+ without being opened.

Some fucking Einstein obviously tried to make an incorrect battery fit, and thought shit, this piece of plastic cant be that important, ill just hack into it so make room. Too bad they weren't clever enough to realise that the hole they just made is he back of the airbox, behind the filter, allowing all sorts of grubby air straight into the carbs / engine. Hopefully as its pretty recent after a rebuild everythings still ship shape in there.

Thanks to @Truenotchmy now resident bike parts man at City Honda I picked up a chonky boi front tyre. Fitted it and realised the axle spacer was some shoddy home job that didnt touch the inner lip of the seal. Ordered a second hand correct spacer from Malcolm at anaconda to sort that out and grabbed some sintered rear brake pads while i was at it as they were on the metal backing plate on one side, eeek.

Got a honda tool bag from the same outfit i got one for the XR from, they even colour matched it as best as possible to the rothmans blue that a fair bit of the bike will become once sorted.

New side covers are all mounted up. Have tacked on the exhaust mount and ordered some 45mm stainless bends to get it welded up. @Mitch.W is gunna be a GC and drag his tig to my place to sort that out.

Went for a rally inspired steep angle pipe position. other than looking cool its well clear of any pillions legs.

if your wondering why the rear wheel looks kack is becuase the linkage is disconnected and its stropped up at max compression. i wanted to make sure the brake caliper was not going to foul on the muffler.

The fairings have also now had their first coat of 2k high build primer and a block back. Will spray another coat on them this weekend and do a light 800g block black for a nice finish. Got some steel to fab up the pannier frames this weekend as well so I can keep the pressure on. 

 yay new page.

Anyway, after losing heaps of motor vation on the africa twin the Brass Monkey is quickly approaching and we have planned a 7day south island adventure around it so i'm fully barred up.

The main thing holding me back was doing the custom fibreglass side covers that will be slimmer than the unicorn turn factory ones, so better for panniers. I spent the good part of a day bogging, sanding, bogging, sanding, bogging and priming and priming and priming the plugs i started to make aaaaages ago. they came out alright. sanded down to 1200 grit then release waxed.

I went and saw the old boy at fibre-form in town and he sold me all the right amount of materials to make 2x molds and 2x finals. was $150 all up which was pretty good, he measured it all out into yoghurt and milk / cream containers for me lel. Chop strand mat for the molds and weave for the finals to keep the thickness down. I used a special PVA release agent Brushed over top of the waxed plug, this stuff is the shit and releases so good.

Black Gel coat over the plug to make the mold-

Then one layer of a real thin chop strand mat to start it off, forms around the edges easy so no nasty air holes between the gelcoat and glass. key is to go it when gelcoat was still tacky so it held it down -

Then another 3 layers of mat over that to give a nice thick, strong mold-

let them dry overnight then popped them out, super happy with the result. gave a quick 1200 grit sand then release waxed ready for the finals

Finals were 4x layers of fine weave over the white gelcoat. couple of spots the gel had a wee reaction which sucks but these will likely get painted anyway to its the same white over the entire bike so i'm not stressed. Still super happy with the result for having a crack at glassing

quickly trimmed and agaisnt bike to see the shape, pretty happy. still need lots of trimming to fit nice then weld some tabs to the frame to mount it. will just use some flatish dome head screws i think.

Will try have them fitted this weekend and also prep and prime the rest of my fairings if i can get the time. I would like to drop them to the painter next week.

Have ordered some knifeless vinyl cutting tape to do blue 3m vinyl over parts of the bike, then I just need to give @Hayholes mumand  @oldnrusty some hand shandies to make it look like this once its painted and together

so after almost 4 years of owning this thing and doing nothing but moving it around between 4 different sheds its time I did something.

With the Africa Twin not far away from being completed (not actually starting the G/S until AT is done) it was time to get it home into the shed, so I went and dragged it back from my lockup where it was buried in dust.

Since turning myself into a bit of a adv barry and G/S foamer I have concluded that the only thing to do to this bike is restore it to as close to original as possible, which is made possible by companies like Sibenrock in germany that remake most things for them, like just about everything. This is a gen you whine G/S Paris Dakar, and from what i can figure out there is less than 6 of these in the country, they demand oodles of money overseas, and probably here too but there hasnt been one for sale in the 4 years ive owned this.

There is a few spendy bits to get, but stage 1 will be to get it back to a restored rolling frame, stage 2 will be refresh the engine and stage 3 all the OG bits and pieces to get it back to its former glory.

Gave the dust a quick blast off, seat was removed as the catch is broken and i didnt want it to take off into the stratoshpere.

Quickly whipped the tank off to asses the underside of tank and the frame. the frame is really tidy considering, a blast and powdercoat will make it like new. The tank has more rust on the bottom than id like, was a little flakey. These tanks are worth like 2000 euro alone so I aint getting another. Gave the rust a quick wire wheel and chucked some rust kill on it for now. id rather not have to patch it as these have a factory tank liner and this ones still tidy on the inside, so dont want to spoil that. I might get the exterior of the tank sandblasted when i do the frame, but will ask them to go easy on it.

And thats about it for now, will do a big parts order from the fatherland in the next couple of weeks and that can slow boat its way over here while I make the reigns cum on africa