alfalfa

Put me in coach, I'm ready! I'm bloody fizzing for this not gonna lie

booooo

Sounds good man, lock it in! If anyone else is driving a trailer down with bikes on that wants to follow the group along the route that would be sweet, 2 support vehicles should be able to cope with anything that gets thrown at us.

Lots of narrow gravel bits but yep all standard open public roads.

Cheer boes get that accommodation booked and fill the entry form in!

Bike choice: We're trying to keep this ride in the spirit of previous Eastcapescapades, so bring your small, old, shitty, modified motorbikes and scooters along. 50cc scoots should be sweet if you're comfortable enough on gravel. We've set the route so there is minimal fast highway riding and maximal slow backroads. If you can manage a cruise at 60-70kph you'll be right in the middle of the bunch. If all you have is a DRZ400 then noone is gonna say no but it could be pretty boring when (hopefully!) everyone else is nangin' hard, throttle pinned trying to do 60kph up a hill. Buy or borrow something small and shit and send it!

Here's a 10/10 ADV Barry riding a bunch of the same roads and tunnels we'll be on

Oh shit, new post!

King Country Crusade November 17-19th 2023 J5 is up the duff and Eastcape is off the cards this year. Don’t worry though, @anglia4 and @alfalfa have rubbed each of our braincells together and came up with 600km of twisty backroads, tall and narrow tunnels, smooth and rough gravel, and scenic views spread over 3 days taking in some of the best the West has to offer. Rev up your fizzholes and start prepping those bikes for the King Country Crusade (AKA West-Pest AKA Westcapade AKA Taranaki Tunnel Tour). November 17-19th 2023. If any of you jokers happen to turn up in New Plymouth on the same day and start riding along the same route then wow wouldn’t that be a happy little coincidence. Day 1 180km/220km (depending on route) We head inland from New Plymouth to Taumaranui via the Bertrand road swing bridge (oldest in NZ!), through a few choice tunnels to Whangamomona & Forgotten World Highway. Some gravel, mostly sealed. The famous Forgotten World Highway, a must ride for every self respecting motorcyclist in NZ. Lunch stop at the classic Whanga Hotel for hot chips and a lemonade. There is an option to go via Old Whanga road if conditions allow - this is 18km of unmaintained dirt road challenge! Petrol NP (0km), Taumaranui (180km/220km). This is a big stretch between fuel so you will likely need to carry extra. It might be a good idea to figure out what kind of range your bike gets and plan for how much extra you’ll need. If you can make this leg easily then ask yourself - am I really riding an appropriately terrible bike for this kind of adventure? https://maps.app.goo.gl/xHZrKrMuJRRwFZfu9 Old Whanga Road - Extra for hardcones Part 1 https://goo.gl/maps/BUH3qGTUpXz1H7rQ6 Part 2 https://goo.gl/maps/XR8LUMGDvmnAfiFm8 Whether we attempt this or not will be very weather & pre-ride reccy dependent. The clay/papa rock surface supposedly turns slipperier than eel snot after any rain. It's also only halfway through day 1 so we don't want to have half the pack drop out before lunch! Stay: Taumarunui We’re staying at the Alexander motel but lots of other options exist in town. Twin Rivers Motel is just over the road. There is also the Taumarunui holiday park which is 3km down the road for campers. Or take your pick of abandoned house in town and mancamp in the backyard. The RSA is just round the corner for a refreshing post ride beverage and there are a selection of ethnic eateries nearby to satisfy even the most discerning palate. Day 2 190km Taumaranui to Awakino via Ongarue, Aria, Piopio, Pomarangai, Waikawau Beach Tunnel. The roads today will be a good mix of gravel and sealed. There is a scenic detour along the way to visit a rugged west coast beach accessed via (another) tunnel. Lunch stop at Piopio. Petrol Taumaranui (0km), Piopio (85km), Awakino (190km) I've had to split the route into 2 halves to get google maps to play nicely with following the route. Part 1 Taumaranui - PioPio https://maps.app.goo.gl/gJE2dKd4EhQeVTeW7 Part 2 PipPio - Awakino Hotel https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZY83ypAUv3Q7NGn57 Stay: Awakino/Mokau We’re staying at the Awakino Hotel and Pub. 06 752 9815. There aren’t that many rooms here so get in early. The dude here also reckons he can sort out other accommodation in town if needed so holler at him if the pub is full. Tent-pitchers or cabineeros can stay at the Seaview holiday park (06 752 9708) 3km down the road or at the Whitebait Inn 06 752 9713 in Mokau 5km down the road. Day 3 200km ish Awakino to NP via Mahoenui, Ohura, Ahititi, Urenui. Lots of gravel, lots of corners, sweet tunnels and ride back across the oldest traffic suspension bridge in NZ. We're deep in the wilderness pretty much all day so bring mi goreng and a stove for a hot roadside lunch or stuff ya pockets full of muesli bars and last nights leftover burger and chips. The Ohura Cosmopolitan Club will be opening up their kitchen for burgers & fish'n'chips for us on Sunday from 11:30am! Petrol Awakino (0km), Urenui (185km), NP (205km) Another big stretch between fuel stops so you will likely need to carry extra again. https://maps.app.goo.gl/NfEvUgDpyMo2TW1AA We’ll probably have post ride beers/BBQ/bonfire somewhere in NP? Details to come for where to assemble on Friday morning and leave vehicles and trailers behind. We don’t have a support vehicle and trailer sorted yet so if anyone is keen to volunteer that would be two thumbs up. *There is a trailer just waiting for some champ to hook up and drag along. We have 2 support vehicles and trailer confirmed! Entry Form: https://forms.gle/Ertmwgaqdu6jJFep6 Please make sure you have accommodation sorted for Saturday night in Awakino/Mokau before submitting the form - this is limited and will probably restrict numbers unless you’re going to be a happy camper. Entrants: @anglia4 @alfalfa @Itchybear Bucket Barry @Duke Blackwood @WankBankA100 Dan W @northernal Chris R (Tofa) Alan H-R (Ginga) @Gyrocket @morkster (support) Greg H (gregbop) Connor D Travis K (trav) Richard S Matt N Shaun M Paul M Brian S (Support) Dallas W Karl D @iwanttobeamole @TheGriz Brett H Chris K Darren P Zac B Neil S Jose R Ian D Luke B DNS. Nathan M (Gazza)

Cool cool thanks chaps, that's kinda what I was thinking. New piston and rings are only a little bit more expensive than a ring set on ebay so I'll have a look again if there are any better prices otherwise go for that. Aware of the closed throttle high rpm issues - I always try to roll off slowly and not close all the way. I had also adjusted the autolube pump stroke to deliver a bit more oil than stock at the closed throttle position to keep a bit of extra lube flowing through when it's in that condition. I might try and make a leakdown tester to check seals. I had scraped quite a bit of carbon off the top of the piston before I took those photos - it was fairly dark when it came out. Will also get in and clean out that port before putting it back together.

Ok so I've got everything apart and am after some advice on next steps. Inlet side Exhaust side I can juuust feel those marks on the cylinder with a fingernail. Hone cylinder, sand piston marks down and send it? New piston and rings? It's still factory size. I've got some richer main jets coming. The current main is a #190 and the factory size in the manual is a #210. I had that on the list to change but hadn't quite gotten around to ordering it I also need to find a timing dial gauge to check that's in spec. On the last ride I'm sure I heard a rattle at higher rpms in 1st gear that was different to the normal 50 year old 2 stroke noises. Maybe detonating? I haven't touched the timing at all though but I guess it could be, There are some timing gauges on aliexpress for pretty cheap ($60 or so) - has anyone had any experience with them? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004098969689.htm

Last ride ended with a few kilometres of state highway to get back into town after some twisties. I was all barred up from the prior hooning so once on the highway I just hit WOT and crouched down into a speed tuck. Coming up to a corner after a pretty long straight section I sat upright and rolled off the throttle to slow down and the little bugger nipped up! It started making a rank noise and rapidly dropping revs, lucky I was covering the clutch so whipped that in straight away and coasted to a stop. Gave it a few minutes to cool down and checked to see if it would turn over with the kickstart. Thankfully it had freed up so kicked it in the guts and rode home much more gingerly. Looking through the exhaust port and there is a definite gark on the piston that wasn’t there before. Guess I’m taking the head off after all…

I’ve been doing a bit of hooning recently, the weather and everything else has been lining up quite nicely. Goes hard (for what it is), and nothing major has broken or stopped working. On a big ride with @anglia4 @Itchybear and Bucket Barry we found a few kms of good gravel. The road tyres that came on it were fine but definitely left me wanting more. The forks also felt a bit shit. I’m not sure if this is because they just are (lol) or if they need some attention. I pulled them off and drained the oil out. Mmmm delicious smelly black fork oil. The stanchions are mint which is great. I probably should have done seals at the same time but yolo will do them some other time. The service manual asks for SAE10W30. I had some 7.5W Motorex leftover from one of my mountainbikes so 165cc of in that went in each side. Found a steep speedbump and tried to do some jumps to give it a good test. Felt good, a noticeable improvement A+ would pest again. In my quest for new tyres I discovered that 3.00-16 is not a common size and I had basically one (expensive!) option that was stocked locally. I emailed the NZ Shinko supplier and they told me if I want some SR241’s in 3.00-16 I would have to get my local store to order a minimum of 5, pay up front and wait 6 months for them to arrive. Thanks but no thanks. I got in touch with mxstore.com.au and they were more than happy to order a pair from their supplier and ship them express to NZ for free. The curse of rubbish NZ suppliers strikes again. I fitted these myself - I’ve done plenty of MTB tyres but this was my first time on a motorbike. It’s a bit different with the long steel levers and not needing to worry so much about scratching or wrecking the steel rims. All went on ok, it’s much the same process just more aggressive. They look pretty good on there I reckon! Took it out for a test hoon on some twisty roads close to home and did some skids in a gravel pit. Now I just need to find a suitable rear rack or luggage carry system for some overnighters. Bring on West-Pest ‘23!

Yeah definitely. It's not like you're super busy with anything else at the moment...

The Big Yes

Perfectly blocking the mountain with that tree takes real photographic talent I tell ya

West-Pest '23 looking pretty scenic

So you'll be coming along then

Bags not edit: I'm sure we can sit down with a beer and a laptop and with our mapping powers combined come up with an ultimate sweet route

I sketched this up a while ago. 160 km day 1, 180 km day 2, 90 km day 3. Plenty of gravel. Haven't looked into accom options at all.

I put everything back together, splashed some oil and petrol around the various tanks and wheeled it out of the garage to go for a first ride. Wouldn’t start :haha: Checked spark (ok), fuel (flowing freely through line from tank), pulled carb and checked jets (all clear, fuel in bowl). Put everything back on again. Lots of kicking, coughed a couple of times, some backfires and eventually it fired up and idled for not very long before dying. More kicking and got it started again, turned up the idle speed screw so it wouldn’t die. Jumped on, rode up the driveway and down the street for a few hundred metres and of course it died when I slowed down to turn around and come back home. Absolutely would not fire this time so I had to do the push of shame home. I suspected electrical problems (likely condenser?) as fuel is there, carb is clean and set to factory specs and the electrics are 50 years old. It looked like quite a bit of pitting on the points surfaces so maybe the condenser wasn’t condensing properly and it was arcing across the points gap instead? I sanded the points smooth and reset the gap.There is f-all info on the YB125 on the internet for parts numbers etc so for anyone from the future looking for a YB125 condenser, the RD250/350/400 part 1A0-81625-10 is close enough to be correct. Capacitance, size, mounting and spade connector is identical, just the lead is a few cm shorter but still fits ok without stretching and too tight.. I got one from eBay from a seller in France. New plug, new condenser, fingers crossed? The muffler - header gasket was missing and the header/barrel gasket was pretty beat up. There was quite a bit of exhaust leaking out from the muffler joint. Again, nothing online that I could find for a “YB125 muffler gasket” and the part for its more common predecessor YA-6 is NLA everywhere. I did some measuring and trawling through other yamaha parts and the stock replacement for 70s XS500/XS650 371-14714-03 looks identical. These appear to be readily available which is nice. Order from PlenterNZ arrived with one of each, fitted the header pipe back on and tightened everything up. The air cleaner foam has gone rank and started disintegrating. Again stock replacements don't exist online that I could find so rather than making the engine inhale chunks of foam I ordered a replacement sheet of filter foam and cut to size and glued together to fit the cleaner housing. Oiled up and reinstalled. Everything back together and started up 3rd kick! Fiddled with the air screw and idle adjuster to get it sitting at 1200 rpm as per shop manual, checked with a cheap AliExpress hour meter/tacho. Its happy as. Took it out for a decent ride around NP, went great. Brakes are quite rubbish but work, got up to 80kph on the flat without speedtuck. Neutral top gearbox is wack, I have to think about each shift but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Got props from an old lady walking her dog when I stopped for a photo "now that's a proper motorbike" Time for more riding to see what else breaks before I start the re-registration process.

Yeah pretty funny, I was so confused at first when it just turned and opened with no loud cracking or popping noises! It's not all plain sailing, stay tuned for the next update...

So I’ve been pottering away on this since rolling it into the garage. I'm rubbish at taking picture while working on stuff so this is mostly words sorry (not sorry). Locksmith took aaaages to cut a new key so I couldn’t do much on the electrics/starting/running side while I was waiting for that to happen. In the meantime I pulled the carb off, stripped and cleaned it and reassembled. There was a bunch of varnish and crud in the bowl so gave that a good scrub out. Gasket still looked good so reused it. The main jet currently in it is a #190 which is 2 sizes smaller than the factory spec #210. I think I’ll get some extra jets to bring it back to stock so I can tune from there rather than have it be (potentially) too lean. New AGM battery arrived. Connected up and slotted in nicely. All of the control cables were either extremely stiff or completely seized up so I squirted some lube down them and worked back and forth until they were smooth(er). If these go bad again I'll look to replace. Sprayed/brushed some phosphoric acid rust converter gel stuff on the header pipe and muffler which actually worked pretty well. The chrome is quite pitted but not too worried about that at this stage. Finally got the ignition and new key back so it was time to fire it up. Connected everything and put some premix in a syringe connected to the carb (fuel tank still locked shut) and she fired up 3rd kick! Was a bit rough at first but settled down to idle pretty nicely. Stoked as, so good to hear it ring-a-dinging away. All lights and signals work. Charging system is putting out 13.5v at idle which is a little bit below the 14.0v @2000rpm spec but no worries? The 2T oil tank had a bit of rust inside and around the outside seams. I wire brushed and scotched of the loose stuff from the outside. The oil that was left in there had gone real gross and started to separate with some big globs of gross suspended. Sloshed some petrol around to try and dissolve it and it cleaned up ok. Still some crud on the mesh filter around the outlet so I got in there with a very long toothbrush and some more petrol and got it pretty clean. Poured in some evapo rust to deal to the rust spots and left it for a few days. Cleaned up really good, that stuff is magic. Also threw miscellaneous rusty fasteners and other gubbins in a jar with evaporust to clean them up. I cleaned up the autolube pump and had to add quite a lot of shim washers to get the idle stroke set correctly. Bled the air out from the supply hose and checked it was pumping oil through into the case. All good! Then I looked at the petrol tank again. The new ignition key didn’t fit in the tank lock (boo) so I had a go at making a tension wrench and lock pick from some old wiper blade spring steel but obviously I’m rubbish at lock picking as this didn’t work. Screwdriver time. Put one in the keyway and started turning it with a spanner and the whole cap twisted open :o. Turns out I’m also rubbish at checking things properly and the cap was unlocked the whole time but seized up just enough to not open easily by hand when I first checked. Good news though, it’s mint inside so quick rinse out and chucked it back on. The chrome side panels came up pretty well with some autosol and elbow grease. I will redo the white lettering on the Yamaha badges at some point too.

Man I just wanna say its so cool to see this badboy rolling around again! That idle is grumpy/10 for sure!

Also, here's something weird. When it was last registered, it was as a "1999 YB125 Autolube" 1999 is also the year that it was first registered (I think?) based on the little 12/99 on the registration tag. It's definitely 'in the system' so I'm hoping re-reg shouldn't be too hard. It's got a vin tag and new font white plate. Has anyone had a go at correcting an incorrect model year like this before? I've heard some chat that a while ago bikes used just be tagged with the year they were first registered rather than their manufacture year? I definitely want to get this on vintage reg if possible!