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Hi all, it was mentioned I should start a thread on my KT250 project. I don't really need another project as I am still building my Riley Brooklands car but a bike has been on my mind for a while since 1. I am running out of room for cars, 2. I don't want to do another car since the process of getting them on the road is getting harder all the time, 3. as my taste in cars keeps getting older the next one would have to be a bloody London to Brighton car and 4. getting all your parts from overseas is starting to get very expensive. So I considered some kind of vintage bike type project. Something for me to learn about bikes, something to learn to ride on and someone to just put about the garden and neighbours fields on. I don't really want to ride on the roads, it's dangerous enough in low slung 30s sports cars I find. Talking to a friend who has some knowledge of such things (and owns bikes) he said vintage bikes aren't ideal for various reasons and not that great to ride. He suggested a classis trials bike like a Montesa, Bultaco or Ossa. Those are expensive and hard to find and you still have that 'parts from overseas' issue. On TradeMe I saw a book about Trials riding by Don Smith and bought that just to learn more about it. I ended up chatting to the seller about such things as he sold other parts for bikes and asked him if I was looking for an old bike where is the best place to look other than TradeMe and Beaded Wheels. He more or less said 'have I got a deal for you' and you can guess what happened next. So now I own a 76 (I think) KT 250 Kawasaki. It's a project but it is mostly all there and original but a lot needs doing. It came with some parts and manuals and more parts should be coming too. Has 4000 something on the speedo (which is in miles). I wrote about it in the bike appreciation thread but basically I checked it over, tested spark and compression and so on and that the oiler seems intact and working and got it started. That was actually easy, took 3 kicks! The clutch was clutch but following some advice in that thread I worked on unsticking that by rocking the bike back and forth in gear and once it felt like there was some slipping there I started it up and chucked it into gear. That worked and I was able to ride around the garden in first. I think I did manage to find 2nd once but as a new rider I am just getting the hang of things and am still working on the likes of not falling off and not over doing the throttle at the moment. Plans so far, putt-putt about to get the hang of it then eventually strip it all down, learn how it works and rebuild it nicely I guess. But for now I am busy making the ash timber frame for the car then the aluminium skin so am not sure when this will happen. It gives me time to find parts and things I need, a lot of which are available locally which is one reason I went for this bike. From what I understand it wasn't a great trials bike in the day. Or rather others did better. But they were good farm bikes making them popular here. Here are some as delivered pics. Simon