a.craw4d's CBR 250

[Snorkpipe]

Wemoto is also a good place to get parts for older bikes

[a.craw4d]

10 hours ago, Snorkpipe said:

Wemoto is also a good place to get parts for older bikes

Yep I've found wemoto Australia to be really good.  My parents are heading over there later this month to visit my sister so I might get a few things delivered there for them to bring back. 

[Snorkpipe]

I had better results out of Wemoto UK, but AU did come to the party and sort out the mistakes they made. The frieght to get it sent here is not bad, and no GST that way

[a.craw4d]

Had a poke around the petrol tank yesterday, its got a few rusty spots on the inside from sitting for ages and its been repaired in the past in about 3 or 4 times in different places.  Found a couple more holes.

Will try tig them up tonight.

 

On another note, the bike came with these new brake pads.

Is it normal to have to do 200 miles to bed in brake pads?  Or are these more of a race pad?  I think it'll take me a long time to do anywhere near that amount of ks. Brakes on cars I've always just banged them in and gone hard.

[a.craw4d]

Finally had a crack at welding up the rust holes.  This one got away on me a bit.

Really need some lighter shades in my welding helmet for this kind of stuff but got there in the end.

Took a bit of head scratching to work out how to get all the little bits of rust and crap out of the tank.  There's a big indent and lip around the fill point so I couldn't just tip it out.   So I rummaged through the rag bag and found a shirt sleeve, carefully sewed up one end with a stapler, chucked a magnet in the sleeve and dropped it in the tank (making sure to hold the other end of the sleeve).  Now just shake shake shake,  all the bits stick to the magnet then pull it out.

Did this a few times and now the tank doesn't rattle anymore. 

The tank had quite a bit of rust dust in it by this stage so I stuffed an oily rag in there and gave it another good shake, seems to have done the job.

Edited August 12, 2018 by a.craw4d

[a.craw4d]

Been a bit slack lately.

Been scrubbing away at the brake calipers in my spare time trying to make them look good again. Turns out the fronts have been up graded to mc19's with bigger pistons at some stage.

I'm waiting on a couple of aliexpress purchases to turn up so I can put the carbs back on. Will give it an oil and filter change then fingers crossed, get it going again.

My parents are picking up all my brake seals while in aus so will get them back together in a few weeks when they return.

Made a little buffer attachment for the drill with scotchbrite glued to it and attacked a bit of the frame with it.

Well now I'm thinking of pulling the whole bike apart to do everything with it . It worked quite well, unfortunately you don't see most of the shiny bits once the fairing is on.

Must resist that urge until I've got it going at least.

[a.craw4d]

And because updates with no pictures are poos.

One caliper and bracket cleaned up.

Will actually get some brakeklean and degreaser to finish these off. Was using petrol, toothbrush, wire brush and elbow grease to get this far.

And the diy buffer/ polisher v2.

First one I used a jam jar lid and a small bolt but it gave up and fall apart.

 

[a.craw4d]

I'm getting a bit side tracked here while I wait for parts to arrive. I like the look of brushed alloy and have some die grinder flap wheels laying around but no die grinder, an old battery drill with a good chuck but pooed battery and a 900w blender base that goes good.

Let's see how this goes ah.

 

 

Edit.

And nope. Turns out a drill chuck isn't designed for 1000000rpm and wobbles about like anything.

Has potential though.

Edited August 27, 2018 by a.craw4d

[a.craw4d]

Ok so I've finally spent a little time on this lately.  New parts turned up.

Will clean up this area before I refit the carbs.

 

Started cleaning and reassembling the carbs with new float bowl seals.

 

[a.craw4d]

Bear with me while I try dumping some photos.

New screws as well since most of the old ones were fucked.

Float bowls done. 

 

Chucked together the other side.

I installed the one on the right first then found the cover piece cleans up nice with a good wire brush.       And all done.

At this point I was going to have a go at adjusting all the butterflies as some were obviously out of sync.   In a brain wave I thought it best to tip some gas down the fuel line and check for leaks, good idea as there's a leak around the tee piece where the fuel line goes in. Bugger. Anyway I've pulled the end carb off to get the tee piece out, the o-rings look ok but I'll get some new one's when I get a chance.

[a.craw4d]

Back when I first pulled the carbs off I found this little hose between #2 and 3 cylinders.

 You can see the hose tails in a pic two posts above. In the parts catalog it doesn't really show this area but the most I can make out is there should be a couple of bolts plugging up the holes where the hose tails are.

Does that sound right?

I'm guessing these are for when you balance the carbs and should be blanked off when not in use?

Also being quad carb I don't imagine having two cylinders bridged is a good idea.

[a.craw4d]

Wow its been awhile.

Bought some viton o rings.

And pulled apart the four carbs and replaced all the o rings on the little joining pieces.

Sounds simple but things were super tight going back together while keeping all the choke pieces and springs in place.  Took 3 hours of my day to achieve this but glad it's done now.  Hope to get the carbs back on the bike tomorrow then give it an oil change.

@C Kennedy gave me some thinners ages ago to start striping the matt black paint off so really should get onto this soon.  Oh yeah, and reassemble all the brake calipers and maybe replace the rear disc.  Should make a list.

[a.craw4d]

Today's going better than yesterday.

Carbs are back on.

 Drained what's supposedly the oil. It came out more like dirty petrol, it smells a bit like petrol and is really thin like petrol. Match test didn't confirm petrol so I don't know what's going on.  Hopefully it's old gas that has made its way into the oil from sitting for years. Fingers crossed everything is ok.

Anyway, out with the old        um   stuff, and in with the new.

 

[a.craw4d]

And it goes again!  I'm so stoked right now.   Will try upload a shitty video later.

[a.craw4d]

 

[a.craw4d]

I'm posting on here mainly so I have a record of what and when I've done something so sorry for the boring bits.

Small progress. I had a coolant leak so little miss 4 helped me pull a hose and pipe off and go shopping for an o ring, on the condition that she can have the old o ring because her motorbike needs it.  She fixed up her bike.

And I mixed up some new coolant and fixed mine.

(I don't have a fancy jug so bucket it was).

Pulled and checked the plugs, #1 was wet with gas and the lead isn't flash so will tape it up for now. Otherwise they appear ok.

 

 

[a.craw4d]

Have started reassembling the calipers. The rear was fairly good and went together nicely.

The fronts however have a nice clean bore but the recesses where the seals sit were really oxidized. I scraped it all out with an old modified screwdriver. Is there a better way to do this? Most likely.  But did it work? Yes it did and it cost me nothing, except time, lots of time.

One front and the rear back together so far. Need to go shopping for brake fluid and some silicon grease for the slides.

Oh and a battery. Really excited to take this for a spin but jumper leads don't allow for that.

[a.craw4d]

Will get this back up to date.

I got all the calipers back together. After having trouble finding suitable caliper slide grease I went to Sims Brakes in Dunedin and the GC there gave me a couple of sachets for free.  Took ages getting the brakes bleed as I'd completely emptied the reservoirs when I removed the caliper pistons.  I refitted the old brake pads on the rear as I still need to replace the rear disc and I didn't want the new pads getting bedded into a fucked disc. The front pads came with the bike and are a carbon fiber kevlar blend, don't know how good that is but it sounds bad ass.

So at this stage I was keen as beans to try ride this thing so I chucked the tank back on without checking it for leaks. It has 2 little pin holes that'll need welded so that's added to the list.

I didn't want to buy a new battery yet as I realistically won't have this sorted for a while yet.  I tried a few oldschool advised tricks to get the 9+ year old battery to hold some charge but nothing worked. While admitting defeat a mate made a silly suggestion.

Strap one on the back. OK.

Did I mention when I last rode a motorbike?  At least 20 years ago, and the time spent on 2 wheels will be less hours than I have fingers.

Soooooo

Today I learnt to ride it up and down the neighbors drive. We're both still in one piece so I'll take that win. 

Everything seems to be ok so far. The front brakes need bleed a bit more.

Front forks are in need of new seals and a bit more pressure, they bottomed out when stopping from about 20kph.

Also need a new rear disc as mentioned.

Should probably chuck a new chain at it too.

Lastly it'll need new rubber to get it to wof standard.

For now I'm just happy to have ridden it.

 

Edit,   Weld holes in tank and get a proper battery at some stage too.

[a.craw4d]

Wow, I had to dig a bit to find this thread again.

I'd like to say I've made great progress on this but...  well, this is oldschool so I'm moving along ok so far.

I tig welded up a few little holes in the tank but run into trouble when I got close to some previous brazed repairs.  I didn't have the gear to braze so I gave it to a mate to do.

He fixed the holes, I put gas in and found more. He fixed the holes, I put gas in and found more, and so on and so on.

In this time I gave up being a stay home Dad and went back to work so now I've got access to everything I need but no time to do it.

I've had the tank sitting beside my toolbox with what I hope is the last hole to fill. When I saw @estate_ mc17 for sale on here it reminded me how cool these bikes are, so I sacrificed a smoko break and fixed the hole plus sweated some braze over any patches that could be suspect, blue out all the crap and dust from inside it and, fingers crossed I'll chuck some gas in it today and it won't leak.

PS. I will get a new tank for this eventually.

Pictureless updates suck so here's a motivational pic.

 

How do people go about a replacing fork seals?  Do I just hang the front from the garage roof and strip it while the front's off the ground or is there another way?

 

 

 

 

Edit:  Aaaannnnnnd nope   still one more hole. On the plus side, Mr 8 wanted to go for a ride on it when it's going so that's a step in the right direction

Edited August 11, 2019 by a.craw4d

[a.craw4d]

I've also started taking to the wheels with autosol. 

Seems to work a treat.