Project 2000 Kx250
So after a few months without a dirtbike, and itching to have 2 wheels under me again, I decided to take on another bike rebuild project. I will be keeping my 2003 Raptor 660 as a play machine because it's fun to wheelie and not tear up my entire lawn. I stuck up a wanted ad on good old craigslist for a 2 stroke motocrosser that needed work, and a few days later got an offer for a 2001 Kx250 for $400. I snatched it. Owner said it locked the lower main bearings up and needed some TLC. How it looked when I brought it home in the trusty '88 Ranger. Turned out it's a 2000, not a 2001. Darn.
First Impressions
I was glad to see the front and rear rims are Excel laced to stock hubs, it has Vforce 3 reeds, and Protaper 1 1/8 bars with a matching top tripple. The left radiator is shot, the inner clutch basket is broken, and the stator is shot. All these will be sourced on eBay, craigslist or somewhere else.
The Tear-down
Day 1 Teardown Conclusions
Sprockets and chain are good, crank is a Hot Rods with no play in the rod, rear shock is blown, so I popped it apart and cleaned the seals and it stopped leaking, forks are leaking (I'll see if I can clean those seals too), rear rim is missing a spoke, tranny is in awesome shape, clutch is good, plastics will make a good learner pair, and frame will need to be re-painted. All in all, I got a great deal! It looks crappy right now, but will go together nice. I'll make sure to document the port work I'm planning to do on the engine also. More to come...
Update April 10, 2011
The linkage bearings are toast. I repacked them all, but the last one had dried out, and all the needles were missing. I picked up a HVLP spray gun, and will be sandblasting the frame hopefully tomorrow and paint it then. How the bike looks now:
You may wonder why I didn't just touch the frame up? The frame had so many nicks and chips, it would have been poka-dotted by the time each one was fixed. It's better use of my time to lay some good paint on it instead.