RD250

 I posted the image above in closing weeks of 2017 on twitter to thank some sponsors and more importantly; to introduce my next stage of this project... ...Enter the Yamaha TZ chassis. Mounting the engine I have already spoken in depth about the engine in another blog entry so I wont dwell on the hows and whys here. I didn't have a TZ engine for my TZ chassis so the RD lump, in whatever guise it found itself, was going in this chassis. To make this work, some fabricating and welding of brackets would be required and seeing as Andy Green  had the exact same plan with one of his TZ chassis, we decided to do the job together at his garage. The RD***LC engine cases we were using would fit the front engine mounts with simple spacers, the back is the area we are interested in. The TZ rear mount is far too small and in the wrong place so we lopped them off (we are working two cassis remember) and cleaned the area up for welding. Some wide box section was then cut to a short

Changing the chassis is a bit of work but I really didn't want to be getting bored this winter so I thought I'd go and mess up my engine as well. The basic plan stood that I would take my existing RD250D aircooled cylinder heads and mate them with a set of RD250LC cases. Why? Well you get a better gearbox, but more importantly the cases are fully rubber mounted. Shakleton the RD250 had suffered greatly with vibration induced lack of structural integrity throughout 2017 so a rubber mounted engine was high on my wish list.  The cases I started shopping for a set of cases as soon as the season ended but could find nothing under £900! Andy Green, one of my racing team mates, offered me a set of cases to get started with. They came from the back of his shed but for all my appreciation for his help and generocity, they looked like they had come out of a canal! These things were covered in grime, missing/ bent studs and some rather seized looking internals would all n

As 2017 drew to a close and the season became a handful of stories, it bacame time to get to work on the RD250 D This meant some serious work was to commence. I only realise now, as I type this that: of the original bike I bought off of Tom back in 2016; only the clutch lever, rear brake master and barrels will remain. So it is fitting that this blog entry should be a gallery of some on the high and low lights of my time with 'Shackleton' to 100 mile an hour (on a good day) vibrator.   Good by Shackleton the RD250...  ...and a warm welcome to the TRD250 To be continued...