Highbrid Yamaha -Goodbye Shackelton

-

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... 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rolling lite

-
Image
Shopping With the winter maintenance season on its way I started looking for parts to get the bike where I wanted it for the 2017 season. Wheels were high on my shopping list as the stock cast wheels weigh a fair bit. I wanted a set of Astralites but they are very expensive. Spoked wheels were going to be the more likely option but getting a good set was't very cheap either. As it happened this pair of Astralites came up cheap on eBay for only £250 with the added bonus of all the spacers for an RD250 fit. They were still in their original anodised finish with the only draw back being a few dents in the rims that would need ironing out. Straightening things up I spent a long time trying to get in contact with the Tony Dawson and   Paul Allender. Tony being the man who brought the Astralite wheel to us and Paul the man who brought them back after a 10 year gap . Paul was selling the wheels again on RennStar  but sadly they have recently announced that th
Read more

Going back to ignition

-
Image
Two things happened: My ignition didn't want to talk to my tachometer, Then my ignition decided to remove itself from my bike altogether, It was time for a new ignition. After the last round at Snetterton when the bracket you see on the left decided to suck and fall of, I was facing the dilemma of: Fix it with a new (and stronger) bracket, or replace the ignition system all together. Fixing would be fairly easy, I like the Femsa ignition for its classic design, very strong spark and so far reliability. But what if this happened again? The Femsa is old so how long could I expect it to last for anyway? And I'd like that shiny new tacho to work, which it didn't with the Femsa ignition? Well I did want a working tacho and took this as an opportunity to upgrade.  A couple of days later I was a few hundred quid lighter and had a new hpi ignition to play with. Everything was less bulky and obviously separate; so more like a modern bik
Read more

Engine remove, strip, rebuild, fit, repeat...

-
Image
This bike isn't going anywhere [fast] without an engine rebuild so in I went with a Haynes manual and a can of WD40. Before we get to into this: For those who don't know me this is not a step by step guide on how to strip and rebuild an engine. It is more a ramble about stuff I did interspersed with pictures. It is meant to be entertaining as well as filling in the gaps those hazy grey areas in the manual like to leave. f you want a step by step guide; go buy a manual. Stage one was to attack everything with the can of WD40 and stick the engine on my work bench (it was loose in the frame anyway. The next step was to close up the garage and go drink tea and play forza till I got good at racing (never happened). With a night to soak, things were a fair bit easier with no rounding off bolts which makes a pleasant change.  The heads and barrels are held on by some funky bolts and nuts respectively. Remove these in a pattern that doesn't stress things out then p
Read more