RD250

This is a work in progress but as the blog is being written at the same time as I am working (for a change), I thought I might as well publish it to make it a live update of sorts. So do pop back in the future to see when I finally give up and set the lot on fire. We never thought that 2020's race reason would even happen so when we found ourselves at Cadwell park, all be it as privateers and the sun was out, we were all pinching ourselves.  All of the bikes were going well and so something had to give and it was the RD250. 2 laps into race 1  on Chris curve the RD suddenly lost power, regained it then died all together. My EGT and TTO temperatures all looked fine so I wiggled carbs and throttle cables but the engine came back with a noticeable rattle so the clutch was pulled and my race was over. I had a back to back race on the VFR750 so by the time I was back in the pits, Roy Dale had kindly put my bike on its stand outside the van. We had a look to see what the pr...

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...

quitly ignoring the fact that we have already looked at the engine rebuild, lets go back to stripping this thing and talk about some little bits. As I received her I had: A rolling bike with an engine and fuel tank. She lacked carbs, front brakes, throttle and a chain amongst many other little details. The previous owner had braised on foot peg mounts, ignition mounts, fairing mounts and had sourced a tail unit which saved me plenty of work but I still had a great deal to do and in not too much time. I stripped the bike right down to nothing which wasn't hard as the bike was basically tacked together. The frame had already been mostly delugged and didn't need much tidying up at all. After tidying what little needed doing; I rubbed the frame down and painted it matt black. This not only looks nice but it is also really easy to touch up when it gets scratched. For those parts that I wanted bare metal; I hit them with the sand blaster. The engine rebuild, If you ...

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...