Discodan

Thanks mate! I want to ride it more than anything, but just wondering if it would knock a couple of grand off the price if I did!?

So the 500 is pretty much done now, just waiting on the throttle boot and the muffler rubber which had to be back ordered from Japan. I laced and trued the rear wheel with a chopstick clamped to the swingarm (who needs a fancy truing stand) which was actually much quicker and easier than I expected. I also finally got the rear spring back after being painted in 2 pack and fitted it to the shock. I then fitted some new Dunlop D952 tyres as these are the closest I can find to 90's MX tyres, but f@ck me the sidewalls are so stiff on these things! It's by far the hardest tyre I've ever had to fit.

2019 KTM 250 TPI: Very Happy

Haha always the way! It drives my partner insane the amount of time I spend trawling ebay and other sites looking for bits and pieces!

Thanks Geoffro! The plastics are UFO, unfortunately the plastics original plastics couldn't be salvaged as the UV damage was too great. But everything else is OEM (besides the pipe) and if I was to do a quick tally in my head I reckon I would have spent close to $14k plus hundreds of hours of my time. It's been a huge undertaking and I wouldn't change anything. I could of probably saved thousands using aftermarket parts, but I wanted to be as true to the original as I could.

Long time between updates, but.... Almost done! Life + a lot of fiddly jobs got in the way of finishing the project off. Everything has been fitted now besides the rear wheel, the silencer and the fork guards. I'm waiting on the silencer mounts from Honda which were an 8-12 week ETA, also trying to track down a decent value spoke kit for the rear wheel as Honda want $240 for OEM spokes! Anyway looking forward to wheeling it outside and firing it up next week.

It's just painted. Obviously not as hard wearing as powder, but it can always be touched up with ease.

I wasn't going to start a new project until I finished my CR500 resto, but suddenly I found myself with a lot of time on my hands (inbetween juggling parenting duties). Growing up on the sidelines of a Motorcross track (Dad is a life member of Maffra-Sale), I wanted a Kawasaki badly, so much that still to this day green is my favourite colour and the 1989 kx125 was my dream bike! When one popped up for sale last year I couldn't help myself, I just HAD to have it. The poor old girl was a basket case and had been flogged. The smart decision would have just been to wreck it, but it's

Update time.... So a big box of effing expensive genuine parts finally arrived from the states which means that I've finally been able to start putting things back together. I also got the straightened radiators back and also the seat from Mario at Topline who did a bloody amazing job! The bottom end of the engine went back together without too much trouble, after heating the cases in the oven the bearings just slipped in. The only issue I has was putting a small washer in the wrong spot which meant that the transmission didn't shift properly, so I had to split the cases and rectify

Well what a bloody awesome day out at Wombat today, perfect conditions for riding. Thanks to Pepperjack for leading an incredible ride, it was a great mix of terrain with some tracks that are probably the most fun I've ridden. Thanks to Mess and Markey Eck for doing a great job as sweeps, providing plenty of encouragement and help along the way. The ride flowed very well with minimal hiccups besides my flat and subsequent stop after forgetting to do up the pinch bolts. Turns out the forks work better bouncing up and down rather than squirming side to side. If anyone is

Starting to make a bit of progress now.. I picked up my nice shiny bits from the hydro blaster and they came up an absolute treat! I've just finished painting the frame and couldn't help myself but to mock up some of the rear end to give myself some motivation. I'm into the tedious boring bits at the moment, such as cleaning up all of the bolts and cross checking the parts diagram to make sure everything is there and I've also decided to do my own zinc plating to keep the bike as original as possible. The plating process has been pretty satisfying as the rusty old bolts are coming up like new

By the looks of the dyno charts there is another 5hp at 1/4 throttle so that should allow for some nice tractability with the ability to pull a higher gear on those steeper climbs if need be. Fuel economy is meant to be even better than stock because of a more efficient combustion due to a better shaped head, but ultimately it probably depends more on riding style. I’d be interested to see what Gypsy thinks too as he knows the bike better than I do at the moment.

Fitted a new head and reflashed ECU. Engine sounds super crisp and cleaned up the bottom end. Can’t wait to give it the real test on the GF ride!

This week's progress..... Started stripping all of the cast aluminium parts so I can send them off to get hydroblasted. All of the bearings and hardware came out of the swingarm and linkage without too much drama which was nice. I stripped down the engine and everything was in better condition than I expected. The previous owner obviously didn't care too much for cosmetics, but looked after the engine well. I've taken to the cylinder down to TSP to have the cylinder measured accurately an according to Dave it's still on the original bore. I probably could have just put another piston