Diff'rent Strokers

[Wb]

Stop polishing and preening the damn thing and get it running right first!

Make sure your order a GT4B-5 battery or equivalent (most places will send you a big lead-acid 2MA jobbie if you just ask for '92 TZR250 battery). It should start fine with a flat battery though - unless it's one of the ones with the always on headlights (pain in the arse with such a puny battery - you can retro-fit the earlier switch cluster with the headlight on/off switch) or the lights are switched on?

Keep at it; you'll get there

[arlurt]

I've got the right battery, by part number and dimensions, £25 on eBay including postage.

Already done the headlight switch (tail lights still on all the time though...) but that's not the problem here. Ignition on, and there isn't enough life in the battery to cycle the powervalves. Squeezing the front brake lever (brakes light on) makes the ignition lights go out. I'll see if I can jump it off something else to get it running tomorrow.
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Light is right.

[arlurt]

New battery fitted, working. Once round the block and home...

You might have noticed it's a "smile", and not a "very happy"? First gear is still a problem, though once you're moving the ratios work well. It still doesn't always drop back to tickover, and I don't think it's cables anymore. Mid-range pull is good, upper-mid very good, and I haven't dared try revving it out to the red line yet.

There's still very little smoke from it. After a few minutes ticking over on the drive it builds up a bit, but on throttle there's none to be seen at all. Come on 3XV owners, should it be giving me a sign that the oil pump's OK or is this just the way they are? Any hints for a quick check of oil pump function?

I'll check it over at the weekend, have a look at the plugs to see if they're anything like a decent colour, check the gearbox oil and coolant levels and try to convince myself it's a ridable bike.
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Light is right.

[wullie mckie]

[Wb]

As Wullie says, it's worth checking the cable is all OK and working properly. If all looks to be OK, they can still sometimes hang up a bit if the slide stop screw isn't adjusted absolutley spot on, so give 'em a wiggle and see if that cures it. Personally, I'd whip the springs out and give em a bit of a stretch too, and set each carb up independently while checking operation is all as it should be, slides are balanced etc. Just sounds like the usual set-up teething troubles of a newly installed motor to me really.

Are you using an SP or R model oil pump? Either should be fine I'd think so long as it's adjusted properly (I don't even know what the difference is technically, but the SP pump is marked with a '10' on the cable spool. A mate has been running an R pump for years with SP cyls though to no ill effect). Or just Mix up some premix and pull the feed tubes off the reed rubbers if you want to check the pump function is OK.

You did bleed the pump if it has been off the motor I presume? (little philips screw on the pump body if you didn't)... Just whip it out and leave it to gravity-bleed 'til all the bubbles stop coming out.

Sounds like it just needs some TLC really. The tall first shouldn't really be an issue on stock gearing, so I suspect it's not running as striong as it might at the bottom end yet if it feels really awkward?

[arlurt]

The fuel leak has cured itself, running clean fuel through it, some good vibrations and a few miles seems to have shaken it into shape.

I've sorted the throttle cable problem, a slight kink in the cable from the junction box to the left carb was all it took to hold it above tick-over. Done.

The new battery is holding up well, started second kick, and I've been away for nearly four weeks.

And finally, I've found out where the mystery oil leak is coming from. It's not the engine after all, the seals in the rear shock have let go.

So that means no MoT until I've spent even more money on the bl**dy thing!

For the first time I've ridden the 3XV back-to-back with the Fireblade and that's made up my mind. I've got enough projects on without the 3XV so I'm going to sell it. I've seen a few go through on eBay recently, so maybe now's the time. I've listed it in the For Sale section on this forum, and Strokerboy's put it on the TZR forum for me.
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Light is right.

[arlurt]

We're coming to the end... The bike is listed on the For Sale section here, and on the TZR forum.

If anyone's got a rear shock in servicable condition I'd be interested. If I have to go to an open-market sale the bike will certainly sell better with an MoT.

Let me know...
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Light is right.

[Crofty]

This bike, and the topic in which it has featured, seems to me, to be part and parcel of Diffrent Strokers. I first saw the Strokers stand at Uttoxeter 2 or 3 years ago (cant remember for sure) and it was when I returned home and checked out the site, I read all about this bike, and that pretty much had me hooked to the site from that moment. Thank you Arlurt for sharing with us the trials and tribulations, and your experience in this, I myself have had numerous items from Japan thanks to to the info you shared, so in part, the success of my RG250 is down to you!! It will feel like the end of an era when this machine has gone! So.....whats next?
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Breathing new life into an old Gamma!

http://www.rg250.co.uk

[arlurt]

Thanks for your kind words. I'm a little ashamed to be giving up so close to the finish, but I do think it's got me beat. All my grand ideas for getting the bits together to try to sort out my own crankshafts, and having enough parts to have two complete engines so I can swap over when it blows up (again) have come to nothing. just dis-heartened that everything I've done for the last four years with this bike seems to have been such hard work.

The bike is so nearly there... I've got a rear shock coming From Japan, partly due to the lack of interest in selling the bike as is. I suspect I'll finish up having to fit the rear shock, get the bike MoT'd and sell it on eBay, but that makes me nervous as well. At least the people on DS and the TZR forum know about two strokes and their frail nature. I don't want to sell it to an idiot who blows it up on the way home and then comes back for a refund with a baseball bat.

I've been talking to StrokerBoy about splitting the spares up too. Maybe sell one dead RS engine with all the parts to put it right, a crank, piston, rings, gudgen pin, gaskets and whatever else it needs so someone can build (or have built) a running engine without having to buy anything else. Maybe sell the TZ250 parts separately too.

As for the next project, I've got a couple on the back burner. There's StrokerBoy's KH250 to finish, and I've got a heavily modified Triumph Spitfire that's waited patiently for ten years for attention.

I'll let you know.
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Light is right.

[si.likes.guiness]

i dont suppose you have a good 3xv battery lying around do you mate?

[StrokerBoy]

[arlurt]

I've put a new batch of photos on the For Sale thread so anyone who's interested can get a better idea of the bike as it stands today. It is a complete running bike in very good condition for it's eighteen years of life.
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Light is right.

[arlurt]

Well there's no doubting the quality of service "From Japan"! I paid for the rear shock when I won it last weekend, and made the shipping payment on Tuesday. I was woken up at 07:20 this morning (on my day off) by the postman banging on the door, it's arrived. That's better than some of the stuff I get on UK eBay...



I'll check it over and hopefully fit it over the weekend.

Then it's MoT, and eBay for the bike... Not that there's any pressure on you potential purchasers...
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Light is right.

[arlurt]

I managed to strip out the old rear shock on Saturday morning, not quite as bad a job as I'd expeced, though on a bike with no centre stand there's always that question about of how to support it while you work on the rear suspension. I managed to get a block of wood between the rear subframe and the the back wheel which nicely held everything up while I messed about.



I stripped and cleaned the new "From Japan" rear shock. I wanted to be sure that the damping was there, and to properly clean the damper rod to make sure that I wasn't going to drive any muck into the seals. The whole thing is spot on.



So back together and off for the MoT. For some reason, it's the first time I've ridden it since the 26th of November 2006, I'd have to look back through the thread to find out why. The bike is brilliant. So light and confidence inspiring. Warwick is right about the SP 1st gear being less of a problem now the engine is on-song, but I do think for road use it would be better with the RS gearbox fitted to give a decent set of road ratios. Moving up towards a set of short-change traffic lights, behind a bus in town, I'm sure they've got me pegged as a troublesome teenager on his noisey 125, and still learning to ride. Nice to see people stare at you when you pull the clutch in "....Mate! Something's wrong with yer bike, it's makeing awful (lovely) noise...".

I'd booked it in but I think they were expecting a 1KT, or maybe a 3MA. The place I go to used to be a Grey Importer so they knew exactly what it was and were very complimentary. And to keep it company there was a tidy RGV there as well, in for some work on the carbs. Three people came out and had a look over it, all very positive, lots of "y' don't see many of them" and "by it's a clean one".



MoT passed, no problem, and home via the garage for fuel and a slightly longer run home. It's great, but I still think now's the time to sell. One last selling point for it would be twelve months tax. I need to look at my Honda policy to see if the "any bike" cover will allow me to get a tax disc for the 3XV.

The Honda passed its MoT as well. A good day all round.
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Light is right.

[arlurt]

Sold!

Congratulations to "Hutch" who as a condition of ownership has had to register on DS.

I look forward to hearing how you get on with it, look after her and keep us up to date on here...

I'll start going through the spares now and try to make them into lots for eBay sale. I don't understand how there could be so much interest in the bike on eBay, and no bids. Several people got in touch offering hundreds more than the start price if I ended the auction, but no one wanted to come and see it or place a bid. Lots of strange questions about power output, and "...how fast is it mister...?".

I guess this means I've got to hand in my DS membership? Unless I can find something else that qualifies me to keep a foot in the door...
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Light is right.