A forum for owners of Yamaha TTR250 trail and enduro bikes!

Mrs TTR wrote:

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I'm looking at the picture and thinking, Wow, look at that fabulous floor..... 

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I decided to paint my side stand

I fitted it back on today

Looks very nice if I say so myself. Slightly worried about how long it will last, might get it powder coated if it rubs off quickly.

Started having a go at fitting the new handguards from Totally TTRS this afternoon, here is one of the original ones

As per usual, I tied myself in knots trying to do everything at once. More haste less speed etc...

I tried the old hairspray trick to slide the throttle grip on, worked fine but have yet to see whether it will dry off and stick properly

The throttle doesn't snap back when I release it, so I need to work out whether I should try and slide the whole throttle grip assembly towards the centre of the bar a bit, or trim some off the outside edge where it is rubbing.

I'm going to take it off and re-route the cable thats underneath it now so it goes above. The other side will be quicker

Martyn:

I commute on the bike 5 days out of seven over a moorland track, but you're right, thats not exactly greenlaning and I am happy to say I have a ride out booked for this Saturday with my mate. He has a brand spanking WR250  so I have the honour of TTR's everyhwhere to uphold

Glare from the white mudguard at night has been an issue even with my old pathetic power bulb, so now I've upgraded the bulb I needed to do something urgently.

I commute to work on an unlit track at night and have found it a big problem, especially in rain or fog (which just amplifies the issue).

Last night I had marked where the light glared up off the top of the mudguard, so I got the masking tape, newspaper and matt black paint out and got going.

First up I cleaned, sanded back and masked of the area I was going to paint

Then a bit more masking with paper

and more

and a bit of spray painting

This was the finished product after I took the tape and paper off

I don't think it looks too bad, despite it being a purely functional modification

This shows the light reflecting off the to[ of the bumper, hopefully less than when it was gloss white

I also got a new paddock stand for £30 today from a local Bradford Motocross company

Which makes things a lot easier  and allowed me to adjust the chain slack as per Cubber's helpful reply on another post

Happy Birthday Pete!!

Keep up the good work 

Brian

I really like the look of your painted fender!  Especially from the front, I like the way the line of black fits in with the seat cover.  Good eye!

Looks like you got the new chain and sprockets just in time! You certainly got value for money out of the last set 

My advice on the magnet is to Araldite the pieces back in - I have done a few like that and its a fairly permanent repair. You are lucky in some ways as most magnets totally break up and can't be stuck back together again. I think you caught yours before that happened.

Just a word of caution, check your chain slider - the green plastic that protects the swing arm from chain damage. If the section at the bottom of the swing arm just under the swing arm bearing cap wears through (see here) then a loose chain might damage the cap which lets water into the bearing  

Oops - you should see a dentist more often with teeth like that!

When I see & read about the Raid speedo problems I'm thankful that all I have to wory about is a cable on mine.

That's not counting the time I hit a Dartmmor bank whilst in  haste and totally demolishing the speedo head.

It gave me the impetus to change from kph to mph and no problems since. (Yet!)

Please report on any differences you find when you change from 14 to 13 teeth.

Martyn

Martyn; thanks, and will reprt differences. I decided that having weighed up the 'smaller front sprocket causing more wear' argument against the 'white model speedo sensor trapping mud that will wear a bigger front sprocket faster' arguments, I'd just go for the lighter, cheaper, easier option!

Matt; thanks for the encouragement. I do feel old, but I suppose its all relative!

Brian; you are a font of all knowledge as per usual. I have done an Araldite home repair

And a quick spin up the drive and back confirmed that there was a speed displayed. Tomorrow I'll take it to work and back (55 mins each way at the moment!) and report back. Thanks for the tip

Pete

SUNSHINE!!!

I got an unexpected couple of hours to myself this afternoon, so I got the panels off and stuck the new air filter in.

I also had a look in the end of the exhaust header to see if it was resrtricted, which it wasn't. It looked stock though, so I don't know whether they weren't all restricted as standard or what.

When I fired it up I was able to stall it by snapping full throttle open from idle (with the bike in neutral on a paddock stand). I decided to see whether the air filter had affected the carb setup at the bottom end, by playing with the adjuster screw thing. Probably should have left it alone, as it is an awkward little thing that seems to make little difference. I looked at a 'how to' guide for setting up the mixture screw, which went along the lines of making sure you got the maximum idle speed with no hesitation on revving, but as I say I couldn't seem to get much difference by playing with it in different positions. The engine would rev well apart from snapping full throttle, when it stalled. I tried to leave it at 2 full turns out, is that correct?

I understand that the mixture screw controlls the first quarter or so of revs, throttle or whatever, so am I right in thinking its probably nothing to do with the jets? I have not had any problems opening the throttle when I'm out riding it and the bike idles perfectly.

After tearing some more hair out, I took the bike for a spin and it performed perfectly, so I'm not too worried. Yet.

Pete

Nice one Pete!

Good idea to build the swing arm back up with liquid metal. Anything that will give you back a circular finish to make sure the seal works and keeps the water out 

I looked at mine today and its nearly time to fit a new slider. I tend to run the chain a bit slack which is why I think mine wore out quicker than expected.

Brian

Thought I'd let you know an update following the recent mods;

The 13:48 gearing is absolutely brilliant! I am really happy with it. Time will tell if the slider wears out too quickly, but as for performance it's like a new bike 

Just in the middle of stripping  and painting  the (rusty) swingarm, which is a bit of a preventative and cosmetic job. Fingers crossed it'll look OK and all go back together. I've just had a telling off when the wife found the swingarm on the kitchen side

Pete

Swingarm time

It was a bit of a struggle getting it off

then I wire brushed it, rubbed it down with emery cloth, cleaned it

and masked ogg the holes

then I started to spray it with alloy wheel paint (steel colour) from Halfords

It looks good, I'm going to laquer it tomorrow with some super duper tough extra special laquer and hopefully that'll do the trick.

Pete

matteo wrote:

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Brian, great pics! thank you what are the two lugs underneath for lower chain guard I expect?


Thanks Gents! I may ask you to give me a measurement of the mounting brackets or two if its not too much trouble?

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Yep - those two lugs hold the chain guide.

Happy to help with measurements but my suggestion is you get the chain guard first to make sure that it will fit the new mountings.

matteo wrote:

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is there a mount inside the swing arm also?

 

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 Yep - Pete's pics show it more clearly.

Matt, regarding the measurements, fair enough I see what you're getting at. I'm on it, leave it with me and I'll measure it up at some point this week.

Aiden, THANKS

Cap83, let me know your real name sometime, it's awkward calling you a number  but thanks for your kind words. I wouldn't know if my forks were spongy or not, but you've got me thinking now... I will compare them to my mates WR250R and see what the difference is. I know they're unlikely to be quite as good, but if they're off by a country mile I'll have a look at them.

Well, apologies for my work induced delay in getting an update on, I have been working hard recently, got to earn money for my hobbies...

I have joined a small in number (possibly as low as one) but select group of people who have injured themselves whilst refitting a TTR side stand. In my case, I overtightened the bolt and made it too stiff, puched the stand three quarters of the way down so it was out of the way and I could lean forward, loosen the bolt again and WHACK! Suddenly I'm seeing stars and theres claret on the garage floor.

Good job I'm not doing an engine rebuild or I'd probably end up pushing daisies up.

Thankfully it seems to be cosmetic damage to the skin near my eye only, and lets face it I'm cheaper to repair than a motorbike. A bit of masking tape held it together until I went to hospital (because it was gaping open a bit) and they superglued it. Why didn't I think of that?

After that I finally got the swingarm back on with much swearing and getting it wrong. I had to split the chain THREE times! 3! The first time didn't loop it over the swingarm, the second it got trapped and the third I couldn't move it without risking scratching the shiny new paint job. On the plus side, I'm now a chain splitting expert... Everything else that could have gone wrong did, until the point that I felt I would be willing to offer a complete stranger fairly extreme violence for no reason. I went inside, had a drink and came back out slightly calmer. Then I finished it and:

Here is the finished article

Really pleased with it, it looks better and hopefully the evil oxidisation will be kept at bay for a while longer. I'm thinking of doing the frame next, matt black to match the exhaust guard and mudguard. I might start with the grab handles and see how they look.

Great to have some nice biking weather as Cubber (Martyn) showed on his post. I was so inspired I jumped on mine and took it off over the moor and back. It was good to have it all together and working again.

Pete