My name is Charlie and I live in the Kansas City area. I bought my 2003 TTR250 back in late October. It's had a couple issues since I bought it, but I really like it alot. I paid $800.00 US. It's been a long time since I've ridden a motorcycle, but I had been wanting to get back into it for quite a while. I live on about an acre of land and most of it is my backyard. I have been just riding it when I can. The guy I bought it from hadn't done much with it and the carb got pretty gummed up. It was having trouble starting and then when it started it didn't want to stay running. I started looking on the web for information on the bike and found this wonderful site. I'm pretty sure I've checked every post there is on it. Anyway I saw the how to's on stripping down the carb and cleaning it out since it had been years since I worked on one. I got everything all cleaned up and had been riding it but I kept getting that dreaded clunk when I would try to start it.
Finally it was sounding like the starter motor wasn't engaging with the starter clutch. It would just spin. I spent time when I could to round up the parts I would need to fix the sprag. The problem was I started running into things like Yamaha quit making the flywheel puller for that bike. I found out about the thread chaser and last weekend I took everything apart and although I don't have an impact wrench I did get the flywheel off the bike with everything looking like it was going well. I went about trying to put everything back together and it was going well. I went to try to start it and I got some loud clunking noises and then it sounded like it was just spinning again. I think it could be the small idler gear, but I haven't had the chance to take it apart again. When I do get it altogether and running again I will take pics and post them here.
The weather this week hasn't been so good and we are expecting a big snowstorm Thursday morning. I will eventually get my bike going again and despite the issues I'm actually having fun trying to figure this stuff out. Your site has really helped me out quite a bit and just wanted to say Thank you all.
