I worked off and on this winter to rebuild a neglected but seldom ridden TTR250 into an overlanding bike for the backroads of Montana and Idaho.
The changes:
1 street legal conversion with lights/horn/blinkers/brake lights
2. bigger wider foot pegs
3.rebuilt the forks and shock and lowered the bike 3" front and rear for more appropriate ride height for old man. more compression dampening and ported main valve in shock. I run 8 pounds of air in each fork instead of stiffer fork springs.
4. Koso carb as posted in carb section of forum. 148, 35 pilot, needle all the way down.
5. pipe has been gutted, so I added a YZf250 quiet insert, nice and quiet and pulls great with 67 mpg so far on backcountry test rides.
6 built a rack system and had it powder coated, pictures are main rack, but side rack for paniers bolt on when camping is part of the ride.
7 new bearings throughout.
8 Kenda tires........325x21 front 450x 18 rear
9 barkbusters and giant loop hand guards
10 off with stock odometer...........just using my gps for now, looking for a real speedo and odometer that uses sensors not cable.
11. smaller led tail light, ok but not great led head light.........still looking
12. added screened ports for more air flow in air filter box
13 13 / 44 gearing for overlanding.........so far, love it, just right for mountain roads, even nasty mud and paddling through snow, and quiet and smooth on 60 mph runs on pavement.
posting here to sympathetic audience, my friends and neighbors think I'm crazy to ride off on an old bike, they think I should be on my KTM or go buy a new beamer. No, part of the fun is going out of sight and phone service on something only you are respondsible for. Any problems are my fault, I like that.
I have run across post about seat improvement. So far I have been on 100 mile day trips working out the kinks and making adjustments etc.
one last thing, seat could be more comfortable. Suggestions for a source for seat foam. Covers abound, but I have yet to run across seat foam replacement.
posting here to sympathetic audience, my friends and neighbors think I'm crazy to ride off on an old bike, they think I should be on my KTM or go buy a new beamer. No, part of the fun is going out of sight and phone service on something only you are respondsible for. Any problems are my fault, I like that.
Having the confidence to know that you (or someone else) can easily fix the bike in the back of beyond, not reliant on expensive parts is essential- that's where the true adventure lies!