I was hoping that you and LM would be at Mid Ohio this year so that you could take it for a test ride! My next project is to build a couple of 250's, one for me, and another one for a friend. I know what my friend wants his bike to look like and I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to do to trick it out, but still thinking about what I want to do to mine. Maybe do a sister bike to my 175?
Hi Gary,
I didn't put Gary and Ohio together as you at first. I hated to miss M/O and now I really do, I would love to take that bike for a ride. I had a really nice 1992 BMW Paris Dakar that I was trying to get top dollar for and had a buyer coming from Dallas to Missouri that weekend.
I hope you enjoy your venture into vintage trials as much as I have. I have no doubt you will excel at it and can't wait to see what you do with the 250.
feetup, those bars look pretty nice. Here is what I would like to find. They are vintage Renthals and are very flat. I love the way they start angling up just past the clamps. These are on the wife's 175 and I bet she would notice if I swapped them.
tony, the head is from a Yamaha DT 250, 75 or 76 I think. You have to trim a couple fins a little but no big deal. The combustion chamber is the same as the TY so it doesn't change anything but my head had a cracked fin and I liked the look of the radial head better. Plus they are dirt cheap on ebay.
I picked up this well used 74 250 about a year and a half ago on the cheap. I have had a couple 175's but never a 250 and wanted to build one for the local ITSA series. Here's what I started with.
And what I have now. I still need to decide what shocks I want to buy and I would love to find a set of vintage Renthall handlebars. I'm still playing with the footpeg location but over all I'm pretty pleased with it.
I got most of the money I paid for the bike back by ebaying the stock parts I didn't use.
I have a Puch engined Dalsman Trials too that I have been working on. Here is a picture of the ad I bought it from. It's in pieces now slowly going back together.
something else to consider is the amount of ethanol in the petrol being used which will melt the fibreglass from the inside.
what stmdabber said! If you go with fiberglass do your self a big favor and don't put anything but AvGas (LL100) in it. U.S. pump gas will clog my pilot jets and gum the slide so bad it will stick within a week. I have had the AvGas in two TY's for six months now with no problems.
Just 125 Sprite. They were good bikes in their day and they are probably responsable for getting more "bums on seats" over here than any other bike with the possible exception of the Greeves Scottish. Shame there arent more of them still being used.
From what info I have been able to find about Sprites it seems one of the development/factory riders name was Dennis Jones. The irony here is that is also my name. To bad I don't have some of the talent.
James Smith, Jeff Smiths son was at the AHRMA cross country race I had this bike delivered to and he had never saw one.
forks should be REH same make as the hubs. Sorry if i appeared to be having a go just wondered why the bikes were described as goldfingers when it's doubtful that they are. Now i know. Didnt mean to infer anything. It irks me when people seem to think a TY250 twinshock is a majesty which most never will be. good luck with the restoration. The std sprite is still a good bike for it's day that got a lot of people into trials and it's great to see at least two surviving examples still running.
No problems here, thanks for the added info The amount of first hand knowledge about vintage trials bikes on this site is amazing
At this point all I have done is give it a good cleaning and I have a new set of alloy mudgaurds for it. Although they are very simple mine is missing a few key parts that yours still has.
The exhaust was all cobbled up and completely rotten. I've had a lot of Sachs stuff so I have a head pipe and a Wassell muffler I can make work.
I Believe my airbox is not stock as I have came across other pictures that show one like yours. I'll probably just put a pod or clamp on filter on it.
The harder part, and you may be able to help here, is that the forks have been replaced with ones from a Honda TL 125. Someone made some bushings to make the forks fit the trees. I'm not sure what forks would have been on it. Jap forks on the little Sprite is just wrong.
I've got a couple projects going on now so not sure when I'll start this one in earnest but plan to do as close to correct as possible while still being a rider.
It was pointed out what a Goldfinger was and was not.
As far as this thread goes I was just replying to a Guy who has the same bike as me and did not call it a Goldfinger and since I am not a Sprite guru I am not the one to tell what his bike is or is not, but I did make note that mine's tank did not ever appear to have been gold.
Wassell I'm sort of familiar with,but whats the tie up with Penton - I always thought they were US market KTM's ?
You are mostly correct, the first KTM enduro bikes were built to John Penton specs and almost all the early ones came to the US. In the early 70's the ones sold every where else where badged KTM. After 1977 even the US bikes where just KTM's.
As for the trials bikes, the Wassell factory built around 1000 of these with almost all of them going to the US through Penton Imports. They were John Penton's biggest failure. Trials never really caught on in the US in the 70's and even where it did the bikes were not competitive with the Bultacos and Montesas of the day.
Penton had a hard time getting rid of them and for a time even required new dealers to take one as part of their start up package. By the last ones they were buggering them up all kinds of ways to clear them out.
Now the little trials bike is one of the most sought after Pentons out there
this past year with picking up British kit bikes. First last fall with the Saracen, then the Sachs powered Sprite this Summer, and now with a Penton / Wassell.
I first bought this bike in 1997, then restored it to a competition level and rode it a lot and like a dummy sold it. Getting it back was like a time warp. All these years it has been sitting on display in an office and it is exactly like it was when I sold it. I hope I don't make that mistake again.
Quite a find. I think it's a standard type 125 Sprite trials, from the 1968-71 period. The Goldfinger, which had a metalflake gold paint job on the tank, was I recall an attempt to make a trail bike version of the model (consisting of little more than fitting lights and a larger seat) to compete with bikes of the time such as the Bantam Bushman and Suzuki Trail Cat.
Thanks for the information, I thought that name was kind of corny anyway
The fork rake angle is quite notable isn't it.
Yeah, it look like a chopper. I am going to try to restore it as close to original as I can but I am not sure what the buggered exhaust is supposed to look like.
If you go with fiberglass do your self a big favor and don't put anything but AvGas (LL100) in it. U.S. pump gas will clog my pilot jets and gum the slide so bad it will stick within a week. I have had the AvGas in two TY's for six months now with no problems.
The amount of first hand knowledge about vintage trials bikes on this site is amazing
Show Us Your Ty
in Yamaha
Posted · Edited by kanur
Here's a couple pics of mine.
I've added Sammy Miller Betor trials shocks since these pictures were took.