Hi peeps

Took my road bikes off the road for winter I was getting itchy feet to get back on again. I decided to sell one of the projects I had going to buy something "off-roady" which meant the crap weather and winter wouldn't stop me getting out. A couple of my mates have got trials bikes and i've always thought it looked like ace fun. Plus there is a club in Aberdeen which seems to put on loads of trials events so I figured trials would be a good shout.

Looked for a while to find a bike but i'm a bit stingy and didnt want to spend heaps of money. Then my Gas Gas TXT 250 pro came up for sale for £800. Its a road legal job but all the lights are off. Needed fork seals and apparently wasnt running right. Well I turned up and it wasn't running at all, getting a spark but doesnt seem to be getting enough fuel and the previous owner said he had taken the carb apart so i'm assuming thats where the issue lies. Got it for £650 and piled it into my works fiesta van and into the garage. Then I went offshore and thats as far as i've gotten!

I've been ordering bits and bobs for it. New fork seals and oil, air filter, spark plug, grips, kill switch and the like. Im hoping fitting that lot, a good carb clean and float height set and some fresh fuel (bike had been sitting for 4 or 5 months) and she should be good to go! Once its up and running i'll sign up for the club and start looking into some locations to practice and get the feel for it. Not got anything to transport it with at the moment but been looking at getting a van for a while so this is a good excuse .

 

Just from the last couple of weeks of scanning this forum its already proved useful so looking forward to getting more involved!

A true Aberdonian for sure  Looks a good old  gird for £650.

 

Looks good, you might want to re-pack that back box too BTW

Well good news and bad news. Good news is that I rebuilt the carb and reset the floats which were almost all the way at the bottom of the bowl. Choke on and it fired up second kick, at which point it wanted to rev its nuts off and I noticed a big puffs of smoke coming from the barrel! Base gasket had gone.

Took the thing to bits for a closer look and found the piston to have a wee bit of scoring, but worst of all the barrel has a nick out of the nikasil above the exhaust port. Ah well, spoke to langcourts today and i'll be sending the barrel in for a replate and will have to buy a top end kit and piston . Im not majorly bothered because the bike was so cheap... to be honest Im more bothered I dont get to ride it before the new year! I cracked on with replacing the fork seals and oil, air filter, grips etc. Oh and removing the speedo etc as it wont be on the road. So its all back together and literally waiting for a top end. At least it looks a bit like a bike.

 

DSC_2313 by Jack Ledingham, on Flickr

DSC_2312 by Jack Ledingham, on Flickr

DSC_2315 by Jack Ledingham, on Flickr

Absolutely delighted to be riding this thing this weekend and breaking in the top end and barrel! Really enjoying it but I definitely have a lot to learn.

Didn't ever think the rebuild would take 2 months but its been problem after problem. Got the thing running sweet to find out the clutch cover was cracked and leaking clutch fluid. Took it off to find this:

DSC_2419 by Jack Ledingham, on Flickr

DSC_2421 by Jack Ledingham, on Flickr

 

Now how someone never noticed that a friction plate was sticking out like that, i'll never know. How they even kicked it over and thought it was fine is beyond me. Regardless, of course that filled the gearbox with aluminium. Que flushing the gearbox out. Then I ordered a used clutch cover, cracked. And another, cracked. Finally caved and got a brand new one and i'd been sent mineral oil o-rings instead of Dot4. Then it was a case of trying to get everything adjusted correctly. As you can imagine it was a relief to get out and ride it after all that! The back brake is the only thing that isnt working. Its been bled and adjusted but nothing. Going to buy a syringe and back bleed it but apart from that just need to keep running it in then sign up for some events  Luckily theres a huge field near my house I can practice on 

received_10215773119581904 by Jack Ledingham, on Flickr

Looks like you could use a bigger helmet

 

In other news, well done for getting it all together

7 hours ago, turbofurball said:

Looks like you could use a bigger helmet

 

In other news, well done for getting it all together

Proper lid is on the way, this was the only open face job I had in the garage so I made do. Did feel a bit like a bobblehead. 

 

Cheers though, been worth the faff!