Rebuilding a Yamaha TY250 monoshock- then sending it away in bits.
Classics sell, yeah, ill rebuild an 80's classic!
In the past year i have rebuilt 11 dirt bikes and motorcycles. Ive spent most of my life as a truck mechanic and just over ten years motocrossing, enduroing and being a general big kid off road as well as other pastimes. This was the last motorcycle of any kind i have rebuilt usually well into the night in our tiny shed with the radio on.
I found this well neglected 84' Yammie trails bike and noticed on the black hole that is e-bay, a few good examples going for ridiculous money and some others going for peanuts- opportunity-blah , etc
If you look at the heap i bought on the page opposite its well past its prime- that how i kinda like to find 'em and turn them around into a thing of (almost) beauty. I stripped the motor and fitted a new piston, gaskets bearings and seals stripped the frame welded and painted it, found the cables were knackered and the tank leaked, the wheels and forks were shot as well as just about every nut and bolt being butchered.
Being too deep into this bike a week or two later there was no going back. I thought of becoming an astronomer instead of doing bike rebuilds- but i don't like working night shift, it plays havoc with my digestion, or maybe if i became a Buddhist and seek some deeper meaning but it was too cold at the time. I stuck to the rebuild which went well over my budget.
Eventually it looked good and went well, so i thought i will try to see if i get a decent price for it. Ha Ha people laughed at me with contempt and text-ed me with silly comments like " you will maybe get that sort of price in Sammy Millers day!" ( he was a uk trails champ way back when)
After all i only asked f 400 quid for the bike. So utterly dejected i decided to become an author and now live happily ever after (yeah right) I actually did make a profit on the bike but had to strip the thing to each one of its component parts and sent it to over sixty locations via the medium of the convinient rip off that e-bay is. TY 250 mx '84 now lives on in Germany, Sweden, Norway, Italy, the U.S., Australia, Wales and the Isle of Man.
Oh and i did write a book Its called Bins benches and Broken Bikes- but has absolutely no connection with an '84 TY250 mx whatsoever. I am about to cycle to the bottom of the Iberian penninsular in a few weeks, i have done this twice now and after both jouneys i vowed never to do it again- if i do make this next journey and return to the 'real' world i can imagine wanting to rebuild another motorcycle even thogh after this one i vowed 'never again' -again.
I guess the moral of this story is never say never again!- again.-again.
