I'd been on the look out for an old Yammy trials/enduro type thing for some time. Ideally I wanted a DT 175/250/400 MX type thing, to take me back to my yoof. When I was younger I used to own a DT175MX and loved it, but alas I couldn't really find one these days for the right money, purely because those I did come across were usually in extremely good nick and people wanted good money for them, or they were absolutely trashed and not worth the money or the bother. I'm not into antiques or the like, so I have trouble getting my head round paying good money for old things. I like to pay what I think they are worth and that way I'm happy.

I acquired the XT from a mate and it needed a bit of TLC, but on the encouraging side everything seemed to be in place.

After taking the XT down the pub a couple of times, I sort of got attached to it. So I started to think about having this as my little project to tinker about with on cold winter evenings, rather than some ratty old two stroke. I commenced taking the bike apart and looked underneath the skin of the thing. The rear shock needed replacing and it needed a couple of tyres for a start just to get it properly roadworthy. (I guess MOT testers are a bit lenient on older bikes? In my eyes this shouldn't have passed, the front tyre is for off road only and is showing signs of being perished on the wall, also the rear shock leaking and the rear shock bottom bush was completely perished, but what the hell, things like that don't matter on an old shed like this, surely?). To my surprise I found that parts came reasonably cheap, but aftermarket parts were very few and far between in the UK, purely because Yamaha only imported this model for a couple of years as it did not prove popular. However, my local dealer has a microfiche and if a part is showing on it, that part is somewhere in this world. Whilst at the dealers I bought a new bottom bush for the rear shock. Also maintenance could have a been a bit of trial and error as I found out that Haynes don't do a workshop manual for it, but Clymer do. Phew, that was close.

I've fitted a new set of Bridgestone Trail Wings from Carnells for the princely sum of £72.00. These make the world of difference to riding! The front no longer wants to push away all the time and the whole bike feels a lot more together. My Clymer workshop manual has turned up and I am perusing this with interest. It's written in American, so soon I will be fluent in that, gee, this should put the skids under things..... I have also had the exhaust and painted the header and the heat shield plates, it looked excellent in a nice Satin Black heat dispersant sort of way, but after a 10 mile ride, I noticed all the paint had burnt off the header....excellent this heat dispersant (not) paint.

An old shed my XT may be, but it's turned out to be quite a good old shed. I bought a new rear shock - £110 direct from Yamaha, Netherlands and delivered by DHL to my door, all included in the price I might add, with all bushes and sleeves included. Amazing price really for such a bloody great thing. I've adjusted the tappets, first in imperial, then in metric to stop it making a more hideous noise than it was, (PRAT!!) oiled the chain and filled her up with petrol a few times and enjoyed about a 1,000 fairly carefree miles of XT pleasure through mud, on tarmac, round the fields with the children, one on the tank and one on the pillion, accompanying me and generally had a good time with it. One point here, the tank range is excellent, it only holds about 8 litres, but it'll do 110 (ish) miles before reserve, superb!!

I felt the forks could do with an oil change, they didn't really seem to do what forks are meant to do, bounce up and down with a modicum of damping included. So I went off and bought some 10wt fork oil, shouldn't take long I thought. I took the rubber seals from the top of the forks to expect a nut type thing as the fork cap to be unscrewed. Alas, this wasn't to be, what met my gaze was a lot of rust, without a threaded fork cap in sight. Out came the trusty Clymer manual (Haynes never published one you know!) to find out that this model and this model only, had a plunger type thing that you just pushed down upon, unveiling a circlip that popped out and hey presto, your forks were apart. Easier said than done where 22 years of rust is concerned. I filled the recess between the top of the fork tube and the rusted fork cap plunger thing with WD-40 and left it for a couple of months. I kid you not. Then when I had nothing to do, two months later, I returned to the forks with a club hammer and punch, to gently tap the plungers down, but to no avail. So, I hit them a bit harder. They moved, just enough for me see the circlips. I took the forks out and removed the circlips, filled the recess again with more WD-40 and left them overnight.

The next day I was expecting to see the fork caps lying on the floor of my garage and the fork springs to be poking out the top of the fork tubes, but this wasn't to be. I cleaned out the WD-40 to inspect. Nothing had happened, the caps hadn't moved. Oh god, what do I do now. I turned one fork leg upside down and started to gently tap the top of the fork tube from the outside whilst rotating it. This didn't work either, so I thought, "Sod it" and dropped the leg, from about 12 inches, top first on the carpeted floor of my garage, then inspected again. This time the fork cap had moved, so I gave it more gentle persuasion until it popped out, closely followed by a spring, spacer a couple of washers and this brown washing up type liquid that reeked. Luckily I had by this time managed to have a bucket to hand, (to throw up in?). I pumped the fork up and down until no more would come out, then I undid the drain screw at the bottom of the fork leg and pumped (ooh) again to witness some brown phlegm type gunge to squirt out the end. I kept pumping (ooer) until this was exhausted and then used about half a litre of fresh oil to flush the remainder of the 22-year-old fork oil (if you could call it that?) out.

The fork itself only takes 250ml of oil, so I had plenty to spare. I repeated the same feat on the other leg and topped them both up, replacing the fork caps, and circlips with a smearing of grease (you never know, the seals will probably blow now?) and replaced the fork back into the bike. The difference when riding it now is very noticeable to say the least, the forks bounce up and down fluidly and the damping seems to damp, so all in all, the bike goes from strength to strength.

Having said that, I got ride of it to make way for the WR.