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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 m
y 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.
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