4BangerCivic

I'm a broke graduate student and I like dirtbikes. Found one for cheap and now i'm putting it together in the living room of my 1br apartment. Here's the fun.

Well I got a 1987 Honda XL250R from a member here for $50. It was generally disassembled, and was taken apart because it had developed a knock that "somewhat affected performance, and varied with the RPMs". Going off of that, i figured it'd be a good idea to just tear her down. This is what has happened so far:


[Note: there is text inbetween pics telling the general story. The pics are huge and the text is small, so its kinda hard to find]

Me and my girl got it up the stairs (2nd floor apt)



Threw the engine up on my end table, grabbed a bucket to sit on, and got to work. Valve cover already had most of the bolts out - and thrown in a bag with a random spring (remember this random spring, it will resurface later in teh story).


Cam looked pretty decent


Only one rocker looked bad, one slightly imperfect.


Got the cam out, but had some trouble getting the cam chain off of the sprocket -- wasn't enough slack in the tensioner. Finally was able to get her done.




Finally got the head off:





That top/right cylinder bolt gave me SO MUCH trouble. My socket for my 1/2" drive wasn't deep enough, so I had to use my 3/8" -- which was a BITCH. That bolt was IN THERE. had to put the engine on the floor and REALLY work it.



But I got her off



Piston looks nice




Cylinder looks great




Remember that random spring I talked about before? Well someone on ADVrider figured out it was for the kickstart assembly. I dont' know how it got off the bike -- I didnt think the previous owner got into the crank case cover - but he must've (unless it was already off, in which case it could've been causing the knock).

Anyways, Here's the spring (and the other valve cover parts)


So, taht spring needs to go in - which means the crank case cover is going to have to come off. Well - in the process of attempting to remove the clips on the piston pin, I dropped a nail into this hole. (durrrr forgot to stuff it w/ rags)


Fuck. Oh well - i have to take the crank case cover off anyways - ill just get it when i'm in there.
Except it wasn't there:



So I had to turn the whole block upside downand shake the fuck out of her. Twice. A total of 6 things came out. 5 parts, and one nail (yay!).

I've identified the four large round ones on the left as being part of the kickstart assembly (w/ my missing spring, of course). The small cap on the right is still a mystery (being solved over at ADVrider).



So far the only thing that needs to be replaced is the cam chain tensioner. I'll have to properlly adjust everythign as I reassemble, but I just need to get that part, a gasket kit, and then start throwin' her together.


Oh, incase you wanted to see how the fuck someone would get this done in their living room of a 1br apartment, it's like this:

4BangerCivic

Oh yeah - and I have ZERO wrenching experience, so if this thing EVER gets put back together and/or running I'll be amazed.

Scottyk6

Hahah hell yes! This is awesome. You've got balls for trying, even for doing this indoors. If you get this thing running, it'll be amazing hhaha.

skr00zloose

hell yeah! That's the best way to learn, just dive in!

I built my old chop in my living room of my old apt. Isn't it nice to work in an air conditioned "garage"?

btw, that un-identified part looks like a dowel pin, but it's hard to say for sure from that pic.

4BangerCivic

I wish it were a dowel pin - then I could locate it's origin. But this thing is a tiny cap - 5/16" diameter.

4BangerCivic

We're still trying to figure out where the mystery cap came from. Ordered my gakset set tonight. Gotta find $100 for the rest of the parts I need to replace (cam chain tensioner, and one dowel pin).

skr00zloose

from the pics, that honestly looks like a hot-topper (bolt head cover). I can't for the life of me think of anything internal that it would be. You don't really see alot of un-secured parts inside a motor, and there's not so much as a set-screw to hold whatever that is in place. I looked thru every motor-related schematic for your bike and can't find ANYTHING even remotely resembling that part. Sure it didn't pop off somewhere else on the bike during the disassembly?

4BangerCivic

yeah, its been givin me trouble for a while now. I'm 95% sure it came from within the crank case, because (a) it came out when I shook the crankcase upsidedown, and (b) there is another XL250R owner doing a rebuild on advrider.com right now and he came across a near-similar part in his crankcase.

But if we haven't diagnosed it by the time I get all the parts I need to put the bitch back together - i'm just going to ignore it.

4BangerCivic

Welp, today I went to order the cam chain tensioner and found out that it's on backorder nationwide. Fuck. I was bitching on ADV and after re-posting the pic of my tensioner we came to the concensus that it DOES NOT need to be replaced - the guy who originally said it did retracted his comment. Gaskets are on their way, dowel pin is ordered, I'm ready to assemble this bitch.

Reloaded

rent a storage space bro