'77 Yamaha IT250... supermoto-tracker-thing. lots of pics.

edit: see last page... had fun for a while, restoring it now. it'll be the loaner/wife's dirtybike...


ok, so i started with this... a POS 1977 Yamaha IT 250, bought for a couple hundred bucks, dirty but running fine. threw it in the back of my suburban...




got it home and in the shop, thought to myself wow, this this is f'ing ugly!




so i start stripping it down...



note the awesome overspray. the plastics were attacked with some rattle can...

more stripping...



and some mock up... dug out a MX? tank and a YZ 400 aluminum swing arm...



and since aluminum is purdy when polished...



come to thin of it, magnesium, too...




found some forks from a YZ 450F... and a bit more mock up



somewhere in there i pulled the motor apart. YZ jug and piston, IT head, boyesen porting (think that may have been a mistake), case split, everything new.

getting closer...




make some parts here and there...



20 minutes and there's some quick risers...



bike's a roller... forks lowered about 3", rebuilt.




make some more stuff...



aye, that'll do 'er....




more makin'...















it's not 100% done, but it's running/riding. my goal was just to have a cheap project to keep me busy between other projects (everything from old harleys to 80s GSXRs).

random stuff:
new pirelli mt trials tire on the back
old mefo trials tire on the front, 19" rim laced to a KX hub
2007 YZ 450f forks
sun sprockets, did chain
uni pod filter (that sure made jetting a pain in the ass)
modified IT pipe

jetting still isn't 100%, but it's close. pulls the front wheel off the ground in all 5 gears, starts/idles well, etc.

not planning on painting it, just padding/upholstering the seat... register it on the street and ride it around.

got bored with the un-padded tracker seat...
so i dug out the original seat pan and re-padded it. time to bust out the sewing machine and let the cursing begin.



also threw a front fender on it... taking it out to the hills this weekend, swapping to a 21" front wheel. the 19 is OK on the street, but seriously sucks offroad.

just a bit more...

AWESOME!!!! I'm In

Man you got some energy,that thing should rock pretty good!
Im doing good to change the oil in my 530

i've got energy, but most of it is used up playing with / chasing my kids (4 of 'em). also have a 100 year old house we're restoring... a career... wife's got a cafe/market i try to help with... other projects (mostly motorcycle). i don't sleep much :)

the bike is at the point where it runs/rides/stops, just in need of jetting. doing the tune is nowhere as fun as building a bike, so this is generally where my projects stall out for a while. once this has a license plate, my enthusiasm should increase...

made this with one of my daughters. it was a stainless dish of some sort. trimmed it down, rolled the edge, drilled a buncha different sized holes in it in the shape of a 7 (she's 7 years old):

I like that.

A lot.




I just picked up a titled, running '77 DT400 for the cash equivalent of a very large bottle of Knob Hill, and have a mostly complete carcass of an '81 IT175 that I was thinking of swapping the swinger and some miscellaneous from. Now I guess I need to start measuring.

a DT would have been easier to register on the street here in Oregon... but they sure seem to sell fast and rarely cheap around here.

titling the IT for the street will take slipping through some loopholes, hat tricks and luck. if i lived just a few miles north in Washington, it'd be trivial... but not Oregon.

I kind of doubt that. These were supposed to be able to be plated so you could do the street sections of a desert race. Sure different states have different rules but generally, if it doesn't say for off road or competition use only on the title, it is good to go. Last year a bunch of Husqvarna 300s (2 stroke enduro) came into the states without the wordage and all are plated and on the street around here.

ITs weren't, as far as I know. They also didn't come with DOT lights, signals, horn, brake light, etc. The lights actually say "for off road use only" as does the silencer and a decal that was on the frame.

I do think that with the age of the bike plus it being out of the DMV system, they won't care. it's just a yamaha 250.

I got my first IT175 brand new in '81.


No title at all. Even back then it was going to be a hassle to set it up for the street.

You sure are a handy guy, Lama. Would like to have you for a neighbor. Have fun with your plug chops.

so... the headlight starts to work around what i'd guess to be 5k rpm. by "work" i mean "meager flicker that couldn't outshine a candle"...

lighting stator measures out to 6 ohms. right. well, that's probably not good... so... out with the old





a solid 45 minutes of winding by hand...



i didn't bother counting how many times it was wound... i just squeezed on as many as i can fit under the flywheel. the last two courses/layers started getting a slight bit un-neat compared to the first many layers, but i'll attribute that to growing boredom and a LOT of coffee. a lot.
plus i was pushing my kids on the swing while winding.

i'll epoxy the windings before installing. just got bored and hungry.


edit:
1.3 ohms cold, 12.2 volts AC at idle, ~43 VAC at ~5k rpm.
my meter's battery went out so couldn't measure amps... plus this is all open/no-load measuring anyway.
all i know is i put a 12v 55W bulb on it and it got very bright, so good enough.

i've got one of those tympanium 12V AC regulators to put on.

just gonna go ahead and set this right here...

why? jetting problems? did you do 2 boyesen ports or just one ? did the yz already have 1 boyesen port? the it's i have have one, and was planning on doing the other side....

neither the IT jug nor the YZ jug sitting here had any boyesen ports. the IT is a '77 and i hear the YZ came off of a '77 as well (but not positive).

i did 2 boyesen ports... pretty happy with it now. it was the open filter that was causing the headaches (as i kinda reckoned it may). now that it's got the stock airbox & jetted right, it pulls pretty good down low and has great throttle response. happy with the porting.

edit: here's the only 2 pics i can find of the porting... this is during the process. no pics of the jug complete.

14th Annual SFRC 2T RIDE is coming up September 21.

Are you on our mailing list?

sang-froidribingclub.com

yeah... somewhat know some SFRC folk, too. andrew services the espresso machine at my wife's cafe, i roam into see see at times...

i keep trying to make it to *something* but rarely have free time. one day... one day...

You are a pretty talented person. Who rewinds thier own stator? ,What does it take to make a seat fresh like that again? Is the blue foam a different density? The original bike was a pretty good base for being from 1977. I think a TT500 tank would look good too.

thanks!

who rewinds their own stator? cheap stubborn SOBs like me
doing it myself was about $4 in material + an hour of my time, vs $125 from ricky stator for their high output version.

i think this is about the 10th motorcycle seat i've done and none of them have been great. cheap, though! it's marine grade nagahyde (or some knock-off brand), stitched with UV safe polyester upholstery thread on my wife's sewing maching.
the blue foam is closed cell... left over from another seat i made. it's from a yoga or pilates mat.
the upholstery on the seat isn't perfect... not by a long shot. i'm a hack when it comes to stiching, but i'm trying to get better at it.

this tank was $10 at a swap meet. turned out to be more bondo than anything... but it'll do.