Variomatic

Hearing about the kickstart made me cringe, it's small and 2 stroke, you don't need to stomp on the damn thing. Chances are in a few years he'll understand, he's probably got "new kid on the block" syndrome and thinks everything has to be 100% spot on, regardless of new or old,

What you could do is get access to the flywheel nut, take the plugs out and spin it over with a drill, I've been doing that on the Z1000 for the past few months to keep the oil moved about, stops me having to install a starter, saves my leg from the kick start and since the plugs are out it gives a good opportunity for fogging oil. Personally I just use WD40, and in the past I've filled the cylinders with a couple of spoons of oil and turned it over to spread it out over the cylinder walls (without the plugs in of course)

I kinda wanted to buy it just to take the poor thing away from those idiots Really though it was a total pile, I think I'll wait till bike prices drop near Christmas and pick up a GS750, or maybe an XJ550 (but parts for the XJ550 seem like freaking gold dust these days ) Also another thing I forgot to mention, when they finally got the poor thing to wheeze into life, liquid petrol started pouring (yes, actually pouring) out of the rather tarnished Micron exhaust, poor bike Really don't know how people can do that to their bikes

XJ550? I imagine done up in road trim some London hipster would pay a fair chunk of change for it, I've heard that flat trackers are starting to replace cafe bikes

Didn't expect it to be fantastic, in fact I expected it to be tired at best, but it seriously had about 4 different types of knocks coming from the engine, it sounded like a mixture of valve adjustments, piston slap, cam chain and rod knock. I'm really not afraid of working on those air cooled engines, but I don't really have the time/money for a full rebuild, which by the sounds of it was needed, if you spent £2000 on that bike you'd have a bike worth £1200 Honestly a shame to see what a state they'd let it get into Realistically with the condition it was in, both cosmetic and mechanical it was only worth about £300, not the £750 it would have cost me all toll

Well, got there, was happy with the cosmetic condition (even though it was shit), rode ins a straight line, but had one problem, the engine had almost 0 compression, it would hardly start, and when it was turning over it sounded like it didn't have any spark plugs. walked away from that one without the bike and with my money, that's why I will only do cash on collection, so I can still turn it down

I just bought a 1980 GS550 on eBay, gonna go view/buy it tomorrow, anyone know about any specifics you should look out for on these, all I could find was usual stuff, didn't see anything about specific known issues. Can't wait to go see it, just hope it's not a dud, but from what I've heard they're the definition of bulletproof, this is the bike in question: Ignore the horrible gold paint, that's be re-done the second I get it home

Sounds like that shop owes you a new clutch, you're probably fucked this time, 50km is too far with no clutch, probably gonna have to get the bike transported their

Resistance between the windings seems to be 1-1.2 Ohms, which seems way, way to low to be, as far as I knew that should be closer to 50-65Ohms (I'll have a look in my Manual later to see if it says. Since when it revs up it puts out 12.5V (still anemic) it's JUST about enough to keep the battery charged and barely running, but you can tell it's not happy. I really don't wanna have to replace the stator, it's an oddly expensive part for the EFI model but I might have too

Update; Just checked my regulator, all diodes seem fine? Also checked the stator and it was only putting out 14v AC at idle? Seems low?

I just checked and they all have 1.1-1.2Ohms resistance, seems low but they're all consistent so it's probably ok, must be the rectifier

I need to know how to test a stator, the better on my bike isn't charging and am suspect theirs no output, or very little from the stator, and for the first time in two years my Haynes manual has let me down and left me confused. It has 3 outputwires, all white, anyone have any ideas as to how to test the windings? Do I look for continuity? Or measure the resistance? Is their a sequence to testingor do I just pick any two random wires outf the three? Any help at all would be appreciated

I've done some sketchy bodges to wiring before, sometimes when your ignition switch has been punched out and you really need to get to a Halfords, hot wiring is the only way On the upside, I now have a plug and play hot wire kit for a YBR, never know when I might need to steal my own bike

Charge the battery, check the oil, then see if it wants to start, will be a good idea to put fresh fuel into it first. You won't mess anything up by giving it a go.

I remember once when I went to adjust the valves on my friends CG125 clone (oddly it had push rods instead of OHC) I found a nut sitting under the rocker box, weird thing was it wasn't even a nut from the engine, it had somehow found it's way into the head and not been noticed. Also, one time I took the cam chain tensioner out of a Honda C90 and found a 10mm socket in there, after removing it it started making a loud rattle, so we put the socket back and he rode it like that for another 8000 miles

One of my regular jobs is servicing my brother bike, today I noticed an odd problem, it's a CBR125 (liquid cooled), and I realized I've never heard the radiator fan click on, so I started the bike and left it running to see if the fan would click on, not only did it not click on, but after a little while it started to idle oddly and when you revved it it would hang at 4K. I'm just gonna start measuring voltages and resistances in sensors and cleaning/normal checks. But does anyone know of any specific issues that can cause this? (Not CBR125 specifically, just in general with all bikes) (By the way, it's fuel injected, no carb, fucking EFI, pain in the ass on small bikes like this, seems a faf for such a little engine)

Starting to see more bikes about at last, I was getting lonely all on my own out there in the winter

Agreed^ It'd be worthless messing with the wiring only to find out you hate the handling and the position.

Well the speedo on the YBR is cable driven (or at least it is on mine, and I presume it to be on the new ones as well), so, the speedo and mile count are all mechanically driven, so their must be a mistake in the internal gearing, perhaps an error during production. Take it to a Yam dealer and ask them about it, I had a quick look on google and this guy: https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=295310 has had the same issue that you're describing, probably a batch of YBR's with this issue, might even be a recall on your model. You'd be amazed how quiet manufacturers keep callbacks, there are shit loads on a number of very common bikes. Anyway, take it to a Yam dealer, if it's still under warranty make them fix it, don't take no for an answer, you're entitled to it being fixed and they have to do it. (provided, of course, it's still under warranty, if it's not then just buy a set of second hand clocks on ebay or something.)

Hopefully the filter fixes that, lets just hope it running lean didn't cause any other issues!

Ok, either those top speed number are in KM or you're confused, top end for an SR250 isn't gonna be much over 80-90MPH anyway, and yeah, that air filter definitely looks lacking, this is what it should have: Here's a link to somewhere you can buy one, I've used this site a lot and they've not let me down yet: http://www.wemoto.com/bikes/yamaha/sr_250_se/81-84/picture/air_filter/ (this filter is for a 1981-1984 bike)

It's to help the bike pass emissions, my bike has the same thing, it introduces fresh air into the exhaust just before the CAT to help improve combustion of any unburnt fuel that comes out of the engine. If you follow it back it will lead to your airbox, you should be able to remove the entire system and plug up the hole in the air box and be ok. However, I'm not familiar with every model of motorcycle ever, it might work slightly differently than I described, or not even be that at all, but that's my best "educated" guess as it seems identical to my YBR. Also you might void your warranty, so check that before buying a new exhaust.

I've filled it in, but the way it was worded and laid out honestly makes it a little difficult to give genuine feedback, it seems to favor a "this or that" approach to answers, you'd probably get better feedback if you allowed people to reply in a text format.

Really cool, but niche bikes like these made in tiny numbers with weird engines never really work out, do they? I wonder how it handles with such a goliath lump of an engine in it, modern suspension is amazing but that's a lot of bike

My bike is my only transport so I've never had an option when it comes to riding on snow and ice, and in my village snow can easily end up 2-4ft deep, go slowly, be cautious and you'll usually be fine, or that's that I've found