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On a strange impulse I bought this a couple of weeks ago.... Its an American import, and to my reading of the frame and engine number (CT1 - 120315) it is a CT3 175, circa 1973. It starts, runs and selects all gears. But...(there's always a but, isnt there?) The kickstart flops about and doesnt engage unless you lean the bike to the right. Not ideal. Most of the bike seems to be in reasonable order, and there is some common parts to the TY's I'm used to working with (I have two that I trial regularly) so I thought I'd investigate further. Pulling the side case off showed the problem to be a little more serious than I expected. Finding half of the broken spring clip was easy, but the other half needed some fishing with a magnet. I also dragged out a sizeable lump of casing... Ho hum. Time to get creative. I pulled the other side case off in readiness for taking the engine out, and found damage there as well. The U-shaped hole centre screen, above the clutch arm, is not how Mr Yamaha intended. And all the oil spread everywhere is from an ingenious chain oiling idea... Put the sprocket nut on the wrong way, and you get a constant stream of oil direct to your chain, ingenious! Not to worry, so far, nothing completely fubar. Yet. Engine out. The pine needles are from "The big storm", blowing the buggers under my garage door. And here's the empty frame. Some cleaning up to do while I decide how best to sort out these little problems. Helps that I've just picked up an AT 125 engine, same crankcases, to compare and contrast, and possibly steal from. Mark

I blew it up tonight, although like the film, it did survive a little bit

Self tapper?

Yes, agree wholeheartedly, it is my intention to return it to a useable state, not concours condition. Mark

It`s definatly going to be a 1 off bike when done it looks great now.Cool place to shoot the picts,the tag artists are good.

That would explain why thoes bikes are getting so hard to find this side,rarely do you ever see 1 in that nice of shape thats original.And by rarely I mean almost never. Personaly I would weld up the original cases,find a proper fender(if possible aged as well) and leave it as per is. Faded paint and all. Just something about walking up to a bike that you can tell it is unmolested original,but still ridden is a ultra cool factor,bikes are a work of art to some of us and as they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To me all a bike needs to be is clean and in good working order to be beautiful,faided paint just shows how good the paint was to last all thoes years. Some bikes you have no choice but to start over to make them even ridable,but taking a bike thats almost as new and redoing it to be new is a shame IMO,letting it show it`s battel scares of victoy over the years is more impressive to me than any `restored`` bike.

Hi DT, how much is probably too much, but it keeps me off the streets. Paint is original yes, faded badly on top and quite scuffed, probably due to being thrown into a container with as many other old trail bikes that a certain importer can source from your side of the pond. Then sold on to nostalgic mugs looking to resurrect an object of their youthful lust all those years ago. Mark

I wonder if i would be allowed to take my gun and shoot a wild haggis or two

which bit are you ?

I have to clarify (in case anyone else stumbles upon this thread in Google search) - the petcock operation is this: Up - Reserve, Sideways - Prime, Down - On

Quick clean up, head and barrel skimmed as suspect it has warped what with the head gasket BEING ON UPSIDE DOWN! Dumb mothers! I mean it was seriously like 2cm of sediment between the head and the cylinder WTF!

Some nice and lovely new Fatbars installed Nice speedo bracket made up A beautiful Aprilia RSV Mille Master cylinder installed. Stops those wheels faster than a fat bird eating a big mac! It's lovely. Fully adjustable to suit your hands!

How to get the rear wheel done. Front end on the Aprilia with the front end of the DT Sprayed the rear arm black Finished the front brake off Use the Rs125 front master Socks to protect the seals on the USD's This is a photo of the rear brake bracket. Because the wheel is fatter than the standard DTR one I cannot just attach the brake and say happy days. The front AND the rear wheel MUST be in line. And then to complicate things further the front AND the rear sprockets must ALSO be inline So I have to machine down the rear brake carrier So now the rear wheel is in the correct position. All I have to do is make sure that the brake sits fully on the disc. To do this we made an adapter plate to fix the brake onto the spacer. I must say that rear brake is SO MUCH BETTER than the standard brakes LMAO! Adapter plate. Uhh sprocket ratios are now my next big concern.... This is the biggest rear sprocket I can find for theses wheels. The original is being held up next to it. And even here it is still TOO SMALL! Lack of power in the engine just struggles to pull the sprockets. I've got 13 teeth on the front and 46 on the rear. Also used a 520 pitch conversion on it. Because the wheel is a different thickness I've had to space out the rear sprocket in order for it to be in line with the front. I don't think I can go any bigger on the rear anyway! It's this close to touching the swing arm! A spanking new full DEP system and everything all wired up and power on after six months! I have missed off a few things in this post that I also did. But the jist is there Few pics around the bike