Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Project bike Continued from page 12 (i.e ., pis ton -to-cy li nder cleara nce is ch ecked a nd things like bearings ar e given the once ove r). "We have to get an idea of what items need replacing," Doughty said . "And we don't replace parts just to rep lace them . We rep lace any thing that isn't within tolerance or is a high-wea r item ." Naturally, the Vintage Iron guy s keep a running parts list as they tear the bike apart. Old Yeller even had its cases split. "That's typically wh at we do," Dough ty said . The replacement of some par ts is a given on a typical restoration: gas kets, seals, pistons (inclu ding rings, wrist pins, clips a nd the w r is t-pi n bea ri ng), a ny major beari ngs withi n the motor th at show sig ns of wear, and clutch p lat es and springs. Ditto for the primary chain if the bike is European. Disassembl y also means putting parts into different categories - based on wha t has to be done to those parts (i.e., powder-coating, bead blasting, plating, painting, etc.) "Fo r exa mp le, if spo kes are ru st ed onto the spoke nipp les themselves, all the spokes have to be cu t ou t of the wheel and we inspect the wheels for cracks and d ents, kn ock the w he el b earings ou t, wheel centers, wheel seals, and then that hub assembly gets powde r-coa ted .' The.parts, they are a changin' . Once the motorcycle has been torn apa rt, Old Yeller. Aft er silting in storage for clos e to 20 years , the bike was brought out of the shed and taken bac k to the race track. .Dou ghty and his two-man crew know th at so me thing s ha ve to be e it her repla ced or fixed . And each motorcycle has something that mak es it mor e diff icult, or separates it from the restoration pro ject that was completed yesterda y. One of the thin gs that always proves to be a bit troub lesom e with the olde r YZS is the monoshock. Old Yeller's was no different. "Wh en Yamah a we n t fro m a s teel bod y to an alumi num body, it tended to wea r the cen ter of the shock bore in an egg-s haped fashio n," Dough ty said. So complete disassembl y of the shock was required , and items such as the cartrid ge compo nents and the piston ring be 0 Ig !; ee. 1 was joined there a Bell, who I figu red would ride the bike for a few laps, pull in and start a list of things that needed to be fixed or altered before Sunday's race . I was wrong, and I wasn't alone. Bell rode the bike for 15 minutes or so, pulled in, pu t his business clothes back on and left the facility whil e I was out riding. I was surprised he wasn't there upon my return from the track , bu t according to Doughty, all was well . "1 questioned whether that was the real Mike Bell when I asked him how the bike was and he said it was perfect ," Doughty said. '1 said , 'You can' t have been a real factory rider . No factory rid er says anything is perfect. You 've got to complain about things for at least a cou ple of da ys.' He was great - he jus t rode the thing." And he rode it well, winn ing both Plus-40 Expert motos whil e smilin g the entire tim e. It was a reunion of sorts, as Bell hadn't ridden a bike like this since... we ll, since 1979. "It brought back a lot of memories," Bell said . "TIle bike really did perform well. It was surprising how good the bike was, minus the disc brakes and a power-valve. Overall, the bike was really easy to ride and it didn't do anything scary. To keep it in perspective, that kind of track [Glen Helen] was very similar to the terrain we were riding on back then. I don 't think I would have been too excited abou t doing a triple on it: ' Bell currently owns a late-model YZ. Right away, he knew tha t the old one was different and it had to be ridd en differently. "The head angle is a lot different and the bike slides really nice," Bell said. "The back -end has mo re squat. Everything is so much furt her back - you're pushed way back . Tha t was the thing I noticed , eve n doi ng some of those table-top jumps . It's hard to get your weight forwa rd because the bars are way back, the fork angle is way up there. I don' t think that neutral position is in the cen ter of the bike the way it is now. It all came back to me. I di d n't feel like I was ou t of control or it was un com fortab le. I had just ridd en my modern YZ just the week before, and to get on you r bike was a real easy adjustment." Now he' s go t the bug. "I' m already talkin g about next year's eve nt," Bell said . "I've put the wo rd ou t to Rick [Dough ty] and I've been lookin g in the Cycle Trad er for one of my ow n now. I jus t had a blast. I wa s havin g so mu ch fun , a lot of my oid friend s were there, and rid ing on a track th at was motocross, and no t a combination of motocross a nd su pe rcross, was great. My ma in objective now for riding isn 't winni ng races or cha mpio nships, it's being to wo rk on Monday morn ing. I really don 't race and I haven ' t raced for yea rs, bu t I can see myself getting inv olved in getting a vint age bike and getting ou t there and having some fu n. There's still a tremendous amou nt of ad renaline flow when you line u p and race into the first turn, but it's not that door-die intensity. I had a lot of fun and I hope to do at least a cou ple of those a yea r." 14 on the monosho ck we re replaced. For shocki ng matters such as these, Vintage Iron often turns to Works Performance for help . They d id so in this case. The front fork didn't prove to be as troublesom e. In an effort to avoid need in g to run air in th e air-assisted front fork, the coil spring on Old Yeller's fork was swapped for a stiffer unit. Heavi er rid ers (i.e., anyo ne bigger than me) can still give it some air if they prefer, whil e smaller riders (i.e., me) probably w on't need to. The suspension was n't the only thing that was updated . Naturally, a ll th e d riveline co m po ne n ts were a lso rep laced, incl u ding th e cha in and sprockets . Ditto for the brak e shoes (they had drum brakes ba ck th en - remember?). And a ll th e con tro l cables w er e replaced with new items . "Even cables in aesthe tic a lly good co nd ition typicall y ha ve yea rs of d irt tucked insid e of them, and they drag," Dou ghty said . "We repla ce all that stu ff with Teflon-lined cables." Wh ile what li es in side th e eng in e cases is s ig n if ica n t, th e thing t hat attracts attention at the local motocross track is how good you r rest oration project looks. Makin g an old bike look new means making th e bod ywork loo k its best. Unfo rtu na tely, that bodywork is also usually hard to find . Old Yeller was m iss in g one s ide p an el a n d Dou ghty could n't locate a nothe r one . Since they are no lon ger manu factu red a n d n o long er availa b le fro m eit h er Yamah a o r the af te rma r ke t, Vi n tage Iron had to pilfer a p anel from a lat er mod el YZ. Then it was a case of modi fying to fit. . The rest of Old Yeller's plastic was in Continuedon page 16 fe s. have to pay attention to is if you've -ordered new parts, ' ''One of th keep your 0 a es so you can compare them before you start putting things back together . For example, ii~ou' re putting in a new clutch, you might want to compare plates, bath height. 'f ake swingarm bearings for example. They may have supe rseded to a different number and that bearing might be an eighth of an inch longer than the o ther one - whi ch cou ld cause you a problem. You really need to pay attentio n to the ne w parts yo u ' re puttin g ba ck in, so later on it's not causing you immense frus tra tion." '''If you are goi ng to do this yourself at home , give yourself a month. I you make f it open-ended and don't set a goal to ha ve it done, you prob ably won' t. And if you think you're going to d o it in a week like we do, an d you're not set up with vendo rs, then yo u're going to be frus tra ted. The impo rtant thing is to just keep maki ng headwayan it. That w ill keep your enthusiasm up. It'll keep you energize d and involved in the project. If you let it sit too long, it' s very easy to get disco nnected from it. The longer you let it stay apa rt, the more likely that it will end u p tha t way:' '''There is suc h a thing as a motorcycle being too far gone to be restored. If it has frame modifications, or it's dama ged, h as rus ted fork legs th ose have to be replaced and there aren' t ma ny ava ilable. And catastrophic engine problems. You can easily spend in excess of $1000 doi ng a single two-s troke mo tor. Some motorcydes are best relegated to being donor bikes - parts bikes. There are other motorcycles that are in relatively good con dition, bu t they' re not worth spend ing all the money on." '''Do what you d o well, and have somebody else d o what they do welL That w ill keep the project rolli ng along. If you've never spli t cases before, or you 've never laced a wheel before, you can really get bogged down trying to do some thing you really know nothing abou t. Bite the bull et, spe nd a bit of money, and get th e part of it you' re not really comfortable wi th done by someo ne else - and d o the rest yourself." '''When you reassemble a motorcycle tha t has been restored, everything has to seat back in, especi ally wit h powder-coating being a little thicker than paint. You're going to want to go back and re-torque everything. Head s, cylinde rs, new gaskets, all that stu ff, has to sin k down in. Spokes, rims, all that stuff tend s to come loose, so peo ple really need to pay atten tion to their bike in the first hour that they rid e it. They should only really rid e it for 15 minutes, go ove r it, rid e it another IS. If you do that three or four times, stu ff will tend to settle down and you wo n' t lose fasteners, you won' t end up with air leaks and a myriad of other problems . The follow-up is really importa n t." >

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