Muck's ol' bike collection.

Welp I like old bikes so here's a thread to keep you guys updated on my projects.

Ok to start this off, these are two bike I just traded my chinese 150 Pit bike and my pressure washer yammy for. One is a 83?? Yamaha XT250. It was running when I bought it but it had a terrible tick so i'm taking at all apart. The other bike is a later 80's Husky bike. For now im just going to neglect it because i'm starting off with the XT and this one is missing a few parts.


I'll post more updates and show my other bike later.
I'm busy with the troubles that the XT is giving me now

Today I got tired of working on the XT, it has me defeated currently. I decided to roll the Husky into the shop and tear it down. It cama apart easilly in just over an hour. The paint is very rough, so I think i`m just going to sand it down and put a coat of white paint over it to make it look good and increase the value if it does work.
I then started to tear into the engine because it felt seized. It truns out it wasnt seized, but instead there was just a little peice of sand between the clutch and the crank gears preventing it from turning. Still to my pleasent surprise however, It looked like this.

It also had some rust and some minor pitting in the bore, as well as some nice scoring to go with the piston. I honed what I could and sanded some spots.
I removed the reed cage too so that cleaning was easier. It turns out the aluminium was all corroded and gross so I brushed and sanded what I could off with some small wire wheels. I cleaned the petals and stops and made a new gasket because the old one was soggy and broken.


During the process, I broke a small peice off of the head gasket. I'm not too sue what I should do, I have the small peice but i'm not sure if I can glue it back on or if I should run it without it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Hard to say. Looks to be a layer of the gasket in the corner there where the water jacket and the head bolt is. If you glue it back onto the head gasket, a possible chance that it would break off when together. I would try to put it together with that piece on though, because you need it on for spacing. Plus the type of glue might help on holding it together. Glue it together with the  red silicone gasket sealant (hi temp). And put it together while the red sealant is still wet so it will squish to the right height in that corner. Also put a little pipe thread sealant on the head bolt in that corner too, in case the gasket fails and leaks into the head bolt area. So things don't rust together. Doing this means that the next time you pull it apart, you will tear the gasket worse and will need to buy a new one anyways.

If you put it together without that piece on there, good chance you will warp the head when you tighten it in that corner, because it is thinner. Which would be bad, very bad. Would be worth it to just buy a new one now, if you can.

Ok, i'll glue it together with red gasket maker, good call. I probably wont be keeping this bike for very long anyways, and the cylinder and piston are in terrible condition, so if anything a new engine would be going in. Only issue is, these bikes aren't very common so it might be dificult.

Looking at the piston, isn't too bad. Looks like it got hot and tightened up on the cylinder. As long as the ring is good and the cylinder is smooth, it will run. Just check the piston skirt for high spots in those scrape marks, and file them down to the surface and not below the surface. If that makes sense. Looks to be a long piston, it being rough on the skirt won't matter too much. Should still run pretty quiet, not hearing the piston bang around in the cylinder while running that is.

Well thats is what I was hoping, I sanded down the high spots on the piston, the ring still looked good, but the inside of the cylinder walls had some scoring so I did me best to hone it nd sand down some of the rust patches. All I expect from this thing is it to run for a few minutes hopefully and that's it

Ok haven't done an update in a while, but stuff has happened. The husky is almost all put back together.
What I have left to do is:
-Upholster the seat
-Patch up the gas tank
-soda blast the gas tank and plastics
-wait for a few missing pars
-boil and clean the carb
Any ideas on how I should patch the gas tank? Basically there's just a little peice that got busted out, its not cracked and I still have the peice of plastic that is broken off.



Also, I got this in the mail while I was gone. It is my last hope at getting spark on the Honda SL100 bike before I give up. It is a regulator/rectifier, and I was told by a motorcyle wiring guy that this should work if I hook up all the wires properly. I will keep you guys updated on if I get spark or not.

Try fiberglass on the gas tank. Not sure which resins will hold up to fuel but I’m sure they’re out there. Otherwise I’d just replace the tank

Fiberglass will get eaten up by gas. You can buy that epoxy putty from an auto parts store where you can squish it in your hand to mix it and put it on the tank. works good on steel tanks but on a plastic tank I have no clue. Sand it up to ruffen the surface should help though.

Figure out if that plastic melts or burns, you may be able to melt it back together with a soldering iron.

Ok, I am not sure about fiberglass but I may look into that putty. There's no way i'm spending 200+ $ for a tank for a blown up bike. I would melt it, and that would probably work, but iv'e done it on tanks before and melted in some hdpe before but it was so brittle it kept cracking. Maybe a Mix of putty and melting would be the best option?

muckmudd wrote:

Ok, I am not sure about fiberglass but I may look into that putty. There's no way i'm spending 200+ $ for a tank for a blown up bike. I would melt it, and that would probably work, but iv'e done it on tanks before and melted in some hdpe before but it was so brittle it kept cracking. Maybe a Mix of putty and melting would be the best option?

Maybe, I'm use to dealing with metal tanks though. Can always find something else to use as a gas tank, until you know the bike runs.

Have you tried searching for a cheap knock-off plastic tank on ebay?  I know they have them on there for Honda Atcs for very reasonable but IDK about this bike

Crazy_Carl wrote:

Have you tried searching for a cheap knock-off plastic tank on ebay?  I know they have them on there for Honda Atcs for very reasonable but IDK about this bike

Still going to be 150$, i'll try to patch it this weekend likely.

I just used this product to repair a leak in a big copper drain pipe in a PITA location at my parent's house.

The product took longer to harden than the package said, but it's really easy to work with and it says it's resistant to gasoline and a whole lot cheaper than $150.

Crazy_Carl wrote:

I just used this product to repair a leak in a big copper drain pipe in a PITA location at my parent's house.

The product took longer to harden than the package said, but it's really easy to work with and it says it's resistant to gasoline and a whole lot cheaper than $150.

Thanks Carl. That's exactly what i'm looking for. Ill see if Can tire has some.

Yah, you can squish it in your hands, LOL. Should work, just sand the tank with some heavy grit sandpaper so that stuff can bite to the plastic real good.

Good point, on another topic, I found some white vynyl leather stuff that should work well on the seat. I'll post a picture when i'm done. It's going to be pretty hard to do though.