KDXRIDER.NET

I have a peculiar personality trait that compells me to continue in futile endeavors long after the realization that stopping is the prudent thing to do. Like when I tried to pull that stump out with my Jeep and a few tie down straps. My brain kept saying, "the straps will snap and break your rear window. The hooks may also fracture your skull," but my foot kept feeding out the clutch. A snapped strap and dented tailgate later, my brain was saying, "you lucky sumbitch." The brain knew to stop, but the body continued. I feel like I'm going down that road again with my latest Craigslist mistake.



Say hello to my $80 1983 or 1984 KDX 250! The ad said it had been taking up space beside the shed for too long, and it was time to get rid of it. the woman writing the ad said she had no idea about bikes and that someone would have to look at it in person and make an offer. The pictures showed it missing its tank and airbox, a broken and severely faded fender, and lots of rust. Initially I thought, "Good luck selling that heap, lady!" But then after a couple weeks, the ad changed to, "Best offer. If no one buys it, I'll just scrap it. I also found the tank and side panels." Well, those were the magic words I needed to hear. I had to at least check it out before it went to the junk yard.

On distant examination, it didn't look too bad. Mostly original with the exception of a black rear fender, blue seat cover, and lower fork guards. Closer examination revealed a bike that had been abandoned to the elements for a LONG time. Rusty spokes, rusty fasteners, rusty frame wherever paint had rubbed off, corroded fins and side cases on the motor, ancient leaky fork seals with a thick crust of tar all over the fork lower, soil settled into nooks and crannies.















One of the pictures in the ad made me hopeful that the bike had been sealed up from the elements because I could plainly see a rag stuffed into the back of the carburetor. When I looked in person, however, I could see that the rag had been in there for YEARS, and the whole time it had been outside. It had the look of an article of clothing left for years on the side of a road. I pulled the rag and found this lovely sight.



The slide is frozen in a raised position, and the body of the carb is corroded everywhere. Not good. The brain is beginning to make some noise about leaving this bike where it is. But the body soldiered forth.

I tried to push the bike out into the open part of her yard only to discover the front wheel is frozen solid. Oh, boy. Well, at least the forks were sliding freely, and there didn't feel like there was any play in the steering stem. Not much play in the rear suspension linkage, and it moved freely and without squeaks or graunching noises. The tranny shifted into neutral without problem, and the back wheel was free. Not looking good, but not horrible, either.

I asked about the airbox, and the woman had no idea, except that she tossed some parts into the trash that might have come from the bike. Well, let's dive into the dumpster, shall we? One complete airbox and an intake boot were retrieved, but the filter cage was MIA. Hmmm.
Let's see if the motor is free. A small struggle to get the kicker to fold out, and then a successful downward push. Lots of compression! Hmmm...lots of cons, but a couple of pros. On the one hand, the bike has been sitting in the elements I bet for over ten years. But on the other hand, the motor still turns freely with lots of compression. But on the other hand, the front wheel is frozen solid and the plastics are all roached badly. But on the other hand, the bike is remarkably complete and original. But on the other hand, the carburetor is most likely unusable, and these bikes have a reputation for fragile ignition systems that are make of unobtainium. But on the other hand I'm here with a trailer and she's threatening to scrap it. Well that tears it!

I offered $50 and we settled on $80. She helped me hump the thing, locked front wheel and all, into my trailer and away I went.

I got it home and stuck the tank, side panels, and airbox on to see what it might look like all together.











Quick fill gas cap!

I decided that with the known fragility of the ignition rotors for these bikes, that the first job would be to evaluate the ignition. As I loosened the ignition cover, water started to drip out. Uh-oh. Then the trickle changed to an outpouring of about a quart of orange water. My brain was gleefully saying, "I told you so!" over and over.



I wiped the rotor with a rag, hit it with some PB blaster, and fiddled with the trip computer for a while.





Not looking good.



These were batteries once upon a time. Why can't people put their bikes IN the shed for decades, not BESIDE the shed?

Well back to the ignition. Against all logic, I pulled the plug, grounded it against the head, and spun the rotor. To my horror, the freaking plug was sparking. I couldn't believe it. But what was that sloshy sound I was hearing? Carb and reeds off.



Lots of water here.



These reeds'll clean right up!

Piston looks good, but what's that?







Why yes, that IS a pool of rusty water from the bilge of the titanic!



Get thee out of my garage and onto your side in the driveway!





This is good stuff.



I cycled the kicker with the bike inverted, and it projectile vomited orange puke out of every oriface.



Looks like a crime scene. Move along! Nothing to see here.



I got the bike mostly wrung out and proceeded to squirt loads of oil into the top and bottom ends in an attempt to preserve whatever's left in there.





It's hard to tell from these crappy iPhone pics, but the cylinder and piston actually look really good. I also detect no play in the crank, and everything moves smooth as silk. Hard to believe, but this bike just might live again.

So where to go from here? I'll pull the motor, remove the top end and flush the bottom end with kerosene and reevaluate. I have a morbid curiosity about whether the motor can be fixed with just a few gaskets!

After a better eval of the bottom end, I'll start scraping together the necessary bits from eBay. Every cable needs to be replaced (the front was frozen with the brake applied, which is why the wheel was locked. I snipped the cable and was able to roll the bike off the trailer), I'm 99% sure I'll need to get a good replacement carburetor, a new front fender is on the list, and then normal consumables (fork seals, tires, and most likely brake pads, chain, sprockets, and maybe a few suspension bearings). I wonder if i can get it going for under $250? Challenge accepted.

Love the storey! Keep posting!

I like the $250 challenge. Keep posting, lets see what you can do.

I've been thinking about the $250 challenge today, and I'm a little nervous about the bottom end. All that rust came from the bearings and con rod, so I bet even if I get it running, the bearings will not last long due to imperfections in the rolling surfaces. If the bottom end cleans up great with kerosene, then I'll reassemble and see how long it will hold together. If it doesn't clean up that well, like if I can feel coarseness in the crank after cleaning, then I'll just split the cases and redo the bearings and seals. I probably won't have a runner for under $250, then, but I bet I can keep it under $500!

I will definitely need to buy new cables (clutch, front brake, and throttle), a carb (found one aleady for $25 on eBay), a base gasket, and fork seals. I have some old tires that I can spoon on for free, a spare front fender that will look funny but should work, a Husqvarna gas cap that will mostly work, and various fasteners to round out the package. A little sandpaper on the faded plastics should bring back some of the color, and we'll see how she goes. This is the $250 plan. Main bearings, big end bearing, small end bearing, and crank seals should be possible an the extra $250.

Awesome thread! Don't stop!!!

Don't worry, I won't stop. I'm too stupid.

You have great writing skills. I'll be following this post for sure. I hope you make the $250 challenge. Go, Go, Go :-)

Great stuff! I too have not one, but two dented tailgates from pulling a little to hard with a strap too weak. Can see myself knee deep in this project as well. Darn craigslist finds...Good luck

I had a spare couple hours this morning, so I wasted them on ol' Rusty.

Job one was to remove the lump from the frame. Interestingly, the motor mounts for this bike are a little weird. There is no head stay, there are two front mounts which utilize aluminum brackets to attach, and there is the swingarm pivot. There is an additional boss in the cases under the swingarm pivot that is unused. Must have been for the previous generation bike.




The long threaded bars to mount the brackets to the frame were a bit of a bear to remove. One retaining nut and its threads on the bar were stripped, so I'll have to either find a replacement or cut some new threads for a smaller nut.



The rear brake pedal has to come off before the swing arm bolt can slide out.



I discovered the reason for the ridiculously high pedal was that the adjuster bolt was missing.



I managed to break the cotter pin for the brake pull rod, so there's that.



I was just about to start grunting the lump out when I realized this was a good time to pull the flywheel. Out comes my favorite engine lock-up tool, a three-foot piece of nylon rope.



These old KDXs don't have the threaded flywheel, so you can't use a traditional flywheel puller. Luckily, they have three threaded holes to mount up a case splitter. I love this thing. If you like to dork around with old bikes, you really must get one of these. I've used it more than I thought I would.



Cue the sound of a rifle firing, and the flywheel was exhumed from its rusty crypt.



The magnets are intact. I may need to pick some people's brains for ways to prevent them from disintegrating. It would truly suck to have a running bike for just a few hours before the magnets broke and wiped out the stator assembly. I wonder if the KDX 200 flywheel trick would work?







Welcome to your new (hopefully temporary) home...my work bench.



This just got a lot easier to wheel around the garage.



The old chain is an o-ringer and in surprisingly good shape. I'll give it a month-long oil bath and reuse it. I'll use the money I saved to buy some rear wheel bearings, which are too playful.



The beauty of dirtbikes is that they stack up so close together that the wifey can't tell there's an extra one in there!

Tabarnak

Hey, this is a family forum! ;)

Thoroughly enjoying the narrative and work pictures. I, like you, made a CL bike purchase and it has spiraled out of control; from I just want to get it running to, I just got the frame back from the powder-coater. I am also to dumb to stop.

Cool project, I like your style! lol

I bet the newer 200 flywheel mod will work.

I pulled the cylinder and discovered it has an iron liner with some rust pitting, but nothing major. The rustiness is so minor that it looks as if it might clean up with just a light hone. I'm curious as to whether these bikes came stock with an iron liner or a plated cylinder. Anyone?

I also discovered a possible reason the bike was orignially parked: the top ring is stuck in its groove on the exhaust side. I think the bike might have suffered a light seizure and lost compression. I'm also thinking that the compression I felt when picking up the bike might have had more to do with all the water in the bottom end than actual good compression. So it looks like I'm shopping for at least a new piston and rings. Hopefully the cylinder cleans up so I can avoid having it bored. I'm also leaning more toward splitting the cases.

Fun!

No they came plated, someone had the sleeve installed.

Thanks for the info. When did Kawasaki start using their electrofusion plating?

I spent a little time in the garage yesterday tearing the engine down and evaluating. The longer I looked down into the bottom end, the less I believed I could really get it clean without splitting the cases. So I decided to split the cases to get things truly clean.

First step was to separate the head from the jug to better check the bore.



There are some vertical grooves that can be felt with a finger nail. We'll see if they clean up with a light hone.







The head looks fine.



I thought I would have to devise some sort of wrist pin puller to get it free, but a little back and forth by hand with a deep socket got it out. It looks good, as does the small end bearing.



I never disassemble these motors in the correct order. I really should have pulled the side cover first so that I could use my rope trick to make removing the clutch nut and crank gear nut easier. As it was, I used the old copper head gasket to lock the gears instead. The impact gun got them out with a minimum of fuss.



The trans wasn't immune to taking on water, either. Notice the whitish/pink goobers.





This will be a valuable picture when it is time to reassemble the shifter mechanism. It's different than I'm used to.



Let's make like a set of cases and split.



Everything in the trans looks good.









The main bearings feel pretty crunchy.



At this point I did a little soul searching. I've come this far, so it's really not that much further to replace the mains and seals and have some peace of mind. So out they came.







Brake cleaner is our friend.



This little piece of forensic evidence points to a prior crank bearing failure.



Speaking of the crank, the big end bearing feels great, so I cleaned it out with brake cleaner and gave it a few drops of motorex.
I did notice, however, some deep pitting in the crank halves. I'm thinking they won't make much difference in the end.





All laid out.



I measured the bore and it's at the stock size (70mm). I used my three-bladed hone to try to clean up, but without much success. The grooves persist, and they are still deep enough to cause concern.









So I guess I have to choose between boring to an oversize (Wiseco shows 70.5, 71.0, 71.5 and 72.0 pistons are available), resleeving, or repairing. Powerseal (powersealusa.com) shows they can repair steel/iron liners and rebore to stock size. They can even plate the sleeves like they would an aluminum bore. So I have some choices. I think the most economical will be to take it to a local machine shop to bore it out and get an oversize Wiseco.

At least I won't need reeds! They cleaned up beautifully with some pine sol/water and a little steel wool on the curved travel limiter thingees.



I think I might subtitle this thread "Budget Creep."

Superd work so far!

I don't know about the 250, but I'm fairly sure a 200 would NOT have a lined bore that year. I think it started in 86 along with the installation of the KIPS valve.