My 1986 ATC250R Adventure

[ironchop]

After numerous phone calls answered by machines and a number of emails that all went unanswered, I decided to start showing up at these local Stealership "Service Department(s)" and ask these people face-to-face where I could get a shock recharged with Nitrogen.

At our local Honda/Yamaha dealership, I was told "I've never heard of recharging a shock"...."but I did just start working here a month ago" from the 50-something gentleman running the service/parts counter

At Polaris..... Where there were at least fourteen UTVs in various stages of disassembly, and where anything more complicated than a spark plug change or tire patch is referred out, I was told "yeah we don't do shocks... You need a 'shock place' for that"

I then started calling a couple old TRX250R junkies I know who directed me to an indy shop just south of my house in another county "where the flat-bill hat wearin serious racers go".

It's called JPMX and it's definitely a much more serious operation than the licensed franchise Stealerships in Bowling Green. The place had new and used race stuff on shelves inside. No bling. No utility quad accessories. No apparel. No bull.

The owner filled my shock with Nitrogen for ten dollars....... TEN DOLLARS. I gave him an extra fiver for a six pack because he saved me from almost sending off my shock for a refill which would have been dramatically more expensive than ten dollars.

So a week later, my neighbor from seven doors down stops by our shop to get another mad scientist part made for his drag quads. I think he's a college professor for a day job and builds and races, drag, rodeo, and GNCC quads in his basement on nights and weekends. Great guy. He thinks I'm nuts because I build and ride the stuff he's afraid of but we still get along nevertheless.

So I tell Mark about my Nitro refill adventure and he says "You should've come down to my house and I would have refilled it for free. I got tired of trying to find a shop nearby to do the rebuild and refills, so I bought all the equipment to rebuild my own shocks a few years ago."

Good to know if I need it again. I still am glad to help out the indy shop owner though, so I'll probably keep throwing my money at JPMX just for support's sake.

My point is that these local Stealerships should be ashamed (but they're not).

They aren't interested in servicing anything they sell anymore. They are only interested in selling bastardized backwards three wheel street bikes and off road side-by-sides. No parts or support for local racers (and this is the home of Bill Balance). No real functioning "service department". No staff who actually know anything about these machines other than reading specs off the pamphlet.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL INDEPENDENT SHOPS

Meanwhile, I'm tired of looking at the rusty steel retainers for my rubber grommets that mount my radiators, so I started making some stainless replacements...

Next, I'll be mounting the rads. Then I've decided to drop off this OEM axle to the local plater for some yellow zinc. Then it's a matter of wrapping up the final assembly. I still need new rear fenders though. Yes, that workbench is a mess and needs cleaned but I've got stuff going on in the other two benches currently so this one got a little neglected.

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[atc007]

I guess there really is no way to say this without sounding cocky, arrogant,whatever. As to your experiences at "dealerships". I started venturing out into the real world 97 or so. To say that I was bewildered, horrified,saddened,and just generaly ,absolutely speechless, at the lack of ANY mechanical knowledge whatsoever in these gigantic bank owned and run palaces would be an understatement. THIS is where people that can't do for themselves,must go!?? $85- $120 an hour,for kids that I would never let touch my bikes. Sorry,,struck a cord lol. LOVE ,love,love this thread. Love your work. Thanx for sharing.

[El Camexican]

I guess there really is no way to say this without sounding cocky, arrogant,whatever. As to your experiences at "dealerships". I started venturing out into the real world 97 or so. To say that I was bewildered, horrified,saddened,and just generaly ,absolutely speechless, at the lack of ANY mechanical knowledge whatsoever in these gigantic bank owned and run palaces would be an understatement. THIS is where people that can't do for themselves,must go!?? $85- $120 an hour,for kids that I would never let touch my bikes. Sorry,,struck a cord lol. LOVE ,love,love this thread. Love your work. Thanx for sharing.

I got my taste in 1985. I guess if there was money in it someone would be doing it, but with the cost of liability insurance and such I guess it doesn't pay to run a full service bike shop.

[ironchop]

Here's a funny story and an update.

Those stainless washers I made in the post above? Well I had dashed into the garage this morning before work to get the OEM one for a pattern. Somewhere in that messy workbench were those grommet washers and also one washer for the front fender grommets. I grabbed the one for the front fender by accident, got to work and promptly made 8 of them during lunch. So it looks like I've got new stainless front fender hardware instead of radiator hardware because the fender grommet washer is much shorter than the rad grommet washer and won't work there. See pic.

I should clean my effin work area ASAP. I'll make the correct rad hardware next week.

Before all that happened, I did get the front forks sorted out for the most part.

It took the set of forks that came with the roller originally plus another set I had bought off eBay to make a good full set.. I bought the eBay set because the original forks had a bent tube on the left fork so when the eBay set came up, they looked really clean in the pics but one of them had a stick at about 75% compressed. I thought the tube was bent in that one but it turned out the tube was straight. It was the aluminum lower that was bent just slightly right in the middle toward the outside. I couldn't get a good pic of that because it's hard enough to see with the naked eye let alone mess with camera lighting settings trying to get a pic.... There was no external visible dent in the lower but when you looked inside, you could see where the inner wall had an area that was pushed inward and that's where the bushing on the lower end of the fork tube was sticking hard enough to get stuck. The other tube was slightly bent when I inspected it. It wasn't much, about 0.100 total indicated run-out so that's a 0.05 bend

The nice looking eBay set for $225 shipped had as many problems as the original beat up set

I go back to my original set of forks that has a good lower to replace the eBay lower, plus has one perfectly straight tube. I match that with my eBay set with another perfectly straight tube.

Those giant snap rings that hold the lower seal in, can both just go and F@#K themselves already. I had to fight to remove four of them. I need better snap ring pliers

I cleaned all the components and very lightly sanded out the dings on the lowers. I lightly buffed them with a product we use at work for deburring on the bench grinder. It's a very light abrasive in a hard open cell fiber wheel. You can polish aluminum and stainless and lots of other metals pretty good with these Norton wheels too. I'll throw a pic below. I polish and deburr all kinds of stuff at the machine shop with these and it's equally beneficial for those home shop guys.

I also polished out the scratches on the fork tubes with the Norton wheel successfully. The lowers are semi-polished because I like satin finish

So here's my complete set. I'm awaiting Progressive springs and some fluid but they have new bushings, inner seals, and wiper seals, all 4 new copper sealing washers and lower damper rod bolts (those Allen head bazturds)... Went and bought OEM boots. I've modded the damper tubes inside the forks from an idea I got somewhere over the years that involves moving a hole and deleting another. More info on that down the road (if it works... If it doesn't, I do have backup plan dampers that will also be modded)

Anyway I also wanted some Showa love on the lowers because I found these decals online once and wanted an excuse to buy them because they looked cool. They were a pain in the ass to install because they stuck to the backing paper better than the facing tape. Took awhile to separate the backing paper and stick them.

So I'm waiting on springs and fork fluid before I put them in the trees.



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[yaegerb]

looking good man. You are in the home stretch.

[ironchop]

I haven't done much other than some mock-up assembly to make sure everything fits together correctly before I tighten it all down.

My rear axle is at the platers getting a replate.

I did get a rear spring powder coated so I could FINALLY assemble the shock completely, set the spring length and put it in the frame.

I also got a repro front brake cable guide from a seller on eBay called 'soilmec'. Good quality repro, for sure. It was fifty six bucks shipped but for the kind of fab work and the zinc plating that goes into each piece, I say it's worth the price for a quality made hard to find item.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?m...2F223174504363

I'll take pics of it on the tree eventually but to be honest, the pics in the eBay ad are highly accurate and just as good as anything I could take with my camera so I'll post a link and pic from there



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[Aulbaugh]

I was wondering how things were coming along. I've bought from soilmec, I like his products. He also does repop 250r handle bars.

[ironchop]

Don't you love it when your momentum is good and you're making progress and then suddenly you hit a wall?

I bought a set of eBay forks that ended up having a sticking spot in them to replace my bent original set. I found the problem a few months after they arrived as I only looked at the general overall condition and when I operated them, you couldn't feel the sticking point until I took out the springs. That's when I discovered one of the lowers had a dent in the side that wasn't visible from the outside but you could see it easily in the inside.

I took the lowers off my "'86" eBay forks and swapped it with the corresponding lower from my original "86" bent set. The eBay set had two pc springs which was my first clue that they might have been incorrectly listed. My original bent set had one single spring in one side and the two pc spring in the other side. What a mess.

I already had put a new bushing and seals in the lower that ended up being dented before I discovered the problem. Then I went and put a second set of new OEM seals and bushings in the second lower I assembled and semi polished. There goes $50 bucks worth of OEM parts that I can't remove and reuse without damaging them.

I didn't find out until now that they must not be interchangeable between 85 and 86 because my lower brake cable guide wouldn't line up with it's mounting hole on the fork lower that is on my trike right now. I tried the guide on the old dented lower and it fit just fine. That's when I measured the caliper bracket holes and the axle holes between the two different lowers I have. They axle hole to fork lower centerline is about 0.225 in difference between the two. The caliper mounting holes are also shifted back between one lower and the other.

When I put the axle in and clamp it down, it's definitely not square with the axle tubes. It still clamps up because the forks can turn to accommodate the weird angle from the difference in axle location.

So now I'm REALLY angry and probably won't mess with this thing for a few weeks until I can get this mess sorted out, more parts aquired, and get calmed the f*ck down.

I have to wrestle those clips again

So now:
1) I don't know what year of lower brake guide I have.
2) I don't know what year of fork lower I need to go with the guide I have so I don't have to buy another guide on top of all the other parts
3) I don't even know if they are both 250R forks? The part numbers got mostly removed during the semi polishing process
4) I've learned that there are ALOT more subtle differences between 85 and 86 than I realized
5) now I don't know if my caliper bracket is correct or interchanges between the two years

I'm waiting on a rear axle and the fenders before I can finish final assembly.... That's it.... and then I'm riding it....but NOOOOOOO...ROADBLOCK

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Do I have to find a complete frontend with brakes and everything so that they with together correctly or what? I need help.



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[ironchop]

More detail on the fork differences

Notice how the caliper bosses and axle boss are different distances from the tube centerline. The webbing is also noticeably different.



Look closely at these next two pics. It looks like he may have the sets mixed up (listed by same seller). Look closely at the axle clamp side. The one further away from tube centerline is paired with the one which has the axle thread boss and caliper bracket bosses CLOSER to the tube centerline or am I drunk?



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[wonderboy]

I think you nailed it. I think the guy mixed the two sets up! I agree it looks like the spacings are miss-matched.

[Aulbaugh]

What's the update on the fork situation?

[ironchop]

What's the update on the fork situation?

Still mad at it and I curse it when I walk past it in my garage

I'm still looking for an 86 left lower and I'm also looking into running USDs instead. Just haven't made up my mind

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[Aulbaugh]

what do you need/have to run the USDs

[ironchop]

what do you need/have to run the USDs

I actually got a line on the 86 fork stuff I need from another member here just this morning. Hoping to close the deal soon.

I didn't have any USD stuff yet

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[ATCKevin]

I have to admit, this has got to be one of the coolest and informative build threads I have ever read. I just spent an hour reading all 14 pages! Nice job on this trike Ironchop, I am envious of your skills!