350for350
09-04-2018, 09:48 PM
I finally got to work seriously on my 1985 250ES that I'm calling Big Ugly for now since it is. Back story: I traded a 1985 YTM225DR for it a few months back. The guy I got it from had it for about two weeks and didn't do much to it. When he got it, he was told that it didn't have any compression, but the kicker mostly slips, not engaging the gears. He was also told that it needs rings. The more I thought about it, the more I thought the rings were probably fine. A month or so back, I wanted to check the compression so i hooked jumper cables to it. It made a bad grinding noise. I though it sounded just like my 225 did when it needed a starter clutch. I ordered a used OEM starter clutch, new battery, rebuild kit for the 300Ex carb I put on it, a new Kimpex muffler, a new OEM key switch to replace the missing one and a flywheel puller. It took almost nothing to replace the key switch. I have a home made snow plow that i want to try to mount on the trike so I used the 300EX carb to eliminate the cold start issue. The carb came without a bowl gasket, but was clean inside. The jets weren't even plugged so I put the gasket from the rebuild kit on it and installed the carb thinking it will probably be a little rich, but I'll try it since I forgot to buy new jets. I installed the new air filter and the new battery. The new muffler was next. Then it was time for the bad part. I took the positive off of the starter. It wouldn't come out so I removed the starter gear cover and pushed it out from the inside. I looked at the starter and saw that the teeth on the end of the gear were wore down to just nubs. Then I picked up the gear cover and saw that there was four teeth missing from the gear that the starter contacts and knew what the sound was. I stole the cover and gears from my 1985 250SX to use on Big Ugly since the kicker works on it. I put the ES back together and tried it. It didn't take a lot of cranking to get it started. I was impressed. After a short test ride, I went out for a longer ride. After 45 minutes or so, it started acting like it was running out of gas. I removed the gas cap, no change there. I managed to coax it back to within two miles from town before it wouldn't run at all. I walked back to town, hooked mu bike trailer to my quad (gag)and went to get Big Ugly. While I was loading her up, I heard some thunder so I went back to town, put everything away and called it quits for the day. i did some researching in my two manuals and think I found the problem. According to my Honda 250ES manual and my Haynes 300EX manual, they both use the same pilot jet, but the ES uses a 130 main while the EX uses a 122 main. I'm hoping that I just got the old plug hot enough that it burned out (fingers crossed). 25433425433525433625433725433825433925434025434125 4342By the way, the compression seemed fine and it didn't smoke at all.