27 year old DIRT BIKE Gets New Life (RM 250 2 stroke)

I'm always looking for bikes to add to my collection bikes with an interesting history a checkered past or an interesting story so when one of the most controversial dirt bikes of the mid 90s popped up on Marketplace I had to grab it I gotta hurry I can't believe somebody's selling such a gem it's not going to last long not only is this the 1996 bike of the year but it also became one of the most controversial bikes of the era but it led to some amazing Motocross history and I can't wait to show it to you there it is don't let the green frame fool you it's not a Kawasaki it's actually a Suzuki this is a 96 Suzuki RM250 I'm pretty excited about it this is a really cool bike has some really cool history let's get it unloaded see what all we have we're going to put together a parts list and take kind of take inventory of what we have and then we're going to rebuild this thing okay so if you thought I was gonna go out and buy a nice bike that was ready to ride you don't know me very well yet okay so the 96 wasn't the most winning Suzuki in Motocross history neither was the 97 or 98 but this air of bike set Suzuki on a winning path for the future it smells like you have them soaking in like cosmoline or something it's all like sticky and gross no no we're gonna get this stuff on the table and see what we got foreign [Music] [Applause] 250 in pieces hopefully we got most of the pieces so for this project I brought in my good buddy shucker kind of put the big chunks here so we know what we have and then we're going to go through this box and it's going to be fun so after unloading the truck and emptying all the boxes it's time to clean things up a bit and see what we have or don't have okay so that's not good and that's not good triple clamp that's good Pro Taper bars that's good look at these fork legs they're nice those things are going to clean up that's good so many broken bolts that's bad [Music] the piece the resistance so far so good we have a pipe and we have an exhaust shouldn't do that take it back it would have been a good idea to look at the VIN number before we put the Plastics in the way just for the record these frames weren't green or yellow so let me set the stage for you it's 19.95 bad haircuts and jean shorts were in style Bone Thugs and Harmony was blowing up on the charts the Braves won the World Series but Suzuki wasn't having the same success more on this from voice over Craig I'm gonna go help now as The Story Goes Suzuki planned to launch their redesigned bike for the 1997 season but decoster the Godfather of motocross he had different plans and pushed development of the new machine up a year one of the most notable changes made to the machine was the engine ditching the case redesign Suzuki opted to copy the competition lifting the cylinder read design engine from Honda the second and arguably the most controversial change was done to the most important part of any competition motorcycle the suspension and this is where the story gets really crazy while the rear suspension was a complete redesign it was the move back to a conventional front fork that got all the attention Motocross Action magazine named the RM250 1996 by like of the year and by all accounts for us mere mortals it really is a great bike however the results on the track suggested otherwise and by 1997 team Suzuki Riders were getting frustrated with the change to the conventional Fork they actually changed their race bikes back to the more traditional upside down Fort as you can imagine much to the Chagrin of the marketing department however after a couple of years the marketing department and Engineers got on the same page and in 1999 the RM250 was changed once again back to the industry standard upside down four making the 1998 Suzuki RM250 the last bike in Motocross history to use a conventional Fork how's that for a piece of motocross trivia look at this it's just filled with like this [Music] because it kept it from corroding and rusting though mystery bag [Music] motor mounts there's that O-ring we were looking for and there's that water pump clutch springs some nuts and bolts on the needle valve I always look under the flaps I feel like we're halfway there okay so there's a couple key things I don't see one is a piston we don't have a piston we don't have a float Bowl we have a big gooey spring that's a crank look it feels very crunchy well I can put oil in it here watch this foreign [Music] it's like a decorative water fountain dip your strawberries in there okay we're gonna let that do something one of the things I noticed after getting this all laid out on table is I believe it was a micro sprint engine for a while the reason I say that is once I cleaned all that goo off the carburetor was just instantly corroded looks like it had alcohol in it the crankshaft uh also looks like it was ran on alcohol and it's welded oh yeah so the crank bins welding kind of messed up here on the end so could have bought one on eBay I used one on eBay but I gambled a little bit and I got a new one for a 2003 to 2008 according to the part numbers are different but according to my research they should work I'm kind of curious to see what's different oh Dan look at this what am I looking in the crankshaft Whispering so shiny and new I gotta be careful how I open this because I don't know if it's going to work and if it doesn't work I want to return it remember how that was twisted up there Dan oh yeah I'll remember remember that yeah twist it up back the same way so in all my Infinite Wisdom thinking that I'm smarter than the engineers and can use this new crankshaft it turns out I'm not and I can't 6-0 shoot what's the problem what'd you do don't think this is gonna work why because this is stepped here I thought that might have been a problem saw a line there I didn't see it were you concerned about that I was concerned man I wonder if you go down the rabbit hole trying to make it work well like like take a lathe to that or something yeah I'll have to oh nope that does fit I decided not to go down that rabbit hole and instead I ordered a used crankshaft off of eBay which I probably should have just done from the very beginning that's the frame no it's killing me do you like it that's um no I mean unless you were going for like a watermelon theme it does kind of look like a watermelon doesn't it I would definitely recommend you paint that I wouldn't say that goes with the yellow so we're gonna get this ripped apart and into sandblaster and then we're going to spray paint it it's nice whoever put this together was just finger tight it's kind of Handy whoever whoever I'm out of practice it's been a while foreign so the teardown wasn't going as fast as I wanted it to so I had Dan put the camera on the tripod grab a wrench and come and help me do you need this keep it going get an eight millimeter wrench where you flatten it at uh over on this table or is this table too clean I have no clue what that says what these oh no it won't be those no no these are on that metric is it going this looks like trash where the trash been at I even lost my 10 millimeter socket on his first day and as we all know that is a mechanic's rite of passage so here's a quick Pro tip for all you guys out there sandblasting well it can be satisfying is excruciating slow so what do you do you make it look fun to the new guy so that he wants to hop in and take your place thanks Dan no really Dan put in about a four hour session on the sandblaster and let's be honest that's pretty epic so after taking a minute to survey my current situation it dawned on me four months is way too long to have an engine sitting apart in pieces on your Workman Dan what is it I think I left this season on the workbench a little too long did yeah what do you mean like is it overdone yeah it's it's peppered what did you get stuck on hitting record on the camera well besides that we're gonna figure this out together [Music] thank you After figuring out how that engine goes back together I need to let my brain cool off for a bit so I'm going to paint the frame okay now that I have it prepped to the best of my attention span we're gonna hit it with the old Rust-Oleum treatment because you know this thing's for go not show hey [Music] and as the paint dries it's time to go back and figure out the rest of this engine that should all be seated all right now that we're looking inside of it right in the comments if you know what's getting stuck on so you can tell Craig all about it after he's already fixed tell me what I'm doing a little assembly Lube it's for those bearings what do you think Craig I think we have everything in there that needs to go in there I'll try this again okay I think it's just getting hung up here on this Craig you any in you any I love how organized my work area is sometimes the best laid plans you know Dan it's all starting to come together nicely isn't it my friend [Music] torque to eight foot pounds trust me I looked and then we tighten this okay hopefully there's piston rings in here yeah sweet you gotta measure the Gap when you put the ring in the cylinder this tightens up you got to measure that Gap too little and when it heats up it'll hit and bad things will happen it'll explode yeah be really careful here these are really brittle how many times have you broken these ah man I probably have done it once but you learned after that first time yeah there we go he's bringing it back base gasket put some rags in here arrow on the piston always points to the exhaust side if you don't do that you're in trouble so I like to put one of these on first before putting the Piston onto the connecting rod and then that way I only have half the chance of dropping it into the engine and having to take the bottom end apart again we've got this Craig I know thanks for believing in me Dan just recall what you learned in McKenna Academy the the McCann Academy they always generally said if you have the correct tool to do the job a screwdriver will still do it that sounds like horrible advice forget to put one of these things in when what things in these clips because that holds your wrist pin in that thing will just right out into your cylinder clang and bang and carry on for about six seconds if you're that lucky Dan you should take the camera outside and show the folks how nice our yard is I bet you by the time you come in here this will be done oh yeah look how nice the yard is I told you Craig did you do it done oh my god oh yeah correct get it down in there you better remove that Gap [Music] you got a piece I'm not sure where it goes [Music] now it's looking like an engine looking pretty good isn't it Dan looking like you've slapped some more nuts and bolts on you'll go vroom vroom you know what I need to do Dan get some of my engine parts and put them here on the table so I don't start forgetting that I have stuff which I probably already did like that washer that I'm not sure where that goes shining up my precious [Music] click [Music] I told you I cleaned it to the best of my attention span and now that all the hard work is done it's time for the best part reassembling the bike [Music] thank you [Music] so here's where we're at parts are rolling in this thing is going back everything is getting torqued down and this thing's going back together for the last time and it's going to be time to run it quick look at me using a torque wrench like a adult that's loose bikes always look so much better when you get fresh tires on them all builds look better when you get tires on them like that's always a thing like if I'm building a a truck or something I always like to get the tires on it first the tires and the wheels because then it kind of like gets you excited excited it gets you excited you get excited too if this thing was an old Wiggly wall such a heat on around I tell you you just stay there for now see that Dan see how your the fork can move move so you got to get that centered up you want that centered up so the way you do that is you get on the front brake and push down on them a few times and it'll Center everything up for you so I'm gonna wait and leave those a little loose until that's done until my front brake and it's off the bench and I can set it and then that's that so that's not going to happen here at the moment but I wanted to show you that because that's that's an important step a lot of guys Overlook oh so you'll go oh wibbly wobbly all over the place yeah let's put this on this will look good look at that who wants to ride with that when you can ride with that [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Applause] now that we got the bike wrapped up the only thing left to do is fire it up and go for a ride how many kicks do you guys think it's going to take Dan 14 14. yeah 14. she's bouncing like four or five well you know how this goes with you guys you guys kick stuff a lot uh all right let's see here there you go without breaking anything let's see if I can oh why did we do all this stuff on a hill so choke on two [Music] three kick [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] just three kicks we still have some fine tuning to do but this is a great start hope you enjoyed the story of what makes this one of the most controversial bikes of the mid 90s thanks for watching don't forget to subscribe check out this video right here now you're locked in Dan you have to put it right here oh my gosh foreign

Channel: The Bearded Mechanic

Views: 313,199

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Id: V2aly9Towps

Length: 18min 56sec (1136 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 09 2023