You never know what the previous owner did. 1983 wr250

I bought this Milk Truck for a good price last summer. The PO listed as a parts bike even though it was all there. I got a bunch of parts with it including 3 38mm Mikunis. When I brought it home and started taking it apart, my son (motorcycle tech) looked in the exhaust port and noticed the piston was in backwards. I took the top end off and found the piston and bore were good so I put a new ring on it and replaced the sketchy wrist pin and bearing.
I finally got it all together this week . It started easily but blubbered badly and wouldn't pick up at all. I had a leaner slide in one of the spare carbs and decided to try that.
No joy.
I was looking at the Sudco site for new parts and carburetors . I noticed you could buy slides for both left and right idle adjustments. You guessed it. The PO put a backward slide in and the leaner slide was wrong way round too. The bike and the 3 spares all have left side idle adjustments but 2 out 4 carbs had slides for right side idle screws. Bike runs OK with the slide right way around.
You have to wonder how some of this stuff happens. The PO told me he was a auto tech????

nice pick, looks to be very solid!

in all honesty..its best to comletely tear down and reassemble..not saying to restore, but just reassemble and maybe catch a few things. especially with these things being so simple.

I've said it before, when I bought it my '85 had been parked so long that the chain was frozen and the brake pads had fallen off of the shoes. All it took to get the engine running was a carb clean and pulling out the incorrect spark plug and putting in the correct one.

Nice looking XC, I purchased one from Indiana and the Po had used hardware washers as shims in gearbox. Took an experienced husky mechanic to work it out !

Mine is no wear near yours in condition.

lol last night I took rear wheel off to work out some issues with chain tensioner. PO had used cut copper gas pipe as a sleeve for rear axle.

Grin and bear with it. At least you have a predominately complete bike to start with. The completes that I bought were all missing lighting and speedometers.


I second the motion to go thru the entire bike. I tore down my 84 250WR engine figuring to replace crank seals before installing the freshly bored cylinder. Found a questionable bodged clutch hub and inside the centercases, I had to repair a perfed crank well from a previous piston skirt break.

I purchased one of my '83 430wr's where the PO had the clutch cover off he said it needed a clutch. The center rod needed adjustment.

A 76 250 I purchased had the top of a 360 cylinder faced off with a homemade mister gasket fiber head gasket. Great I found the replacement cylinder.

You/we need to go completely through the bike.

On a dr80 Suzy the PO switched the lighting coil with the ignition coil. The bike ran perfect.

When I disassemble something new to me I lay the parts in sequence right to left as it comes apart. I scribe mark where the ignition is set. With the older bikes with twin coils they stay on the mounting plate unless I retire the lighting coil for more wattage.

I have copper wire spools for rewrapping lighting coils. I learned a lot on my own.

that works if the timing was set right to begin with. many prefer to set with less advance than stock anyway.

I had a bike with 6 - 8 washers on each end the clutch cable? wtf?? he didn't know about the nice lock nut and screw in the clutch for adjustment. even so the friction plates are toast, obviously did a lot of slipping....