Basket Cases

[Greg Harding]

Hi Everyone,

TF, sounds like you scored well with the rear sprockets, have you lined up a 428 front? May be hard to find, also I would recomend a good quality heavy duty chain as they are fairly torquey when they are healthy. Riding again this sunday and as always, all skill levels and most eras of bikes!

PA, RofL! What the?????????????????

David, like your way of thinking, but there are some other possibilities:

Mine is Rich on Low thRottLe settings, Rev it a Little makes it RattLe more and is Real Loud when it Runs Lean!!

[Tfos1]

I ordered the 428 front sprocket with the muffler.

I'm looking forward to my first Sunday at Greg's Trials-By-Fury property, but it won't be this Sunday. I have attend the kick-off of the The Southern Crossing at Byron and follow the start of the ride on the 530EXCF. Compared to the overloaded Teneres those guys are on, the 530 will feel like a trials bike.

Is there a twin-shock trial we should be aiming at? It'd be cool to meet a few people from here and have a grin as I tried to understand competitive trials!

TF

[David Lahey]

Is there a twin-shock trial we should be aiming at? It'd be cool to meet a few people from here and have a grin as I tried to understand competitive trials!
TF

http://www.trials.com.au/content/index. ... &Itemid=11

[NonstopRoss]

Greg suggested that I add my TL story. While I originally posted some of the pics up on a UK trials site, I hope this Basket Case brings a few laughs to anyone doing something similar in OZ. We all know that Light is Right. So why embark upon a 'basket case' that weighs almost one third more than a modern bike. Back in the '80s, I bought a one-owner, one year old Honda TL250. This was during one of those reoccurring phases that happens after spending a short time on crutches. On the basis that perhaps I should slow down and have more fun 'thumping' up and over technical obstacles a TL250 was purchased. Aside from a rattling cam, chain ownership was sweet and trouble free. The bike was used as if it was a Bultaco Alpina for weekend work on tight technical trail tracks. I never entered the TL into a Trial. The bike spent its time taking me to work, conquering the steepest of fire-breaks and wading through rivers that drowned many a two-stroke. Aside from one memorable over-the-handlebars incident at high speed on a wet single-track, it performed its trial/trail role well. But once the XR Hondas arrived on the scene the TL was sold.

36 years later, I own a modern trials bike and felt that my garage should also have a twinshock in it. I saw a TL250 for sale on the web and paid the owner a visit as much for sentimental reasons as for reviewing a possible purchase. But surprise: the TL was narrower and lighter than I remembered. It was also mechanically noisier (it's air-cooled after all), and going for a price $300 more than brand new in 1976! I couldn't see the point. I walked away from the sale thinking I'd be better off to buy a lighter, and younger by 10 years, TLR200.

But then a semi-restored TL250 was advertised on the web about a month later. So when no one else seemed to want it, and the price dropped to a third of what a TLR 200 cost, it became a must-have basket case. As befits a Basket Case it was a non-runner. Frame and airbox had been powder coated. Electrics were in disarray. No mudguards or seat. Header pipe was butchered. Knobby tyre on the rear said it had been a play bike and may have been thrashed (worst case for 36 years!). Supposedly it had been a garaged for 10 years, but who knew. I understood that parts might not be easy to get. However, I was aware that many Xl250/XL350 parts fit, so it might not be as dry out there as an eBay search might first seem.

I didn't want to undertake a restoration that would leave the bike looking 1976 fresh out of the box. Instead I've always fancied the RTL360 look. But before I began playing with the motor, I thought I'd better get the running-gear up to speed first. I spent the first week sourcing a variety of different size allen-head bolts to replace the knackered Philips screws and bolts on the triple clamp, engine case, exhaust etc. I had no idea stainless steel bolts were so expensive!

New handlebars went straight on. I remembered having high 6'' riser bars on the original but I've settled for a shorter rise this time around.

A forged alloy gear lever with a folding tip from a CR80 slipped straight on. A new front brake cable from Venhill in the UK arrived and operates ever so smoothly. A TLR200 clutch lightener from Shedworks in the UK was ordered, but to fit the raised the shape of the TL engine cases it needs to be shortened, so it doesn't quite give the extra leverage I had hoped for.


I've got Hebo pegs on my 4RT so I put the OEM 4RT pegs onto the TL. 2mm of metal needed to come off the peg mounts as well as letting them spread slightly to accept the new slightly wider and 36 year younger peg mounts. The Montesa pegs are double the width of the skinny 1976 pegs and move the rider's weight backward as well.

There were three holes in the exhaust and the spark arrester was missing, the Torque Dump chamber has been cut out and the header pipe has an extension welded to it. Looking over the newly arrived bike, the first of several surprises was spotted. The sprocket was not dished and there were no spacers between hub and sprocket. The chain was a 530 size not the original 428. I also found a couple of welded on nuts (exhaust mounts) that weren't metric! An earlier owner being lazy I suspect. There was evidence -not seen on the web For Sale photos - of repairs to the repair swing arm. The rear wheel looked strangely askew too.

I held the back break pedal in my hand today - feels like it was made by a ship-builder!

Still, I am thrilled to have a TL in my garage again. I like the full-bodied look of the long-stroke engine and you can see the heritage on which the next 30 years of XL and XR motors have been built.

The discovery phase continues: I had forgotten just how deep the plug is located in the TL/XL head. I found out that the rear hub did have brake shoes but that they didn't touch the sides of the brake drum! The sprockets have been upgraded by a previous owner to 520 size, but with a 530 chain! Why? Well the replacement flat sprocket was bolted straight onto the hub without adding a spacer to compensate for not using a dished sprocket. Ahh, the joys of a basket case.


The swingarm is twisted. It is unbelievable to me that someone could take off a dished sprocket and think it would be ok to just replace it with a flat one without a spacer.

Here we are looking at the swingarm pivot while the axle is clamped level. No prize for where the bubble should be.


The replacement swingarm has just come in. The clean grey one in the foreground is the OLD swingarm. Just out of shot on the left hand tube are two welds where the swingarm had been broken and patched previously. This is the reason I did not risk applying heat to straighten it, in case the earlier welding came un-stuck. So on the basis that a fix-on-a-fix might be more trouble that it is worth I went shopping on the web. But surprise, surprise, the shock mounts have been altered on the replacement swing arm..


They've been reinforced and raised 35mm. I didn't spot this alteration when I looked at the For Sale thumbnail. Caveat Emptor. To be fair to the seller, a US parts firm, they probably didn't look that close and realise it wasn't stock. Anyway, its here on the other side of the world now. It is straight and on the plus side, the extra height will help sharpen the steering.

Fitted the replacement swing arm. You can see how much height it adds with the Surprise higher shock mount alterations. Not what I wanted, but we'll give it a try. I happened to have a brand new set of '03 Montesa 315 guards lying around, so for a laugh I thought I'd just sit them on the TL for inspiration and compare 30 years of change. New mudguards are on order from ebay but after a month waiting, I have to assume that they are lost in the mail. That'll be tonight's job to call the UK and find out where they are....

[Greg Harding]

Hi Everyone,

Ross, good to see another TL250 fan, the build quality of the old Hondas is what impresses me the most. Reading an old Sammy Miller book informed me why 70`s trials bikes use dished sprockets. The reason is that they wanted lightweight hubs and instead of starting from scratch, used existing scooter hubs and because trials tyres are wider they had to offset the sprockets. Below is a photo of my loan TL250 back wheel, one of my Basket Cases had a sprocket about the right size to make a spacer/adapter. Not having a lathe I simply mounted the axle in a vice vertically, slid the wheel on, cut out a cardboard disc to protect the rim and tyre. Bolted on the old sprocket, spun the wheel by hand and removed the teeth with a 9 inch grinder. If you are going to do THIS, you NEED to have the grinder cutting across the face and remove the pressure when the wheel spins TOO FAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I drilled and tapped the adapter, fitting the sprocket with countersunk fasteners and lock nuts. This did not give perfect chain alignment, but is close enough for a $300 bike.

Have you fired it up yet, if not what do you need to make it happen? The general condition doesn`t look that bad, believe me I have seen and owned worse. Two of my spare motors both have the same problem where the cam has worn into the head. As the cam runs directly in the aluminium head with quite a small surface area, 4 valves and the chain pulling down on it. Probably not surprising that they wear out, running low on oil would not help either! Apparently the head can be machined and ball bearings fitted to the cam solves the problem.

Love the wanted poster, were you able to flush out the culprit? With being shot on sight or casteration on offer, you may have scared him over to our side of the ditch! Probably a good thing he didn`t have a 9 inch grinder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[NonstopRoss]

TL isn't running yet. Soon! Needs some serious repairs to the wiring as there's a lot of wear and tear and destroyed insulation down by the cases. Looks like its been run for sometime without a sprocket cover and the wires have just been flapping in the breeze and all the shot coming off the chain.

I strapped the TL to the trailer today and took it to a machine shop to get the peg-mounts straightened (bigger hammer than I own) and the stand re-bent and welded. When I pulled hard on the tie-downs, the forks fully compressed and suddenly the air was filled with fork blood spurting skyward. Like a mortal stab wound. The catastrophic failure of the left hand fork seal put a lot of red ATF fluid in the air. On the trip to the machine shop, I looked in my car's rear vision mirror and thought that you would not want to have been driving behind me unless you had a really good slug of detergent in your windshield washer tank as the venturi effect of the slip stream -which is a jet effect - was sucking out whatever fork fluid was left. The day ended with two steps forward and one step backward. Respect – to anyone who has persevered and seen a restoration project through to its completion.

[NonstopRoss]

My TL triangular muffler is toast so has been ditched. I'm trying to avoid the straight-pipe-with-muffler-on-the-end solution that delivers a horsepower gain but at the expense of low-end response. Honda played with high volume mufflers throughout the '80s with the RTL360 being perhaps the most voluminous. A few nights Googling showed up that TLR restoration projects are almost spoilt for choice when it comes to replacement exhausts. TL250s on the other hand tend to be of the straight pipe type or they have original (patched?) mufflers. I've seen photos of a Swiss bike with a TL125 muffler and a straight header pipe. While I think it keeps the original DNA, or look, of the TL intact the smaller pipe diameter could prove restrictive.

Then I came across photos of Greg's Basket Case using the Honda CT200 twinshock farm/ag bike muffler.

While the CT technology is almost a decade advanced over the TL the materials from an '85 would still be 26 years old, which is to say rusted and in need of repacking. However, I found a firm here in NZ called Musket Mufflers that manufactures replacements pipes for many farm bikes as well as for the TL125. Unfortunately too few TL250s were purchased as farm bikes so there has been no commercial-sized demand for TL250 replacement pipes. A reasonably priced one year old CT replacement pipe made by Musket Mufflers arrived today. It weighs 3Kg, is longer than ideal, requires at least two new mounting brackets to be welded to the pipe, but is worth experimenting with as the price is right and my need is immediate.

[Greg Harding]

Hi Everyone,

Ross, if you are unhappy with the swingarm that has been modified, I have 2 spares that are unmolested. I agree with you, a simple muffler on the end of a straight through pipe is inadequate for trials. When I modified the exhaust to fit the CT200 muffler the decision was to try it and possibly make a torque dump chamber if bottom end was lacking. Because the muffler is made for a 200 and in theory more restricted works quite well all through the rev range. My other TL250 has a much healthier motor with a complete original exhaust and the performance difference is hard to pick.

Seeing the 4RT in one of your photos makes me thing you compete in trials? Have you competed in post classic and will you have a crack on the TL? Are Classic and Post Classic classes popular in NZ and what bikes are common?

[chippy]

Hi all,

Thought I would add some photos of my current basket case. Many thanks to Greg Harding for some input on the restoration and Graham Weiss for his invaluable help also so far.

I have progressed with the resoration already and hope to get it all sorted in time for this years TY Challenge.

If anyone has a seat or a seat base, I would be very appreciative.

Andrew

[JC1]

Hey Chippy,

I'd still like to see pics of yr "secret weapon" from last year (pg 8 ). Don't see many of that model.