Yamaha RD 250 LC Restoration

Ever since my best friend bought an LC over 20 years ago I've wanted one. The classic lines and the iconic sound. For me, Yamaha got the LC ‘Just right’

Having sold my KTM990 during the summer of 2011 and went down to one bike, my Aprilia RSV.
As much as a adore my RSV (I really do) it’s far from a friendly bike to ride through the winter with tyres which require a bit of temperature in order to be effective and big Brembo stoppers which work best when worked hard. Its not the bike to have a bimble about on on a winters day.

I couldn’t bear the thought of not spending any bike related time during the winter so I started looking for a project.
To my delight up popped this 250LC, a UK bike with Matching numbers. A non running but with good compression. The owner had owned the bike for eight years, he was an RD fanatic with several bikes, one of which is an RD400 with 40 miles on the clock which is sitting in his living room!
He’d never tried to start the bike, the key was missing to the filler cap and there were no HT caps. Satisfied that I could do something with it, I loaded ‘Elsie’ onto the trailer and headed for home!





Picture if you will, a man pushing his new restoration project up his garden towards his workshop whilst practically changing into his work clothes at the same time! I was desperate to hear her run! Firstly because I wanted to hear that unmistakable sound (Despite the later YPVS pipes) and secondly because I wanted to hear if there was anything terminal within before I started the big strip down!















Out came the drill and within 2 minutes I was looking into a pristine tank, this was a great start despite the tanks dreadful exterior! A cup full of fuel flowed free and clean from the petrol tap. I’d picked up a pair of spark plug caps on the way home so I wound those on and checked the spark ….. Big, blue and fat!

Plugs in, fuel on, choke out …… two kicks and away she went!!!!



Two minutes later and unsurprisingly the head gasket failed on the L/H Cylinder so I drained all the coolant out and wheeled her in for the strip down.

 

Everything came apart beautifully, no stripped threads or seized bolts. The engine was also in excellent mechanical condition. The bottom end was tight as a drum, the bores were perfect as were the pistons. She was only on her 1st oversize. I decided early on that I was going to leave the bottom end alone and just fit new rings, small ends and gaskets. My thought process being that once she was back on the road I could do a much more thorough assessment of the engine under load. If necessary I could whip the engine out carry out a full rebuild later on if required.

I was adamant that I would do all of the work myself, the mechanical, the electrical, the asthetic and the paintwork. I would only outsource jobs that I couldn’t do myself. I would only replace parts that were absolutely beyond repair and would carefully repair everything else. I wanted to ‘restore’ it, not ‘replace’ it
The standard I was going for was “Lovely but not concourse” I wanted to remain true to a factory bike without having to be a slave to which style of bolt was originally here and there etc. I decided to replace everything bolt with stainless with the exception of a few major bolts (Wheel spindles, enfine / swingarm bolts etc) which I had re-plated (One of two jobs I outsourced)

And so began the long and arduous task of stripping and cleaning. As I delved deeper it appeared to be getting better and better. My guess was that someone had spend a fair bit of money on this bike then skimped on the paintwork which promptly fell off the primer. I can only assume that interest was soon lost and the bike became dormant.

The engine was my first task …

 

All bagged up, under the bench and forgotten, ready to come out when I start reassembly!



By this time I’d starting making a lovely list of parts to buy, some replaced broken items, some replace those that had been fitted to the bike over the years from either the wrong bike or bikes from later years. It was at this point that I realized just how much was required. The rear mudguard had been cut as had the rear number plate holder, the rear indicator stalks had been cut from the subframe, the front indicator stalks were missing, the headlight was cut, the clock assembly was pretty much an empty shell with just the original speedo and rev counter present. The biggest of all items to sourse was a lovely genuine and original set of pipes. As I started to research these parts I realized that all these items were modified during the glory days of the 80’s when the boy racers cut everything down to make it look cooler. The consequence of this is that finding intact originals isn’t easy and certainly isn’t cheap! Luckily I was able to find all the bits I needed one by one. It was a labour of love finding it all but thankfully I got there! The pipes I found were so nice that they were in their original paint which was in remarkable condition. So much so that I decided to leave them as they are!









I gathered up all the parts that needed powder coating and took them into work. Fortunately we had a powder coating department and as luck would have it my good friend Mark runs that said department! So I handed over the rear subframe, swing arm, top + bottom yoke, radiator grill, handlebars, rear grabrail and a few misc items. Three days later …. Here they are! (The other job I didn’t do myself)



As mentioned earlier, the bike was pretty good under all the scabby asthetics. The frame was in superb condition so all I had to do was clean it ready for assembly!



The wheels …I’d kind of been putting off / saving the next bit of the resto as I knew it was going to be hours upon hours of work. I wasn’t wrong either! They’d been hand painted with some kind of nuclea proof white gloop which took literally hours and hours to get through. A coat of powder coat strength paint stripper followed with a high pressure wash ….. more stripper …. Another wash …. More stripper ……. In the end I had to strip the wheels 4 times and then finish the paint removal by hand. I then began the process of polishing the rims and spoke edges. That’s ten spoke edges per side, 20 per wheel x two wheels. It seemed never ending! I eventually got through it and so begun the process of masking up the spikes and rims, another arduous task! Finally the time came to start painting, 2x coats of high build primer followed by 4x coats of black. It’s fair to say that I’d had a few dark moments while prepping the wheels, it seemed never ending, but, as the old saying goes, you get out what you put in. I cannot begin to tell you the feeling of satisfaction I got then I eventually peeled the masking tape off, all those hours, those long long hours, they all evaporated as I pulled that first corner of masking tape, the black satin against the shiny alloy. The wheels were definitely the best part of doing the bike!

 

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.


I peeled that masking tape off over a year ago but as I sit here and type this I can feel the satisfaction well through me. It’s like a big sigh!

Anyway ….. Time to start bolting up!
The day flew and the bike went from a pile of parts to a rolling chassis in no time at all!

 

It was now time to see what she sounded like with those lovely original pipes …..

I popped the tank back on just to fire her up

Spark – Check
Fuel – Check
Wet Plugs – Check

Ignition on …… 4 kicks and away she went. There was smoke everywhere, I smothered the crank with lashings of two stroke oil when I put the engine together, lots more down the bores after. I’d put a bit extra in the fuel and the oil injection soon came online. It was two stroke central!!!



Enough of the two stroke shinanagins …….. time to get stuck into the bodywork!
On closer inspection, the side panels, seat cowl and front mudguard were completely shot. I was lucky in that I found a complete set from the same bike. They were painted in an awful green colour but that was the least of my worries. They were clean and straight requiring minimal repairs ……

 

The tank required a little more …… what should I call it …… Work?

First, I did some stripping .....





Then I followed that up with a little more stripping ......





Once the stripping was done I did some more stripping





But that wasn't enough ..... so I resorted to stripping ....





The stripping was working but I needed a different approach, so I tried stripping .....





The stripping was going well, but not well enough. Time for some stripping!





This really started to work, if only I'd just started stripping in the first place!




Then came the rest of the prep work…







At last everything was ready for it’s colour coats!











I bought a decal kit from Ebay which covered both 250 and 350 bikes. With my lovely paintwork ready to receive the graphics I thought I’d try one of the spare side panel graphics on one of the old side panels. So I prepped one up, base coated it and applied the graphic. This is what happened when I applied the lacqueur ………



The moral of the story is, buy right buy once, buy cheap, buy twice!
I took the rest of the kit to my friend Steve at H+L Graphics in Queenborough who made me up a pukka set!
On they went followed by five coats of lacqueur!

 

And so to the end of my little story …. (Or so I thought)

I built the rest of the bike up in a couple of hours and as quick as that, she was finished!

I was so so pleased with the end result!














Well that should be the end of the tale. The bike was finished, MOTd and an absolute hoot to ride!

Then, one day in June 2012 I took her for a spin, only locally, about 20 miles. I took her across the North Downs to Chatham to buy a service kit for my Aprilia. On the way back she developed a rattle, sounding a little like a Ducati. I immediately thought the worst but upon a nit more investigation I found a simple cracked flywheel……. Easy fix …… so I thought!



I sourced a replacement flywheel from Ebay, it’s only a 15 minute job to change. Unfortunately the vibration caused by the flywheel had ultrasonically welded the boss to the end of the crank
I tried in vein for several weeks to get the flywheel off with no success, and I mean really tried everything. Being an engineer, there’s very little that’ll defeat me but this was absolutely solid!
In the mean time I bought my KTM 950ADV which required a little attention (The subject of another thread maybe) so the LC made it’s way to the back of the garage where it stayed until November.
I spent another few hours with no success so decided to whip the engine out and remove the crank so I could really get to work on it!
The engine was sitting on the bench all complete and untouched. I intended to do the rebuild as and when the mood took me.



Then, remarkably, the following day my phone rang “Hi, it’s Chris Newbigging from Practical Sportsbikes, we’d like to come and photograph your LC for a feature in out February Issue”
I explained the situation and we agreed that he and his photographer would come down in two weeks time for the shoot.
I had to get my bloody skates on!
The following day I stripped the engine down, unfortunately the vibration had taken out the flywheel side main bearing and cracked a piston.
So I embarked on replacing the main bearings, two new pistons, a full oil seal kit and naturally all new gaskets as well as a new clutch push rod and new small ends just to be sure.







And that was that. I got the engine back in …….

Spark – Check
Fuel – Check
Wet Plugs – Check

No fourth time kick this time, she went FIRST kick!

And so, on the 5th December, the guys from Practical Sportsbikes arrived and we did the shoot, the bike didn’t miss a beat and the article went on the shelves a couple of days ago!



And here are some of the originals from the shoot

 

Cheers for taking the time to look!

 

Mmmmmmm... cleeeeaaaaan .

 

Excellent thead with good pics. Ta.

 

Fantastic thread and project Tunner. well done.

 

I just took a look at this month's Practical Sportsbike while at Tesco (entertaining myself while the wife did 'woman things'). Looks like a great article. I didn't buy the mag as I prefer 'impractical sportsbikes'.

 

enjoyed reading all that, the rdlc was the first bike i ever had, till i bent it

 

awesome mate thats a cracking job

 

thats one tidy bike matey. nice work