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| 1978 Yamaha DT250E "Rusty" |
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| This is one of the earliest photo's I have of Rusty, still in silver stock livery, seat in tatters, speedo missing and I have a feeling there was no tail light on it when I first rescued this bike. |
| After a tidy up and a change of tank, front fender and side covers, the bike looked like this. |
| This is a collection of photo's from winter 2002. The bike is almost stock, except for the knobbly tyres. |
| A couple of photo's of the old fart on his bike |
| In spring of 2003 I decided to make Rusty look more like a dirt bike, so off came the lights and gauges. The ignition switch was kept, but relocated under the tank ( right). While I was playing with the bike, I removed the swing arm for a clean up. This is not an easy job on these old bikes, if like most of them, they haven't been looked after. The pin that locates at the bottom of the shock on the swing arm gets seized up, like both my DT's. |
| After alot of beating and a few beers I got the pin out. A replacement had to be fitted, but with plenty of lube, I hopefully won't have this problem again. |
| So the summer of 2003, Rusty has had the dirt bike look. 58 was a great year! Due to the lack of suspension travel, the DT will never be a great bike off road, so I will be looking for an IT or YZ next, but this bike will remain great fun. |
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| Summer "03 My new home, for the past year, is set on four acres. It includes a forest section and a motocross track, built by the previous owner. Here a a few photo's showing how lucky we are. |
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| Below out on the motocross track is Tony trying to impress his dog on Rusty, while right, Dylan waits on his GT80, for his mum to catch up on Dusty! |
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| Rusty in the forest section |
| Page updated 16th October 06 |
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| Late 2006 Update: I returned to Canada at the end of July to find the clutch not working on this bike. Could it be the cable or plates maybe? On reading the manual, I discovered that there is an adjuster screw on the clutch body, easy job! Off came the engine side cover, I made an adjustment, no change. Enquiries told me replacement plates were $15 each , multiplied by seven, plus a gasket. On talking to a friend, more knowledgable than me, I was asked what state the old plates were in. Not knowing much about clutches, I said the clutch plates came out in one lump, plates and steels stuck together. That was the problem. I seperated all the components, cleaned the steels up on the wire wheel, then reassembled the clutch. Only two screw ups. I didnt fit the mushroom part properly, so the clutch wouldnt work. Secondly, while playing around, I moved something on the gearshift, an arm behind the clutch, so on a test run, I could only get first gear. More by luck than judgement, a poke around behind the clutch sorted the problem. The bike is now working fine |
| As a bonus, I have managed to locate a red rear fender for this bike. Although stock colour for this bike is silver, like Dusty, my other DT, I wanted a different livery for this bike. 77 red parts became available at the bike shop. All that was missing was the rear fender. That problem has now been sorted. The donor bike, a DT400. |
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