MY LATEST HOBBY

By Johanne James

Good day good people and how are you? Lady fate has not been kind to us of late, but I’m sure her temper will subside.

Anyway, My Latest Hobby: Rebuilding old motorcycles, mainly two stroke RD 250’s.
These bikes were the original headbangers’ tool. Especially the RD 400 aircooled. If you wanted to get anywhere fast, just hop onto one of these things and you’ll be there before the police even have time to get out their cameras! Unfortunately these machines have high rates of engine ware because below 6.000 RPM they were quite sluggish, so you had to ride them in the red line 99% of the time. Great fun, and because they are two stroke, meaning there are only two cycles before the bike throws you off the back end, as opposed to four stroke motorcycles, I’m not going to get technical, they leave you in a puff of twisting blue smoke, and I don’t want to bore you. Get it? Bore you? Oh never mind. That’s what you do when you want to tune an engine, you bore out the hole.

Anyway, I had taken an RD 250 LC apart with a friend of mine who had another two stroke menace called a TDR 250. These things are insane, I mean completely off the charts, and he had rebuilt his, a very talented fellow indeed, so we started doing mine. When you break it down, there isn’t a lot to a bike. A couple of wheels, an engine and some lights, and don’t forget the handlebars! Taking them apart is easy, but putting them back together is another task entirely! This can take ages, as you’ll realise that some parts need replacing, and seeing that these machines are now collector’s items, they can cost a fortune, so you look for someone who’s breaking one down for parts. eBay is usually my best bet, but in saying that, there is a community for these bikes, hence if you’re stuck you can always contact them. Wonderful.

So here I am trying to put this thing back together, my mate once described it as a coat hanger with an engine, he meant that there’s nothing to them and can be extremely skittish, if you didn’t know how to handle one! This can be time consuming if you are an in-experienced novice like myself, but it’s the only way you learn, and in doing so learning is the experience. It can be very satisfying to see something roll off the ramp when completed, but I’m still trying to complete mine, hence again, there’s YouTube to sort my difficulties. Everything is on there, but the only problem with it is that it’s one way, no feedback and that can create its own problems. You can’t have it all, so I will continue to strive to complete this project, that is of course the Corona Virus doesn’t get to me first!!!! If it does, I shall then bid you farewell and see you all in the next Virus!

I love doing things with my hands, it is very therapeutic and can be all consuming, I often get lost in what I’m doing and hours can pass by, in a moment. Long may it last.

Thanks for listening.

Johanne James

#motor #blog #headbangerslifestyle #hbls