Fast Eddie's Aprilia RS250 rebuild & restore

[Fast Eddie]

Kia ora,

After purchasing a rather tired Aprilia RS250, I pulled it apart a little bit to see how things are looking.

Stripped bolt after stripped bolt, shoddy wiring, insulation tape where it shouldn't be. Broken parts, missing parts - Rust and corrosion, oil leaks and odd noises were all included in the buying price.

So I decided, to have a good go at giving this old 2 stroke race rep a return to its glory days.

The aim, to rebuild this old smoker into a clean fire breathing example of the breed, hoping the end product will look as good or better than when she rolled off the factory floor in 1994.

Comments, advice, ideas and motivation welcome...

[Fast Eddie]

My new home away from home (about 1.5 meters from said home), workbench converts into a bed haha and a kindly donated 5.1 surround sound stereo shakes the walls to keep me entertained



p.s. I clicked delete this post by mistake - it hasnt disappeared for me so thought maybe u click it and then a mod comes and does it - if so, dont delete i clicked delete by mistake (a few times)
not sure if its gone for other members - should be a photo above and 4 photos below

[Fast Eddie]

Old pistons

[Fast Eddie]

Cylinders as they came off. rusted through water spigot, powervalves a bit messy, stripped screws etc.

[Crasherfromwayback]

Old pistons

O dear!!!!!!!

[blackdog]

Subscribed.

[nodrog:Me]

Atleast the sparkplug still looks usable.

[Fast Eddie]

Whipped the tyres off the rims in prep for 'sprucing up'

What do we think.. Full polished, polished lip with red spokes, polished lip with black spokes.



Ducatilover should stroll across this eventually - how do I start the hand polishing procedure bro? I have some pretty gritty sandpaper lying around but not sure if its too rough to start with?

How do you do it?

[tigertim20]

you werent kidding about the skirt... fuck me!

well, while its apart might as well go all the way eh?

Will be keen to keep an eye on this and see how the progress goes!

[Sable]

Don't polish those!

[Fast Eddie]

and why not...

[Fast Eddie]

you werent kidding about the skirt... fuck me!

well, while its apart might as well go all the way eh?

Will be keen to keep an eye on this and see how the progress goes!

chur prob take a while.. winter project. most of the funds get tied up with racing n shit but will hopefully make good progress on it.

Cylinders are at an eng shop getting looked at, and they are removing the old rusted out water spigots and extracting some broken screws. Hopefully get em back soon

[Sable]

They look good the way they are, also polishing is a lot of work and you have to do it continually or you get alu corrosion.

[Fast Eddie]

fair enough, but they are pretty plain. it will be solid black bike with black wheels.

Frame is polished, figured I would just polish the rim of the wheel and leave the spokes and centers black. Or possibly red as there are red Chesterfield sponsors decals to go on the bodywork to replicate the 94 250GP world champ winning bike

[ducatilover]

Ducatilover should stroll across this eventually - how do I start the hand polishing procedure bro? I have some pretty gritty sandpaper lying around but not sure if its too rough to start with?

How do you do it?

Fuck, thems some yummy rims!

I always start with 320ish grit wet/dry paper, but I also don't use paint stripper (CBF buying it, I'm the biggest jew!)
So, my suggestion? Paint stripper! Then:

If it's fairly smooth casting start with 600, rub for a million years, then go 800 (do it all wet too) until you can't see marks from the 600, then go 1200 and keep going 'till you can't see any 800 marks, dry it off and autosol it, I always do several applications of autosol.


Great thread bro, subbed!