One should not drink beer and buy motorcycles

[neels]

I may have got carried away and negotiated the purchase of a fairly ancient VT250 spada, fortunately for not a lot of money, and for various nebulous reasons.

Seems not a bad bike, except for the terrible rattling noises at idle, which to be fair I'm used to as a Ducati owner.

Mostly I'm intrigued by the one year only cast alloy frame, either it was terribly expensive to build or a terrible idea, but either way that's such a Honda thing to do.

So tell me good people, if it's not the easy fix of tightening the starter clutch bolts that seems to turn up quite regularly on the internet, how hard is to replace the camchains or tensioners on one of these tiny v-twins?

[F5 Dave]

I know not, but back in the day the early vt250s loved to root tensioners.

I taught a lass to ride on one and was I immediately impressed with what a neat little bike it was. Would have been a great commuter or miles better learner than shitty road maggots (GN) .

[onearmedbandit]

One of these was my first bike I rode again after paralysing my arm. They'll forever hold a place in my heart for that reason. The diaphragm in the fuel tank petcock assembly won't though.

[ducatilover]

Remove tensioners and ultrasonic clean them, soak in oil for a few days, re-install. About the standard level of difficulty as any other 4 cam vee motor

[neels]

I did read that the tensioners in the earlier ones were a bit shit, but that also seems to be a Honda thing from that era.

Plan is little bike for commuting to work as the big bike is shit at that, and get out for the occasional bit of fun.

I have also read that cleaning the tensioners can make a difference, I'm also thinking that it's been sitting for a few years so fresh oil and getting it proper hot might help, start with the least intrusive things.....

[ducatilover]

They're not a bad tensioner, they just get gummed up. They're brilliant little bikes, I put 120,000km on mine years ago. A friend has one that needs saving, might have to grab it.
I made a proper set of headers for mine, I think it made 34 or 36whp, what a rocket 😅

[neels]

So after removing the very handily placed timing mark (I assume that's what it's for) cover, the bolts on the starter clutch are indeed loose. Clutch cover gasket on the way so I can get in there and tighten and loctite the buggers.

Also sounds like rattling from the top end, so will need it's hats off to look at the chains and tensioners. Or just don't stop at traffic lights, so don't hear it idling....

Finding it really boggy at low revs, so suspect it may need carbs off to have a look at how well the guy selling the bike on behalf 'cleaned the carbs' after being parked for 10 years.

Both brake calipers off to unstick the pins on the stupid single sided sliding things, now it actually rolls into the garage, while I'm there new pads and a bleed on the front.

Looks to have a brand new battery, at the current prices that's a bonus.

Don't hate it yet, give it time.....

[ducatilover]

Check they haven't put the bigger main jet in the front, if the fella even took the carbs off

[neels]

Check they haven't put the bigger main jet in the front, if the fella even took the carbs off

Looking at how filthy they are, I don't think they've been off, I suspect his definition of cleaning the carbs was probably squirting some carb cleaner down them.

I gather from your comment there are different bits installed in the front and rear carbs? I'll have to pay attention when I strip and clean them...

[ducatilover]

Only difference is the main jet, from memory. I haven't played with one since 2009ish though

[F5 Dave]

Airline and remove jets. Not full story but gets 90% of issues.

[neels]

Well, clutch cover off and loose starter clutch bolts tightened and loctited, terrible rattle at idle now gone. Still not sewing machine quiet, but a bit of minor valve train noise I can live with.

As normal worst and longest part of the job cleaning off the old gasket, took about 10 times longer than what I was actually in there for.

Took it for a spin up the motorway, to start with didn't want to do more than about 80k, but after a bit of surging cleared it's throat and now seems to run sensibly.

Probably still need to give the carbs a once over at some point, but that can wait until the weather is miserable for a bit, at the moment it's too much fun commuting to work to pull it apart.

Now just waiting for some fuel tank mounting bits to turn up in the mail, still intrigues me how people can put something back together with half the parts missing and not notice.