A few months ago, a good friend of mine picked up his first motorcycle, a 1982 Yamaha SR250 called ‘The Exciter’.  I had the good fortune of riding it the 45 minutes from Varina, VA back to my shop.  It was quite fun to ride considering it is only a 250cc — WOT the entire way home.  Hows that saying go, it is more fun to ride a slow bike fast than a fast bike slow.  Well I rode that thing about as fast as it would allow.

The tires seemed a bit old, carburetor was in desperate need of a cleaning and the rear brake light didn’t work, but other than that it ran like a top.  He got a great deal on the motorbike.

Since winter was coming, he gave me free reign to do what I see fit to make the bike a little more aesthetically pleasing.  I’ve always had a soft spot for thumpers.  This bike seems much more suited for a scrambler build than the current “baby cruiser”.  Out came the cutting torch and a pile of parts.

The bike was mostly disassembled and a good portion of those parts will never see the bike again and have been boxed to go onto eBay.  Carburetor was pulled cleaned and jetted for pod filter and exhaust.  The rear wheel has been rebuilt with new bearings and seals.  It will be getting an 18″ rim with aggressive tires instead of the stock 16″ wheel.  Exhaust has been swapped out with a header from Jadus and a  nice stainless muffler from Dime City Cycles.

The fenders have been pulled for trimming and remounting.  The stock seat pan and frame has been cut up for a rear seat hoop.  Up next will be to build the seat pan and start shaping the seat foam.  The rear fender is leftover from a Moto Guzzi front fender, the shape and width turned out to work nicely for this project.

The front fender has been trimmed and mounted high from the original front fender.

More to come soon.  I am trying to get this all wrapped up by mid spring