New member/ Owner

[idrinkmercury]

Hey all,

I am a new owner of an 87 kx500. I am currently working on getting her a bit safer to ride (new tires, cables, grips, fluids etc) it sat for about 3 years and then was handed down to me from my father with the words, "be careful, a father should never have to bury his son."  I have taken it out a few times on my asphalt street (mainly to do sme road tests) and haven't even hit the powerband (the front wheel starts to lift up). I should be taking it out in about two weeks (waiting for a gasket to come in the mail) to the desert in Vail, Arizona to do some more extensive riding. I am using your prescribed methods on the site to start it.

I restore bikes and am looking to race motocross, but I need to get a newer 250 2 stroke.

My garage: 75 kawasaki kh100, 74 honda cb200, 72 kawasaki bighorn 350, 71 kawasaki bighorn 350, 82 Honda CR250, 75 Yamaha DT 175, and the KX.
All the bikes were my parents and sat for a long time in storage, but all had great compression. The kh100 started first kick after it was given fuel, I didn't even clean out the carb. The bighorns are some really strong 2 stroke enduros, lots of torque, the cb200 is a cafe racer, the kh100 is a little enduro, the CR is in the spirit of the more "modern" motocrosser, and the DT is in the spirit of a vintage motorcrosser.

I want to sell the older CR and get a newer one. My CR runs really strong, wheelies in all gears, jumps well, starts first kick always, etc. It is just getting hard to find parts for the 82 CR. I guess if I raced with it though it would give people something interesting to think about, maybe technology is not the only factor in winning a race.   

I work on lots of bikes for friends, work in a mass spectrometry laboratory, and I am a physics/mathematics student at the University of Arizona.

Thanks for all the great info on my first big-bore,
John

[scarykxer]

Hello and welcome to the site...

[Arigato]

Welcome!! I'm liking the sound of your collection.

[hughes]

Welcome, I have an 87 500 that I have restored.

[kx666]

welcome...
i cannt wait to see some pics.. .
 hell i need to find where i put the power cord to my computer so i can put some pics up
~steve

just remember "thier are no stupid questions
just stupid people asking questions" 

[FuriouSly]

Hi there..  nice "Old School" collection..  You can just look at old bikes for hours and almost get a feel for what the designers where thinking when the made them.  Such simple bikes.  Have fun and be safe.

I work on lots of bikes for friends, work in a mass spectrometry laboratory, and I am a physics/mathematics student at the University of Arizona.

Yikes, I am good at looking up big words in the dictionary... hehe.

Sly

[idrinkmercury]

Alright all,

The bike is done!

I repainted all the plastic (tank too) with krylon fusion plastic paint. I put on new tires (thanks to the great tire article). I scrapped all the old heater hoses, replaced them with good silicone hoses. I redid some gaskets, cables, rubber, filters, etc. Thanks to cam, I now have a speedometer (it only goes to 99mph though, lol). I patched up some shoddy exhaust joints, wet through all body fasteners/exaust brackets on bike and replaced with nylon locknuts. 

Thanks for all the help with my bike!

All I need for the 500 is some numbers! How bout #500?

Just look in my gallery to see the pics.

87 kx500

[idrinkmercury]

So here are the pics:

http://www.kxriders.com/coppermine/index.php?cat=10895

I cannot wait to take it out tomorrow, I even bought a green jersey

[MadKaw]

WOW is she ever green! nice job man! definately ready for some numbers. perhaps the elemental table # for mercury.

[idrinkmercury]

The Krylon Fusion (C),(R),(TM), (whatever), paint does a nice job with the plastic. If you have a good rotary sander and wetsand the plastic beforehand, it gives good results. It kinda sucks that they have such a limited number of colors (you could easily determine that I used ". I will definitely buy a few cans of the red to paint my old honda Elsinore (CR250-R).

you can find them here: (or at ace or any other store)
http://www.metropartsmarket.com/krylon/krylonpaint-c11.html

I clearly used "hunter green" and the *ahem*..."safety blue." I ended up buying two cans of green and one of blue. I will have enough blue left over to do the radiator shrouds on the CR. The cans run about $4.50 a pop, but that is still cheaper than maybe $300 for new plastic.

Oh yeah, I also did the upholstery job myself...is anyone a pro at this? I need to learn how to do motorcycle upholstery well (on a dirtbike some wrinkles will fly, but not on anything else)--I have quite a bit of seats to get covered.

[idrinkmercury]

Good Lord!

I survived my first ride on the Kx500. I will definitely need to re-evaluate the situation. That bike is nuts. I only weigh 165 and it just flies and jumps around and is very very wild. I have never had so much power avaliable to me. 

Anyways, I am still alive.

...I thought the power would be easy to contain or whatever...guess not...

Anyone remember their first serious rides on the KX? Do you get used to it?

[MadKaw]

hold on with both ass cheeks dude!