Two Stroke Motocross
Two Stroke Motocross Forum => Technical => Topic started by: KXwestYZ on January 04, 2010, 10:34:43 AM
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Hi I was hoping someone might be able to help offer some advice about my KX 250 yr 2000
When I got the bike it was pristine and I got a real bargain however as it was my first bike I didnâ??t know how to look after it properly and after I rode it in the wet a couple of times I didnt clean it after every ride! So then 2 weeks later I found after 2 weeks in my shed & a lot of the bits that used to look flawless (rims / spokes / hubs / engine etc) were now discoloured and tarnished. Iâ??ve added some pics so you can see what I mean at the bottom â?? not a pretty sight..
I just spent the last week taking as much of the bike to bits as I can (plastics, exhaust, fuel tank, carb off to get at engine casing) I then cleaned it over 2 days as best as I could with white spirit to remove all grime and also soapy water to rinse through.
My question is, can anything be done to get the engine casing looking good again or am I stuck with it like this from here on in unless I buy new parts? On the KX the engine it used to have like a silver paint / sheen on it and this has started to peel off the top part of my engine (see pic 1) & the further you go down the worse the discolouration becomes and on underside of the engine itâ??s at its worst.
I was just wondering about the best way to sort out the bike and if it is rescuable - cos I want to get it back to how it was when I first got it, I think the spokes / rims and hubs have pretty much had it â?? I think I can get the wheels respoked for £50 each wheels and found a place who can powder coat the rims / hubs for £150
But I donâ??t know what to do about the engine. Does anyone know what best thing to do is? I thought the coating was just a silver paint but someone at a garage I called said it might have been a thin chrome alloy they put on in the factory? So I thought I could get the engine taken off and get it resprayed with the same type of coating but not sure if that is possible? Or also I thought maybe the thing to do would be to use some sort of polishing product, which would also take whats left of the silver coating off and try to polish the base metal? I heard autosol mentioned by a few people to get it shiny and a nice surface back. Iâ??m not sure which bits are aluminium and which bits are steel and which parts can be rescued! The underside of rear brake callipers for example are looking really bad even after I did my best to clean them..
Well hope someone can help â?? I love the bike and want to try and sort it out..
Thanks Nick
(http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t204/westyz/Photo0093.jpg)(http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t204/westyz/Photo0099.jpg)(http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t204/westyz/Photo0100.jpg)
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since the engine casting is ruff its gone take ages whit auto sol
what i did was used A rotating steel brush
then scotch bright pad to make it dull again
many times wd-40 and scotch brite pad works just fine
on smooth surfaces like tripple clamps and levers autosol works good
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Thanks for the advice Metal :) - I've had a KTM sx 250 and CR 125 before and they dont seem to have the same silver coating on the engine like KX's do. If I had the money I'd prob try to pay a garage to respray it if it was possible, although here in London there arent any garages that know anything about motocross..
Will try WD-40 / scotch pad / steel brush and cross my fingers the result is good! I dont have the knowledge to take the engine completely off the frame to get absolutely everywhere but can get to 95% of the engine by taking the plastics / fuel tank etc off...
If anyone else has any thoughts or alternative suggestions / experiences about this I'd appreciate to hear them :)
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Boy do I feel for you on this.... What the heck was in that water??? :o
Personally I'd use the WD-40 and scotchbrite pad first...
As for taking the motor out of the frame, it's not that hard. Just takes some time.
Please let us know how it turns out! Good Luck!
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Thanks for reply John - will try the WD and scotch pad tomorrow. As for what was in the water, I think maybe because I ride on the highway as my bikes road legal it was maybe a mix of road salt and water that caused it, also I think that the KX engine is maybe more suseptable to get easily corroded than other models, they have this thin silver coating / paint on from the factory and underneath that its not same metal as my KTM SX which seemed more resilient to getting marks on it.
I spoke to a garage in Birmingham England which is an MX respray shop and they said they race KX's and the silver paint stuff comes off on their bikes so they use some stuff called nitromorse to get the silver paint off then use autosol to buff / polish the bare metal..
I just hope I can sort it - thanks to you both for help so far... I searched internet for anyone else with a similar problem and looks like I'm pretty much the only guy its ever happened to lol, This bike is my pride and joy so fingers crossed..
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Typical Kawasaki. My KX125's engine cases and cover started to peel after a while, so it's normal.If you don't like it, then you can just repaint it. No big deal. :)
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Cool! that was what I was hoping! :) I dont have the cash right now to do that, but knowing it's at least possible to take it back to factory condition is great...
When I look through the used bikes on ebay its near impossible to find a KX thats still in perfect condition - they are amazing bikes but seem to get scuffed easily (as I have found to my horror lol) but if you check for CR's and YZ's there are plenty of ones from as far back as 2001 that are still in near perfect condition..
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You should of seen the frame on my 125. It had the paint worn right off of it where the boots rub against the frame. But that's typical, although the bike was fast as hell when I put some $ in the motor.
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If your rubbing off the paint on your frame quite frequently, try Rustoleum Spray On Bed Liner, it comes in a rattle can and you can just prep the metal tape it off and spray it on, it works great and doesn't peel off like grip tape,. works like a charm, i'm also getting my frame for my KX powder coated!