project bike

I thought this might be of interest to some people.  This was a project of mine about four years ago.  It's a 1982 Honda XL250R.  I bought it from the son of a friend of mine who had blown the piston into the valves.  I stripped the bike down to the frame, cleaned & painted the frame, swingarm, etc, replaced the wiring harness (it had been converted to straight dirt bike by someone), picked up all the necessary parts and basically put it back together as a working dualsport.  I had thought of doing the engine work myself, but I ended up having a local shop here do that for me.  It was a fun project that took me a couple of years from start to finish.  Just something to tinker on with no end date planned.

But riding it for a summer before selling it gave me the dirtbike bug again, which eventually lead me to picking up a WR250R just last week.

That's a good looking bike. I rode one many years ago. Nice trail bike, bit low on power, but ran a LONG time if you changed the oil.

Ya your screwed, them bugs are hard to get rid of, ive had it now for 50 years, hahaha have fun, post some pic`s of the new bike, oh ya the honda looks pretty nice.

Got spring fever here in Michigan, Snowing as we speak. Been thinking of a project bike for down time. Have three minibikes in the attic of the garage for couple years. 1960's RUPP, a doodlebug, and a no name frame. All rolling chassis just need a side shaft motor and a full restore. one day, one day.

Nice, and it brings back memories for me:

I owned a 1982 XL-500R, a bike that was the 500cc version of your bike.

I also owned a 1981 XR-250R, the off-road bike that your XL was based on, and compared to the 1972 Yamaha AT-2 I'd been riding for the two years previous, it was like entering the Space Age.

Awesome bike. I haven't seen this one for a lone time already.

Impressive bike!