Honda GB 250 TT
Part 2
by
Pete Monks
The first thing to go had to be the
headlight "eyelid" ! horrible! Whilst playing around with that I realised
that the headlight mount brackets were also wrong, modern bits of
tin.........was it possible that an alloy bracket from the TT or XBR500 might be
employed here? Handlebars were standard upright genuine Honda issue for
the Clubman but would not suit the "cafe racer" thoughts running through my
mind, what about a set of ace bars or perhaps some Norton straights? Straights
seemed the obvious choice and a set was duly obtained along with the correct
chrome headlight that's really in need of chroming but that can come later. Good
old ebay!
The alloy mount problem was solved with the acquisition of a pair of brackets
from Germany, XBR ones but without the indicator holes in them. Early versions I
think.
The "normal" XBR brackets have a flat on them and a hole
drilled through the centre to take the plastic indicators but what I had in mind
was the correct TT style indicators the GB would have been issued with for this
year of bike and then to drill these German "blank" brackets to suit the
indicator stalks, so the search was on for indicators. If you look at the first
couple of pics in part one you will see the indicators are the modern type, the
fad for clear and very small lenses has passed me by I am afraid, what I want is
to be seen !!
When the brackets arrived, as expected they were too big, i.e. the diameter of
the stanchions on the XBR are bigger than the GB250 by 2mm. At first I though
they way to solve the problem was to make up alloy sleeves but I decided against
this when I realised that the XBR brackets have rubber inserts in them. The way
to make these brackets fit on the GB250 was relatively easy, increase the size
of the rubber sleeve by 2mm, so this is what I did, problem solved.
The other item that was missing from the bike were the front fork gaiters and
Dave Silver Spares kindly tracked a set down....at a premium though! I can't
tell you what the price was as I need to prevent my other half finding out and
killing me!!
The indicators came from a hot tip, from a friend, about a company breaking a
GB250. When I spoke to them it turned out that they had two of them some years
ago and still had a couple of boxes of bits......the upshot of that conversation
was a box of bits arriving one morning containing such things as the correct
alloy indicators, a tool box and a main stand and some other parts!
The pictures show the modified front end and new bars for comparison with the part 1, of this epic.
One of the problems of having a bike that
is "rare" is that any enquiry to proprietary suppliers are met with blank looks
or mostly unanswered emails. What is useful is to find a parts listing as
I have done lots of times for the rest of my bikes. This enables you to trawl
the net and suppliers, using the relevant part numbers, for the required bits
which may well have been used another bike or two from the same manufacturer.
It is not often that a parts book cannot be
obtained...............except in the case of one GB250 Clubman !!!
Try as I might I have been unable to get a book except for a CB250RSE version
which is useful for engine bits but nothing else.
Whilst speaking to Dave Silvers Spares it turned out they have one !!!! but not
for the likes of me, it is for their use only and trying to get it off them was
impossible. So, my plea to the world is " Has anyone got a parts book for
this bike? "
Whilst trying to track down parts for the
back end such as the grabrail and also looking for a main stand, silencers
(mufflers) and a chrome chain-guard it became apparent that there are several
versions of the bike that have been released over the years as this bike was
still around in 2001, maybe later than that, and made in Brazil to boot. One of
the changes, over the years of production of the bike was to the exhaust system,
a 2 into 1 system was adopted along with several body work differences, however,
I am looking for the 2 into 2 version which is correct for this 1983 bike,
similar to the XBR500. Some months into the search for an exhaust it became
apparent that I was not going to find one, again, similar to the XBR500 in that
there are no headers obtainable for that bike also.
So, with that in mind, I decided to use the reverse cone megas that came with
the bike but modify the existing headers to allow the silencers (mufflers) to
sit further bike down the bike and to be upswept in cafe racer style instead of
straight out as the part 1 pictures show.
A local, bike exhaust manufacturer came up with some
stainless tube with short bends which were modified by stretching the new pipe
to fit over the existing headers and then welded tight to the chrome headers.
This allowed the short megas to sit further back and angled upwards and slightly
out. See the rear view pictures.
Another stage complete, now what about that
seat and grab-rail.................main-stand, toolbox, rear light etc etc etc
etc ...................another day I think.