Antique KDX help.

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jgas1
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Location: perryville ar

Antique KDX help.

Post by jgas1 »

I just bought an 83 KDX 250 in pretty good shape for its age, but am looking at spending way more than the bike is worth to restore it. Looking at the restoration costs, I have some seriously nutty ideas about using it to build a modern bike that looks like an antique. i think I can actually do this cheaper and have alot of fun with the bike. Kind of make a "sleeper" out of it.

My question is, does anyone here know of some good websites or places I can go to get good deals on original parts for it, and for later year KDXs? I have already looked at the AHRMA site and FRP (Fredette), which were some help but not much. It seems that they just didn't sell many 83 250s and parts are scarce.
david
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Post by david »

Your best bet is going to be ebay. You can still get some parts from the dealers. Service Honda has the best prices, but unfortunately they have dropped anything older than 1984 out of their parts lookup, but the 83/84 250 may share a lot of parts. A couple of years ago I could look up parts for my 175 but now I can't. Bike Bandit has the older listings, but they don't show the entire part number, so you can't cross reference the NOS stuff you find on ebay.

Good luck.
'81 KDX 175
'90 KDX 200
'07 Vulcan 2000 Classic LT (totaled 4/25/15)
'82 Honda GL500 (sold)
'96 ZXi 1100 JetSki
'98 STX 1100 JetSki
jgas1
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Location: perryville ar

Post by jgas1 »

Service Honda for Kaw parts? I'll take a look at their website. I have ridden one of their CR 500 motor-in a CR 250-frame conversions, quite a bike. My crazy idea is to find a 87-88 KDX 200, which is much easier to get parts for, and transplant the motor and rear shock, and maybe even fork. I have a set of DRZ forks which are conventional but quite a bit larger, but I might be able to figure out a conversion with some kind of clamps on the KDX frame. I am kind of a mad scientist, or maybe just not too smart, but I think it would be cool to have a bike that ran and handled like a modern bike but looked retro. Not as cool as just having a real nice restored or original 83, but the more I look at the one I bought the more I find wrong with it.

Another possibility could be to adapt the 83 plastic parts to an 87-88. I raced an 89 KDX from 90-93, and a buddy raced an 88 for the same years. His 88 was air cooled but just plain faster than mine. I bought pipes, silencers, rejetted, did airbox mods, didn't matter. My 89 handled slightly better in some ways, but not by much. He later had his 88 bored to a 240 with a cast iron sleeve and it was a rocket. He had to jet it pretty rich to keep it running cool, but it was faster than most water cooled 250s in the mid 90s, and lighter. Reliable too. I don't remember him having any lower end problems.

I'm getting old and slow and starting to like tinkering and doing strange things in the shop rather than just going fast all the time. Arthritis and ADHD and too many concussions make strange things happen.
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