Newly acquired GZ250

[jrou111]

Hello all! I just picked up a 2002 GZ250 from a neighbor for a couple hundred $. It had been sitting in their garage for several years. I'm planning on fixing it up and selling it, once I teach my wife to ride. :rawk:

[5th_bike]

Yay Welcome to the Forum ! ! ! :2tup:
If you have been here regularly, you know what to do:
- replace the tires
- replace the gas
- replace oil & filter
And a couple other things, others will fill in.

And I don't have to tell you that these little bikes really purr when they're clean !

[blaine]

Welcome to the family. :cool:

[Water Warrior 2]

Good grief, you have a brand new bike for a couple hundred bucks. Where am I when these deals come out of hiding?? You will absolutely need a new battery too.
Add new tubes when you get tires.
We will help you get it up to running order with some advice and a little TLC on your end. Welcome to the forum. The carb will be your biggest headache but we can solve that easily enough.

[alantf]

Wish I had that speedo. I've been riding/driving in a "kilometer" country for over ten years, but after doing forty years in a "miles" country, I still find that I'm mentally converting kilometers per hour into miles per hour so that i know how fast I'm really going. O_o

[Fawlty]

[c:102oodnj][/c:102oodnj]

Originally Posted by alantf

Wish I had that speedo. I've been riding/driving in a "kilometer" country for over ten years, but after doing forty years in a "miles" country, I still find that I'm mentally converting kilometers per hour into miles per hour so that i know how fast I'm really going. O_o

Yes Alan, I am the same. Pity they don't fit the same dual reading speedo on the European models, after all the UK is in Europe (or is it?), and still operates mph. It would appear that the North American models are fitted with the dual clock because the US has mph and I believe Canada operates kmh.

[blaine]

Originally Posted by Fawlty

[c:24wj5u7m][/c:24wj5u7m] I believe Canada operates kmh.

Yep.Canada is Kmh.We shifted from MPH in the early 70's.
:cool:

[Water Warrior 2]

Originally Posted by blaine

Yep.Canada is Kmh.We shifted from MPH in the early 70's.
:cool:

Actually it was the late 70's. The auto industry had a lot of fun in those days with anything metric. Initially the speedo registered in kilometers but the odometer registered in miles. A really great way to keep owners on their toes and create confusion for a couple years.
Then of course the conversion to metric for the nuts and bolts was another fiasco. Some stuff was metric and some wasn't. Metric fittings were painted blue for identification while under the hood. This carried on for years and years. Still does in many cases.
Anyone wanting to work in the auto industry as a mechanic had to buy nearly 2 times the amount of tools just to get their job done. It is still a screw up when we have 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 inch drives with assorted SAE and Metric sockets.
So we have Metric, SAE, JIS from Japan and some stuff that doesn't seem to fit anything.
Thanks to Alantf for telling us about JIS screw drivers and screw heads and how to make the regular screw drivers work on JIS heads. I used to curse at those darn Philips head screws every time I got close to them.
Maybe we should just convert to the Robertson head(a Canadian invention)for everything just to keep the tool companies busier with another product line.

[jrou111]

Thanks guys for the welcome. BTW, I got the title and it's actually a 2003. It has only been ridden 2 miles since 2005 when it was last registered.

Tonight I worked on the bike. I went from this...





To this...



And from this...



To this...







Carb should be back together tomorrow after it soaks 24 hours in Pine-Sol. The old battery was an AGM sealed unit and surprisingly is holding a charge...so far. The tank didn't have ANY rust or varnish inside, and the screens on the petcock valve were clean.

I've got a dual sport camp and ride trip this weekend, but I should be able to get it running on Sunday when I get back. My wife is eager to ride it!

[Rookie Rider]

Awesome, welcome to the forum Mr. Handyman.