XR50F done

I had a couple hours free today since is was so blasting hot and my son got sick. Too hot to do anything and too sick to go anywhere? Yippee!! Me time!!

I finished producing a podcast and worked on the XR one last time.

It has been giving me troubles a little trying to get it running, and it really bugged me that the manual shows a #58 main jet, but this one has no such set up. The needle jet didn’t look like it was machined for a main jet.

Regardless. I couldn’t get it to idle and I felt like it was a float problem or something in a carb passage.

I pulled the carb off and sure enough, the float seemed fine, but something had made it into the needle jet. That explains why it was not running for more than a few seconds at a time.

After I blasted some carb cleaner down the jet and reassembled it, XR ran like a dream, and all I had to do was tune it. Now the idle is set and it’s at least running.

I also hit all the plastics with Meguiar’s plastic cleaner and polish, reassembled the body, and threw on the new Motion Pro front brake cable.

Took it for a couple of rips around the block, and it’s finally ready to go back to Wiggin’s house for his daughter (or him) to rip around on.

Nothing feels better than to finally get this bike home. I’ve had it for 11 months, and only got to work on it for roughly 10 hours in that time.

The “10 minutes here, and hour here”overhaul includes:

• Completely removing the motor twice, tearing down the top end to clean the rust out and hone the cylinder, and pulling the carb off at least 3-4 times to clean and inspect.
• Remove and replace ignition switch with rocker switch since Wiggins doesn’t have the key. Remove hot wire job that he used to start it with, and installed a kill switch. I don’t know how he was going to stop it when he was done riding… pull the spark plug cap off every time?
• I pulled both wheels off- The front one so I could get the head/cylinder off before I realized it was easier to just pull the motor. The rear one had to be pulled so that I could replace a broken axle adjuster. Now there’s a fresh set. And the front brake cable was rusted/seized so it was replaced.
• Replaced handlebars with some red anodized ones that match the bike’s color. I also broke a brake lever trying to bend it back to stock, so it’s been replaced with a new longer one that should be easy for Wiggins’ daughter to pull. Also the new aforementioned kill switch sits nicely up here.
• Lastly I cleaned all of the plastics and installed a new hardware kit.

I left the following undone even though I would have done it if it were my bike: new seat cover, new chain, maybe replace the stator cover that Wiggins or his dad JB Welded a big crack on.

In the end, after 10 hours and $150 in parts, this looks like a garbage kid’s bike that wasn’t taken care of. I would not pay full asking price on Craigslist or FB Marketplace…. But you should have seen it before- and it didn’t even run.