YAMAHA TZR250
He’s a spoilt git who’s used to brand-new bikes on our sister title Fast Bikes, so how will Charlie get a TZR250 ready for the last race of the Yamaha Past Masters season?
Charlie Oakman on his resto-racer rebuild.
I’m Charlie Oakman and I need to introduce myself as this new face appears in CMM for the first time. work on CMM’S sister title Fast Bikes magazine, a title that you may be aware of and one that featured some of the younger bikes seen within this magazine, albeit way back at their birth in the 1990s. I fell into running Fast Bikes’ advertising as I had a bike licence and some sales skills, so they gave me the commercial side of the mag to run. The fools! Since then my life has been very different, running staff long termers, participating in European tours and I’ve even been rolled out for experiences that have sharpened my skills and added a proficiency that I wish I had learnt in my teens when I had rubber-like bones. As it currently stands, I am 43 and have a real hankering to get a couple of monkeys off of my back. One is to experience the utter joy of two-strokes that the better informed generation bangs on about (yup, you lot) and the second is to get it on a grid and get racing. So that’s the plan, build a two-stroke race bike and race it: easy huh? Thing is, I have been surrounded by brand-spanking new machinery for the past 10 years, riding bikes that are less than a year old oozing tech, reliability and performance but all that is about to change as I try and get a Yamaha TZR250 2MA back into some sort of shape ready to race in the Yamaha Past Masters series. Now, my knowledge of two-strokes is limited to my PX-125 Vespa commuter that I had some 25 years ago for London
transportation and a smattering of off-road riding (don’t ask) but being the main man when it came to advertising, it just so happens that it was talking to advertisers that helped devise this plan. My friend Giles Harwood, the guvnor at www. bikehps.com introduced me to the Yamaha Past Masters Racing Club, a series designed to make the most of the remaining Yamaha two-strokes that are out there. Giles’s talk of a jovial paddock was evidenced by the friendly nature of the (closed) Facebook group, where over the winter people have been trading parts experience and advice. All of this has filled me with confidence that this is the very place to feed my curiosity and get me out there on the grid. So where and when are the races? Well, there are eight rounds across the year, starting at Brands Hatch and visiting Cadwell Park, Silverstone. Donington Park and Oulton Park before my target round, the last of the season held at Snetterton on the weekend of October 7 and 8. Ideally I can get to an earlier round but I have to be realistic as the bike is nowhere near built yet! (Charlie… the riders will also be well ‘on it’ by the end of the year, too mate! Bertie) So to the bike itself, and what are the odds that all forces would align and we would have a Yamaha TZR250 2MA sitting downstairs at Fast Bikes towers in numerous boxes? Well we did. This belongs to Benjamin Kubas-cronin (Beej to the rest of us) a senior Fast Bikes tester and deputy editor. It’s a project from a couple of years back that went on a bit of a back-burner and has a very personal history for him. First riding this very TZR in the late 1980s, Beej tried to buy it off of a mate but ran out of cash due to a biblically-sized speeding fine. He finally managed to acquire it from the back of a motorcycle graveyard on Jersey with the ambition of reliving his childhood. I asked him how he would feel about seeing it up and running again: “Well Charlie, that depends, really. If I’m seeing it running but it’s also cartwheeling through a gravel trap, I probably won’t be feeling too chipper about it! But I am looking forward to hearing it run through my old F3 pipes once more as the last time I did was in the early 1990s so we’re not far off three decades ago! I’m pretty pleased to see you heading towards a race track, and even more stoked I won’t have to build it myself.” So there was my first warning and my education has truly started. This bike represents the first of the TZR series that appeared in 1986, though this particular model is a 1988-89 import. The TZR was the first production two-stroke to lap the Isle of Man at over 100mph and was an extremely capable bike out of the box. Unfortunately it is now in several boxes warranting it slightly less capable than it once was! For the build I will need help (I’ve been christened ‘Fast Berk’ by the CMM crew as a result) and despite the knowledge that you guys all do these things yourselves I feel a little inadequate asking someone to do it for me, but I need to learn and will be as deep in this process as I can be, given the deadlines I am working towards. The way I look at it, we all need help on occasions and this is definitely one of those occasions, so please be gentle with me! Luckily for me I have cashed in a few favours with Phoenix Motorcycles in Trowbridge, our local Yamaha dealer, who has agreed to get it built and running at the very least: with the caveat that I really have to help. Fair enough! To be fair, over the past five years Beej has had a few things done to it. The rolling frame has been powder-coated, and it has had a complete suspension overhaul by Maxton suspension. He even had the foresight to stick new Bridgestone rubber on those white wheels.
The engine should be in pretty good nick too, having been rebuilt with new pistons, rings, pins, seals and bearings by Richard Shepherd, the son of well renowned two-stroke tuner and builder the late-great Terry Shepherd. A name that, like much of this era is new to me, but anyone with a knowledge of bike building and racing of this time would give their right arm for a Shepherd engine. So, so far so good then, the ideal racing series, the basis of a competitive bike and some good friends and talented professionals, all helping me out. It’s all systems go then! The chaps from Phoenix have picked up the TZR and its various boxes of bits. Within a couple of hours Wayne Philips at Phoenix had already loosely fitted the engine, switchgear, brake and calipers and found a few omissions. The exhaust manifold for the super-expensive F3 system that Beej has owned for 30 years is missing, the radiator is knackered, the fuel tank is full of rust and there is no key to look into it to see if this is terminal. The carbs are ‘nasty’ and need to be ultra-sonically cleaned and despite the engine overhaul its being dry of oil for this period of time is a major concern. All that said, Wayne likes a challenge and as we stand over the bike he admits: “I think I am looking forward to working on it, I mean its all old-school isn’t it? Not too many electronics to worry about, you just have to get your head into old-school gear. Pitfalls? Well, it’s a two-stroke and it hasn’t been started in years. Any old two-stroke is going to be temperamental!” Overall this is an ambitious project. All things are in place for it to be completed but even with a racing licence, a spot on the grid and a competitive bike I will still need to get my head around tussling round a circuit with a group of racers that have most of the season behind them. The phrase ‘if I can do it, anyone can’ is oft over-used but I feel in this case it is 100% appropriate. After all, you can hire a TZR from YPM for a race weekend and that would take all the pain out of the bike building and purchasing for a similar final result. However, with the opportunity to be involved in the process of learning this bike as it is built and passing on this experience to CMM readers was too good an opportunity to miss!