Jeff Ware starts this V-twin two-stroke engine build.

Jeff was once thin, attractive and young. He wants to be so again, with a VJ22 RGV250. Don’t we all, Jeff? Don’t we all mate...

Believe it or not, there was a time when I was thin, fit, young and an aspiring road racer. It was back in the 1990s, before I discovered beer, meat pies, more meat pies and more beer. Back then, the weapon of choice was an RGV250M and despite racing all types of bikes for the 20 or more years that followed, the RGV days stuck. I loved that first RGV and I owned and raced a few through the 1990s, along with Aprilia RS250S, in the popular 250 Production class here. As a result, I had the pleasure of spending most nights of my teen years rebuilding RGV engines! Fast forward to my early 40s and I’m still in love with those bikes. So I decided to restore an Aprilia RS250 I had, which you have read about, and also to keep an eye out for a cheap wrecked RGV250 to one day restore. To start raising the required funds, I decided to first make use of the spares that I had collected in the 1990s and see what could be saved, sold or had to be thrown out. In the end I built a fantastic virtually new motor that I was able to sell for $3500 AUD: not bad at all. So, I headed down to the shed, opened the fridge and picked the scab off a cold tinnie. After I drank it, I laid out all of my RGV stuff so that I could get my head around what was there. That made me thirsty, so I grabbed another amber ale and looked at stuff. I looked and looked and I drank a lot. Eventually I realised I could built an entire engine. I’d just need a few new bits and enough beer. I headed inside and let The Boss know that I’d be in the shed for the winter, if she needs me but not to let the kids down there as there are ‘dangerous fumes’ around. Happy days. So here is what I did. My engine(s) were already stripped down and so I am going to run you through the build process, with a few tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years that have made these engines more reliable, at least in my experience. For me this was all about budget. I had no cash in the tin, so to speak, so the goal was to build a great engine using the best parts I had and, if required, new parts. The first task was the huge job of washing everything and getting things laid out in an orderly enough way so as to be able to pick the good from the bad and to see what was missing. I got that done and got my list together. Fortunately, I only needed a few powervalve parts as those little buggers are the most expensive engine components in the J208/VJ22 motor. I had a crank, so that was great, and just about everything else including new cylinders and a set of new pistons. Now here is an interesting fact: the pistons were spare pistons Andrew Pitt had kept from his 250 Production days in the 1990s.

Yes, Andrew Pitt former World Supersport champ. We raced together and a few years ago his dad, Carl, sent me a bunch of RGV stuff he’d kept for 20 years! The crankshaft was very low hours and low miles, out of a wreck. I had bought it years ago on ebay for 100 quid. They now cost up to two grand here in OZ. Bargain! Other fundamental parts I had were cylinders, a huge tub of them left over from my racing years and there was a good one in there. I had to buy one new cylinder. I had studs and I had two good cylinder-heads. Crankcases were fortunately a matching pair so that was lucky. They had had a con-rod poke through from the rearcylinder so a weld and machine repair was done (a carton of beer for a mate handy

with a TIG sorted that out). That just left boxes of gears, bolts, nuts, springs, bearings and circlips to sort through and put in order. The process had to be done slowly and with care, I hate doing things twice and as they say there are only two ways to do things, the right way and the wrong way! I had to spend a full weekend washing parts and blowing them off with compressed air. Then I had to inspect and choose the best of the parts on hand, which was not easy. Once I had my virtually complete engine laid out, another full day was spent cleaning gasket surfaces and running taps through threads or dies over studs, making sure there were no surprises ahead. Said damaged case was then repaired and once I had it all in front of me on the bench (I used a bike hoist), I began triple checking what needed to be ordered. Firstly, if you are familiar with an engine you can pick up a few things on your first look over. So I did that first. Grabbed a cuppa (of beer – almost got you there),

Any excuse to put in a generic shot of a beautiful RGV250 is not to be missed.

This case was well and truly stuffed but fortunately you can see I had another that could be repaired and used in the engine build. I also had J208 Aprilia stamped engine covers, which was great.

BELOW: Seems to be something missing on this crankshaft! Just as well I had another good crank I bought off ebay.

This is just some of the J208 or VJ22 stuff I’d collected over the years and I soon realised it was wasted money that could be turned into cash for my RG500 or future RGV resto. It was a big job sorting it all though!

This J208 bottom end had been sitting around for years but going off the engine mounting rubbers it had not spent much time in use as these flog out and get quite loose after high miles.

BELOW: I had 17 used barrels and found one good one, I bought a new one for the rear cylinder. Quite an expensive amount of blow ups in that tub!

That feeling when all of the new parts for an engine build arrive. Happy days and a good excuse to crack a beer!

Powervalve parts everywhere this is only some of what I had.

There are a few complete gearboxes in there somewhere!

Clutch parts all over the place. In the end I found new springs and good plates, just had to buy a few single ones to complete the clutch basket.

Choose a selector fork? I still had to buy one but you can’t win them all. I should have been more sympathetic with my gearshifting when I was 19!