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From: Sterkman, Rob [mailto:sterkman@evd.nl]
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2001
Subject: FW: pictures restored 1976 XL250
Hi Rick,
Some time ago I sent you a picture of my 1976 XL 250, at that time still
in need of restoration. By the way, you placed it in this old condition
in the picture gallery as XL 350, but it's XL 250. In the summertime I
took the bike apart and restored it with help of donorparts of a scrap
XL 250 that was bought together with this bike. So no need for endless
searches for missing parts, but everything complete within reach. I
discovered that many parts of the scrap bike like chain, chaindisc,
brakedrums, fenders, forklegs, wheels, etc were dirty but hardly used
and not damaged at all. Cleaning was just enough.
My airbox/batteryholder was eaten by rust but at the scrap bike it wasn't
even rusty. Amazing! So together with many other good parts I also took
the front forklegs and beautiful rear swinging arm (without the nasty
footsteps) from the scrap XL. Original gastank and sidecovers from my
own XL were just polished. The colour of the back mudguard changed from
ivory into silver metallic to fit to the colour of the front guard.
Crankcase covers and some parts of the frame were repainted.
Restoring this XL in fact was an easy and pleasant job to do.... The result is
that the XL is not in completely mint condition but I think more than
fair for the type of bike. As you notice on the pictures I made a little
concession: the exhaust system had holes like Swiss cheese, but I found
out that replacement of the original mufflers was expensive. But the BSM
muffler of the scrap XL was also new......so the decision was easy to
use the BSM Enduro and to be honest I like the look with the enduro
muffler better than with the original one.
Feel free to use these detailed pictures for your gallery.
Greetings from Gouda, the Netherlands
Rob Sterkman
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