Bought Home a 1977 Yamaha YZ250 MotoCross Bike
Well, ya just never know what you mind find around here in Southern California and I came across a 1977 Yellow YZ250 Yamaha at an Auction and ended up bringing her home, this old girl has sat out since the 1980’s and left to just sit and soak up the sun, well- I could not resist and the reason why is:
When me and my brother were teenagers back in the UK, we used to ride old pieces of crap just to get out in the countryside and ride, we lived near the American Airbases and often spoke to many servicemen about the USA and how cool it would be to live there etc. We knew some American lads not far from us and one of them gave me a Dirt bike magazine, this was about 1975/6 and when we clapped our eyes on all the MotoX stuff, we were hooked.
I remember Bob Hurricane Hannah Grabbing the 250 championship on the Very same model and year as I have right now. In 1977, Hannah hopped aboard a stock production Yamaha 250 and won the Florida Winter-AMA Series and the AMA Supercross Championship in impressive fashion, taking six of the 10 rounds. By the end of the AMA Nationals season, he was in contention for the 125cc, 250cc and Open Class titles — becoming the first rider to win races in all three classes in just one season.
Hannah would go on to win the AMA Supercross title for three straight years. Known for his tireless training regimen and fierce demeanor on race day, his tell-it-like-it-is, never-say-die attitude toward racing endeared him to hundreds of thousands of fans, and he became the first genuine superstar of Supercross racing.
So for me now to have a 1977 YZ250 is kind of surreal and I hope to be able to do it up, maybe get a top end, rebuild forks etc and maybe a D pipe etc and race the Biltwell 100 someday, maybe even find another YZ250 and get my brother to fly out here so we can race together, just another tick in the box of things we wanted to do in life.
To many, they wont get the sense of excitement over this pee yellow 250 dirt bike, but this is out teenage OMG dream of owning one and sure, I have had CR250 and XR and XL moden dirt bikes but this was the thing to look out for when you saw a race on the tv.
So I loaded the 250 up from the Auction and bought her home with a happy smile on my face, have the pink slip too which is quite rare to find these days, of course I have to see if the bike is even in one piece, I have no history of it but I do know it was parked up in the early 1980’s.
I would like to get this old girl going, I mean, she is now 46 years old, so many parts will not be available, so I shall be looking around for parts and maybe some of you reading this may even have parts in the shed for this bike as you may of owned one or Dad or Grandad did?
Today’s dirt bikes ride like cadillacs compared to the 70’s bikes but these still pulled hard and you knew you had to watch the power band when it came in, that’s the fun I think, check out the old spark plug holder and wrench on the frame.
Classic set up here, throttle Cable through the number plate, so old school its got to stay on this bike, hope I can find NOS parts for this machine.
Just thought I would share as some of you may dig this old dirt bike, I know that I do and so does my brother. Nothing quite like the smell of Castrol R oil or Spectra and will keep you posted on my new ride.
