Couldn't help this one!
SOOO...heres mine.
Last summer Dave and I wanted a not so barn "barn find". My learner bike, something I could tear apart and rebuild virtually on my own. We are Greeves finatics, but also love older Hondas...Greeves are our 2 stroke loves, Hondas the 4 stroke loves.
Found a perfectly desperate bike, a 1997 Honda XR200R. The strange all white frame with a white 3 bar engine guard.
ROUGH!! She ran...barely and sounded horrible. Shifted...barely. Looked like she had been run through a ring of fire many times over!
Oil seeped freely from the CDI unit. I WAS IN LOVE...she was screaming to be saved.
So I tore into her. A brute had simply abused her. At some point they tore her open, plugged the oil hole that supply's the cam with oil and left a tiny oil plug out of the head. SO cam shot along with wearing the oil seal to the cdi out.
The right spring on the timing advance plate was off and wrapped completely around the spring on the left.
The clutch was brand new...however you must take great care in lining up the actuator properly. When I opened up the case, the pressure plate upper left corner was completely broken off and still attached to the actuator.
BRUTE! How this bike ran and shifted, even poorly is way beyond me!
Sooo got an entire head, cdi, carb, engine guard (her's was cracked). Got new engine mount bolts.
Tore her down, sanded, primed and repainted. All new accesories...seat, grips, levers, cables, plastic etc...bark bars, and a supertrapp exhaust...also replaced all camparts.
Get her back together....serious carb issues....turns out there is an oring on the piolet jet...NIGHTMARE!!!! She also smoked like a BBQ.
In the end...New Mikuni with no orings...still smoked like a BBQ....SO pulled her apart....first time around we all missed the very shallow, but there ring grooves on the cylinder....so off I go to find out about getting it bored and an oversize piston...
GUESS what, they bored the 185 to get the 200, cylinder not boreable.
Sooo I got a new cylinder.
Decide, ya know, I didn't change out the lower cam sprocket...might as well now that I have the engine apart.
Sooo this weekend...YEAH..gonna get her back together and fire her up....got the new lower cam sprocket out...too big...what the heck, I saw Matt at Honda pull the skematics up...right year and make...
I call Matt...he asks for the serial number off the lower cases...ooops, his exact words were...
"Tammy, I think you got a Frankenstien bike there...the crank case number is that of a XL125S...now Honda did use the same cases for the XL125s, the XR185 and the XR200R but only early to mid 80's.....I would say that's not a XR200R engine. Definitely a FRANKENSTEIN BIKE."
I LOL soo hard. BUT...I have the barrel that says 195cc's and every other part I got I used the 1997 Honda XR200R.....
A little research has proven the following.....Honda alot like Greeves...had a ton of those cases around....rather than retool the factory etc...they took the XL125S cases, used them on the XR185...then when they simply bored the 185 out to release a new 200 cc bike....guess what...yeah thats right...that is why the XL125s and the XR200R are 6 speeds.
SOOO don't be affraid or ashamed to own one of the many models of the apptly named and much sought after "FRANKENSTIEN MODELS"
I have to add that this bike is a BLAST...one of the last few trail riding freindly bikes....she rocks and handles lik a dream....hate to admitt it, I love my RED the CRF150F....but the XR is worlds ahead of her and has a much more radical top end...with that sweet low end.
The suspension is a God send..bike stands just shy of the CRF230F, but is soo mujshc softe
Bottom Line...when Dave gets his 84 XR250R going...the 200R is mine, all mine...