Mr Motivator

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.