Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1522963
22 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com 2018 Yamaha YZ250 - A Proper Restoration 2018 Yamaha YZ250 - A Proper Restoration By Kurt Flachbart By Kurt Flachbart We don't toss the word restora on around here lightly as it's so subject to interpreta on. The fact remains that most people's idea of a restora on is light years away from a true nut and bolt resto- ra on. Interes ngly enough, this project began with just a gas tank. Last winter, Seth McBlair of TrailTank in Beaverton, Oregon had reached out to us asking if we'd be interested in doing a feature on TrailT- ank's new 3.3-gallon oversized Yamaha YZ250 gas tank. Not having a YZ250 in the fleet at the me, I'd offered the tank to our friend Zach Shreves, owner of Moto Milano, a local shop in Windham, Maine. Zach is quite fond of the Yamaha YZ250 pla orm owning and racing many over the years. I was aware of an early 2000 model that he'd been thrashing and thought it might be a good fit for a TrailTank feature. Immediately, Zach recognized the fact that the tank was for a newer YZ and would not fit the bike we had in mind for the project. In true Moto Freak fashion, Zach set out to build a bike to fit the tank. The project began with a common theme. Some- one had purchased a new YZ250 back in 2018, hammered it for a number of years, and totally disassembled it with inten ons of restoring it. As you can guess, the project stalled shortly a er, and the owner went out and bought a new bike. Recognizing a diamond in the rough, Zach jumped on the deal and dove in headfirst disas- sembling each and every component down to the last nut and bolt, bearing and seals. The end result is what you see here in the pictures. The bare aluminum frame, subframe, swingarm, rear suspension linkage, and triple trees were sent out for powder coa ng. With a sinister-look- ing theme in mind, all the components were powder coated black.