- Location
- Grand Junction, CO
I dragged this thing home the other day, came up for sale locally (kinda.... Crested Butte, 2.5 hrs away) for a decent price and ended up getting it for pretty cheap ($600) after the owner said that the suspension F & R needed serious attention, as well as several other things. It's a 2002 KTM 200 EXC with a 6 speed transmission. Apparently the PO owned it for awhile, then sold it and the new owners let it sit for 3-4 years not getting ridden. He bought it back, but time and all the leaks hadn't helped it's condition.
It idles real high, leaks gas at the petcock BAD, leaks brake fluid out of the rear line/fitting, the clutch slave cyl leaks, the fork seals are totally blown out, as are the rear shocks seals. The plastics were pretty beatup and faded, the tires are pretty shot, etc. It does fire up pretty easily though, seems to have decent power although the PO had no idea when the top-end was last done. It does have some nice aftermarket parts, Works Connection frame guards, ProCircut Platinum 2 pipe with ProCircut silencer and spark arrestor, aluminum pipe guard, aluminum skid plate, MSR rear brake guard/fin, bar risers and ProTaper Pastrana bars with newer ProTaper Pillow Top grips, case guard over the slave cyl., a Twin Air air filter, running Engine Ice and a bunch of extra parts like new fork seals & bushings, replacement silencer packing, extra fluids, etc, etc.
I bought this on a whim, don't really need a dirt bike (still have a shoulder injury that causes me pain) and I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do with it.... fix & flip it (I think it could be worth $2000-2500 all fixed up??) or hang onto it as a cheap technical trails & desert bike. I would love an FMF Fatty pipe and a Rekluse clutch, but both those items are big money for this bike. I'm going to try to keep this project cheap, since I'm not sure if it'll work for me and my needs. I'm worried about a 200's power and my 235# weight. If I decided to keep it around, it would be awesome to have Eric Gorr work his magic on some porting work and possibly a big bore kit, but I'm not sure how much bigger you can make the 200... I understand it's already a bored out 125.
My plans for now are to fix the fork seals & bushings, either fix or replace the rear shock and hopefully upgrade the springs for a heavier rider (if needed), repack the silencer, clean out the carb and get the idle back to where it should be, possibly new chain & sprockets with a gear change (currently running 14 x 48 gearing, seems high??), probably add a heavy flywheel weight to give the 200 a more mild power delivery and better bottom end torque.... I hear these are pretty pipey and a quick ride around my house seems to agree. I'm hoping a FWW will mellow out the ProCircut pipes higher power range. It could use some hand guards and possibly a new seat cover, too.
Here's how it picked it up...
First thing I did was haul the bike to the car wash and hit it hard with degreaser and lots of hot, soapy water. Once home and in the shop, I hit the faded and scratched plastics with the heat gun, then gave them a light coat of WD-40 and they looks much better! Also worked on polishing the pipe, silencer, swing arm and other misc parts.
And as it now sits...
I don't expect this to be near the bike my '08 KTM 300 XC was, I realize the technology just wasn't the same back in 2002 and this is a different bike. If I'm lucky, I can flip this one and be able to buy Cheston's 300! :greg:
It idles real high, leaks gas at the petcock BAD, leaks brake fluid out of the rear line/fitting, the clutch slave cyl leaks, the fork seals are totally blown out, as are the rear shocks seals. The plastics were pretty beatup and faded, the tires are pretty shot, etc. It does fire up pretty easily though, seems to have decent power although the PO had no idea when the top-end was last done. It does have some nice aftermarket parts, Works Connection frame guards, ProCircut Platinum 2 pipe with ProCircut silencer and spark arrestor, aluminum pipe guard, aluminum skid plate, MSR rear brake guard/fin, bar risers and ProTaper Pastrana bars with newer ProTaper Pillow Top grips, case guard over the slave cyl., a Twin Air air filter, running Engine Ice and a bunch of extra parts like new fork seals & bushings, replacement silencer packing, extra fluids, etc, etc.
I bought this on a whim, don't really need a dirt bike (still have a shoulder injury that causes me pain) and I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do with it.... fix & flip it (I think it could be worth $2000-2500 all fixed up??) or hang onto it as a cheap technical trails & desert bike. I would love an FMF Fatty pipe and a Rekluse clutch, but both those items are big money for this bike. I'm going to try to keep this project cheap, since I'm not sure if it'll work for me and my needs. I'm worried about a 200's power and my 235# weight. If I decided to keep it around, it would be awesome to have Eric Gorr work his magic on some porting work and possibly a big bore kit, but I'm not sure how much bigger you can make the 200... I understand it's already a bored out 125.
My plans for now are to fix the fork seals & bushings, either fix or replace the rear shock and hopefully upgrade the springs for a heavier rider (if needed), repack the silencer, clean out the carb and get the idle back to where it should be, possibly new chain & sprockets with a gear change (currently running 14 x 48 gearing, seems high??), probably add a heavy flywheel weight to give the 200 a more mild power delivery and better bottom end torque.... I hear these are pretty pipey and a quick ride around my house seems to agree. I'm hoping a FWW will mellow out the ProCircut pipes higher power range. It could use some hand guards and possibly a new seat cover, too.
Here's how it picked it up...
First thing I did was haul the bike to the car wash and hit it hard with degreaser and lots of hot, soapy water. Once home and in the shop, I hit the faded and scratched plastics with the heat gun, then gave them a light coat of WD-40 and they looks much better! Also worked on polishing the pipe, silencer, swing arm and other misc parts.
And as it now sits...
I don't expect this to be near the bike my '08 KTM 300 XC was, I realize the technology just wasn't the same back in 2002 and this is a different bike. If I'm lucky, I can flip this one and be able to buy Cheston's 300! :greg:
