YERF 250 swap
 

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customers piece , just started tearing it down.
250 swap
cage
front end mods
exhaust
should make for an interesting before and after, it's rough!

Probably best you started this after I sold mine. I'm willing to bet this thread is gonna give me second thoughts about selling my yerfie :D

What 250 engine?

I'll be watching this one for sure.

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it's gonna be a cn250 ,dual chain no reverse. i got this yerf running before and the custy is a regular. the swingarm/ motor will be from the "baby huey" yerf i built a few years back, it's posted on BN. "baby huey" is gonna get a bigger motor and a total IRS redo in the future if i ever get caught up. the custy didnt want to spring for reverse and "huey" didnt have it so it just made sense to sell him a proven package and save some time for me and money for him. i'm still brainstorming ideas for the front.
right now i'm just trying to get this stripped and to the sandblasters, i have 3 jobs sitting in the shop right now , a yerf engine rebuild, rewire and exhaust, this one and a yamabuggy that the owner tore the old wiring harness out of and ordered a new one from an i dont know what. i havent even had time to finish Amber's front end yet.

ur killing me jersey devil im suppose to be selling my yerf soon not thinking of putting a 250cc in it lol. That engine alone is pretty expensive and seem hard to come by correct me if im wrong?

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i have no idea why all u guys want to sell your yerfs, i love mine.
granted they take some innovation and lord knows ive got alot of that in mine, but even sitting in the same shop bay next to my 400 i cant bring myself to want to sell it and ive been offered good money for it too. i'm in motor transition too Jman. my bottom end came apart and i'm still contemplating motor wise what i want to do. last time we went riding locally i loaded it up making a racket from the bottom end and let my wife's kid run the snot out of it while it just got louder all day. finally pulled the motor 3 weeks ago and had a shot crank broken piston and a broken cylinder skirt. still she wouldnt quit though. all new SYC top end on a bottom w/ many many moons. oh well.
as far as the CN i still have a few i could throw together. i'll have to post a pic of all the potentional gy6 and 250's i have waiting to go in something.
DONT BE PANZIES, KEEP YERFING!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHA

by the way the drag race pic was against a 250

wow that's a good looking yerf, my wife wants me to keep it for herself, im in the same boat I have so much money into i don't know if its worth selling espically i just dropped a brand new engine in it. Its running so good right now i cant see parting ways with it. If i keep it ill just upgrade the seats belts, and maybe weld the roll cage a little wider hate driving with that stupid bar right in front of me lol. That piston completely fell apart on your engine. I personally like the gy6 over the 250 that's just me personally the parts are cheaper and engines are dime a dozen, and easy to work on and light! weight is a huge factor. I admire your work and will be watching ;)

jersey and update on this ?

I too am on the fence of scrapping the yerf project and building a new 2 seater frame to contain the Katana 600 I purchased for the yerf. I have no idea what I am going to do.

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just been busy!
in november i became a Hammerhead and Trailmaster dealer. there was no way i could keep up w/ the calls asking if i was going to have anything for christmas so i figured i'd get some new stuff in.
so i called the customer who owns the yerf and told him i would start on it after the holidays and stripped it down and sent it off to be sandblasted along w/ some other frames.
not only that but doing 3 complete builds in a year takes its toll, although i have an unrealistic goal of 5 or more this year.
so becoming a new dealer means assembling everything that comes in so when they all came in (on the same week) all 9 of them that started the melee.
got them all assembled in a week (does that count as a build? hahahaha:banghead:), and began the local advertising. between that , one of the best parts months ive had, other customers repairs and tearing apart my showroom it's been crazy.
so there should be a little more progress coming up soon.
so by the way anyone, besides the repair/fabrication stuff , the exhaust stuff and just scoring a gig being a marshalls dist dealer, i now have access to ASW, Joyner, Trailmaster and Hammerhead parts along w/ any bike/atv/utv products available from Marshalls.

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even got the wife tooling

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the showroom rebuild

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more

I love pictures :cheers:

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at least it was over eventually, took one week. keep in mind that that is only evenings and weekends so it did go quick.

I wanted to ask you how bad is the transfer to a 250cc from a gy6 I wish I kept the Baja 250cc I had I would have swapped it over to my single seater. Ive three gy6 buggies now and I cant remember a dam thing from a swing arm of the 250cc

show room came out good

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and the last of them

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as long as you have the motor, swing arm and axle, and you can cut and weld it aint so bad. fabbing a good rear mount can be tricky. the other hump is the rewire, if you can do all that than not to bad.

I can cut,weld, and wire but to a certain point, lol I think il save for a taida big bore a lot less work, time and $$, only if you where closer.

jersey what kind of weather u have down there ? its freaking freezing here, around 20 degrees here wife and I want to move im sick of the cold weather and being stuck inside.

I know JD is in central FL, but when I lived in South FL whenever it dropped below 60 degrees during the day it was a miracle, and lasted for about a week (Mid-Late January)...

Most of the time it stays above 65-70 daytime (during the cool weeks of the year)...

Just checked the weather where some of my family lives (in Ft. lauderdale) and it was high of 79 the other week... Man it sounds nice during winter but when you hit a stretch of days where the weather says "Sunny, high 99 low 89" you absolutely hate it... xD

Is central FL like that?

Also wanted to say...


WOW SHOWROOM LOOKS GREAT

and appx. what is the percentage you mark up the buggies you received? how did you get wholesale and where on earth do you go to find wholesale anything?

im looking into north Carolina and south Carolina where the summers wont be as hot as florida like u stated. You on a buggy hunt or what ?

9 months out of the year south Florida is heaven. Then the hot rainy season comes and for 3 months it's hell..lol

That's why I'm trying to stay a little north of Florida

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thats why I like th gulf side the weather seems to be a little less humid in the summer than the rest of the state. We are havin a fairly warm winter, yesterday was in the 80's.

Jersey, your sig shows you have a GX 250. Whats the difference between that and a CF 250?

The model of the yerf on the foam pads said gx150 on them along the sides.

Oh ok, so it's really a CF?

Showroom looks really good JD -- been meaning to bug you for pics of it, but figured you might be just a little busy through the holidays ...

Does your dealership have a web site? PM me the contact info, I'm constantly breaking my buggy and need a harness at the moment..

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jman wins, he nailed it.
it's a yerf gx150 w/ a cn250 in it, the "BH" stands for "BABY HUEY" which is what we called it because i built for my engine builder, jeff. he's 6'4" and about 260lbs so we called it the baby huey buggy.

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yes sir, i thought it was in my signature.
http://www.gotbuggy.com/
i need to call TM tomorrow for harnesses for my buddy's crossfire, i just built seats for it and the belts are shot.
the # is on the website but here it is anyhow 941.286.6703
i get there around 3pm on weekdays so give me a call tomorrow around 3:30 and i should have a price for you.
the facebook link in my signature now is also a great way to get a hold of me quickly, you can friend me there it's all buggy and i accept all comers.

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busy aint the word brother!
and thanks guys for all the comps:evil:

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well without giving away to much because there are other people on here that are business men, some of them who make a living in buggies, i'll give the short, get the jist version. alot of people are protective of their sources so i will keep mine to myself in case they are the same. but here is how to get wholesale, which aint cheap.
my plan was this, i had some parts sources that if i spent enough in quantity they didnt care if who i was as long as i bought alot and spent money. that helped but my selection was limited. i was already set up w/ joyner and asw for parts, but again i had to be a legit business. i already had an LLC set up for the building i own(my shop) and rent out the spare bays so to set up w/ them i did a DBA through the LLC. when it came time to decide to make the leap of dealing whole buggy units, i talked w/ my wife and w/ my father whom is my business partner in our other business and told them what i thought the next step was and what would be involved. my wife for personal reasons and my dad for business reasons. i began by calling companies and starting a re pore w/ them so they knew who i was and then saw my lawyer and incorporated.
the wife and i went to orlando to the AIMexpo and met face to face w/ alot of the people i had spoken to along w/ other industry companies for contacts and dealership status. so what does it take? i'll use Hammerhead for example, there is a minimum 1st order of 6 buggies, you have to have a brick and mortar shop , meaning no internet sales or working out of the house. they want a real business location. so it actually costs alot of money to buy wholesale. as far as mark up. i have no interest to compete w/ buggy dropshippers. i can do it w/ trailmaster (not hammerhead), but if a custy pulls the i saw a trailmaster cheaper on the internet, i explain to them that i have rent and utilities to pay, there is shipping on each unit and 1 1/2 - 2 hrs assembly per unit (prep). so that all gets factored in the cost, but when it breaks down you'll get my full support, and thats where the extra money comes in. i take care of my customers which is why this thing keeps growing. there are a # of requirements from companies to be a wholesaler, some want pics of the facility and the sign along w/ all the proper documentation. i hope this answers some of it for you fox.........................my god i hi-jacked my own thread!
kills time til the tub comes back!

hahah!!! Self hijacking.

I figured it had something to do with owning a LLC and brick and mortar but wasn't 100%.

Obviously at this point in time (I'm 15) that's quite impossible for me, but it's interesting to know for...future...reasons :D

Sadly no... But I am moreso looking for ways to make a little $$$ online and instead of spending the money I have always looking for quick ways to make more I'm looking to 'invest' my money in myself/online businesses (eBay, etc) to make money. Also need money for a 3D printer because let's face it, if I'm gonna invent ANY of my ideas I'm gonna need it printed :bigbaby:

LOL call me ambitious but I'm planning on OWNING a company, not buying from one ;)

I beg to differ the opposite. 9 months out of the year south Florida is hell. Then the cool dry season comes and for 3 months it's heaven..lol

*weeks

I fixed that for you

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well i'm on it now. fell off my bike trying to relive the old mx days my first time out in 30yrs......ouch! , hurt my back. then got pneumonia for 2 weeks all while working a month straight, had to fire 2 people and 1 quit so been taking up the slack. finally back on this thing. wheeled in BABY HUEY (the engine / swingarm donor) and started taking it apart. gonna do a lil fabwork to the swingarm to pretty up a bit. this was my first swap/ build so i feel if it's gonna leave the shop it should be a little better built than my first work. got the tub back from my buddies, apparently he is having help issues too. he subs out the sandblasting and i guess that guy isnt putting in the time to keep up, so i went and picked it up and D/A sanded it. it's good enough for fab and i'll just take it back before paint and try blasting again.

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not bad for the 1st 4 hrs
cleaned up the frame , seperated the donor and cleaned up some of the swingarm.
i had to do something w/ that one leg it was driving me nuts. amazing what a few years and the right tools will do.

welcome back jersey, looks good.

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thanks jman, after assembling buggies the last couple months it will be nice to build again.......i hope, hahahahaha

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well, it's been a while but i finally have enough work cleared from the shop to get back on this. not much to explain here, just pics . basically trying to get an original take on what to do with this thing. so i'm limping through the creative, mathematical process of designing a new front end using the original arms and rack. here's our story thus far........

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waiting on heims, so i figured i'd toy w/ the rack. i got rid of the stock tie rods and retapped the ends 1/2" 20 . then thought about how i wanted to make a clevis to accept 1/2" heims for the tie rods. i cut and drilled all of the pieces but went agianst my cardinal rule and free-handed the 1st one. hopefully duping the 2nd one wont be to tough. i ran a bolt through it , welded it and cut off the head and ground it down a bit prettied it up a little and threaded it in the end of the rack. simple enough..........til i start #2.

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got some heims and bungs in so i started the mods on the stock arms. just a beginning

looks heavy duty jersey

any update on the yerf I cant wait to see it with a 250cc in it

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just started working on it again this week. had to recover from TN , get back in the work groove and get some customer repair stuff out of the way so i could have a clear shop. here's some "this week " pics.

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some more

I noticed a can of brake clean near buy. Be very careful using brake clean on hot material, it can create a very poisonous phosgene gas.

Google ''Brake clean and welding dangers''

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that's not what it's there for.

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Just figured it was worth mentioning.:cheers: A lot of people clean oils and junk with brake clean, then they don't allow it to dry fully before welding.:ack:

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KABOOM!!!!!!!!!
just kidding still here.

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finally got back to it
arms are 80% done
left side arm tabs are on

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so i'm going to use these banshee shocks ive had laying around and of coarse the upper mount ends up right in the middle of the front hoop just like it would if the spiderbox was there. so beings eyebrowed shock mounts are starting to find it's way into most of the builds lately................why not?

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here's what's going on for the upper tabs

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shops been busy so i havent had much time to get on this but the last week i've made some progress. once the front end is done i feel things will move a lil smoother. no point in doing a new front end unless it's right so it has been tedious, and about every aspect is getting fab work. all 4 arms are basically fabbed and have been hung. the uppers needed some rework for shock clearance. both spindles are finished, made from some old sunl ab150 shock/struts that were going to get trashed. this will allow for a real hub and front brakes.

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more

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welded in the bungs for the ball joints tonight. i cleaned up and chased threads on one set because i just had to get a wheel on it to take a look. grabbed the 1st wheel laying around that would fit, cuz i just had to see.............tomorrow i should have the other side down and can start working on getting the rack mounted.

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been fighting pneumonia this week so i havent gotten much shop time in. had to meet someone there this morning and couldnt sleep so i got down there a coupla of hrs early. ended up getting the other arms cleaned up so i got them thrown on for mock up. next get the rack mounted and figure out the steering shaft setup, fab tierods, tierod tabs on the spindles and the front end is done. then hopefully smoother sailing will come

Glad you're feeling better.
By the way, I love the crushed coke can as an adjustable spacer..lol

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I needed something to pretend it was a spindle

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got hit w/ an influx of custy repairs so ive havent been able to keep on this like i would want to but today i got to spend the day on it. one thing that has kept me from completing the front end is the lack of a steering shaft. it will need to be longer than a stock yerf and the longer shafts that i had laying around were from my joyner and a baja reaction 250. same shaft but neither will work. the diameter of the coupler is smaller than that of yerf stuff. i looked around the shop but no luck, so i order the material i would need to fab one, and added expense so i bit the bullet and ordered enough to make a few in case i need to do it again. i hate being held up unexpectedly waiting for parts and disrupting the flow. so be that as it may i had the day so i figured what could i do that i wont regret doing because i didnt wait for the shaft. i started by working on the rack mount, dangerously close to the steering department but what the heck. first i had to measure the offset of the yerf rack and figure the difference in throw from left to right so i could figure out the offset of the mount. then it was just figure what and how i wanted it to look and mount and fab it up. got it fabbed but decided not to weld it til the stuff gets here. so i m oved on to the cage. i wanted to utilize the stock main hoop and shoulder bars so i had to figure out how i wanted to tie them in and weld them and have it look kosher. i had some 1 1/2" tubing cut them into 5" sections , notched them and split them. i trimmed the tubing where the main hoop and shoulder bars get flattened out to bolt on to the tabs and basically sleeved them and welded them up. before i did all of that i had to square the main hoop up w/ a ratchet strap and welp the bars to the tabs then welded up my split section overlays and ground it all down to look somewhat organic.

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got some cage mock up done on monday afternoon. ive had to change out a couple of trailmaster cages for customers from rollovers. i tend to save everything steel wise for just in case. well i figured i'd do some cleaning and recycling in one fair swoop. i had 2 bars that got tweaked in parts i wouldnt need so i cut them off rebent and used what i needed. then cut a bent "H" bar and rebent that for the top. saves a little time and doesnt look 1/2 bad.
i also cut the main hoop from the yerf and bent it forward a bit to give it a different look. at first i wasnt sure but the more i stered at it it started growing on me. i shot some pics on my phone and texted them to the owner. he called me back excited and told me he loved it so i guess i can start welding what i have up.

you know, after your done. If you call that a Yerfdog, a lot of ppl are going to call BS. :).
Looks sweet!!!

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hahahaha, thank you sir.

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well now that the christmas rush is over i can start to get some shop work done. resumed work on the yerf this weekend, got the steering shaft lengthened made a new luggage rack and got the basic outline of the cage done. the owner wanted 2 tanks so i figured i'd re design the luggage rack to incorporate a saddle bag system. use some cut up carter talon sections i had laying around for the tank mounts

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looks good john, blast from the past on the thread lol. Mind me asking why 2 tanks? vs lets say a nice spun aluminum tank in the middle ?

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i agree one large tank would be easier....
reason 1 is he wants as much luggage rack space as he can get.
i ended up w/ the 2 tank deal on my 400, not for storage space but by the time i mounted the radiator and routed the pipe i really had no space for a tank at all w/out making the thing look cluttered or mounting it so high that it would be top heavy. i knew to make it worth while to be able to stay out for the better part of the day fuel wise , i needed at least 8 gallons. the only way to fit 8 gallons anywhere on there was to split it up and mount 1, 4 gallon cell on each side of the seat. so sometimes to get max fuel capacity to fit in a minimum amount of space is to split it up.
#2 he subscribes to the reasoning that if he runs one tank empty that the other one should get him back to wherever he started, for this reason i am going to have a separate petcock on each tank and a main shutoff in the middle.
#3 cost effectiveness. to order him a tank like that or even a poly would add money to the budget. i have a bunch of tanks from scrapped buggys and other builds so if i can utilize whats laying around the shop into the build i can save customers money when it comes to figuring out the cost factors and the money it will take for the parts i need to order or not.

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well, need to get this thing wrapped up so me and this junk are going to stay married til it's done.
abandoned the yerf rack , i found an aluminum latest rage rack but it was long so the geometry was going to be off. the other thing was that is has 3/8" heims on the end of it. i looped off 3/4" from each side and drilled and retapped it for the clevises i made for the yerf rack. that put me in the ball park. i might tweak it , might not. got the rack mount tacked down, so next i'll be concentrating on the spindle/ tierod connection. once this is done i feel this project will go much quicker.

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spent all day yesterday w/ a mission, get a functioning front end finished on this thing. that meant tie rods and finishing the spindles. the toughest part of that of coarse were the tab placement on the spindles for the tierods. it was a hot day yesterday w/ alot of grinding and welding so by the time i was done i was a sopping itchy mess. well needless to say mission accomplished. it might have turned out a little better than i thought. as soon as i placed the the tabs in the right location i realized that the 9" wheels i was using for mock up and had the intentions of using were to small. the tabs were going to hit them. so i went to my trusty used wheel pile and found a set of 10's. they worked perfect and i have a new set of 23x8-10 tires that will make this thing took tough. although i think the 19s in the pics look kind of cool , hahahaha.
now to take it all apart and get on the rest of this thing. i think the hard part is over, now it's just a million other details that shouldnt take as much calculating and assemble/reassembling.

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looks good, that front end sure is wide.

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won't be tippy!
i think those low profile tires make it look wider too, w/ 23's it'll look more proportional.

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so as you mess with this stuff and come up w/ ideas you make enough mistakes that you learn the better way to do things. well when i built "huey" the 1st 250 yerf i needed clearance for the fwd mounted carb, so i lengthened the tabs on the chassis where the swingarm mounts. well it worked but then i tried something different when i rebuilt the swingarm on my yerf. if you lengthened the mounts on the swingarm adding about 3 inches. well this worked out better. it got a lil more wheelbase, didnt change the pivot point and where it lined up w/ the top shock mount and allowed me to do away w/ the brackets i had made to work w/ the longer shocks i had which ended up placing the bottom shock mount close to where the axle was, which killed any leverage making the shock not really work right. so that is what i did here. a long, tedious process because being straight is crucial, but it all turned out pretty good

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nice work jd

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quick update, been whittling away at this thing. been wellding and grinding the chassis, mounted the new fronts on the 10" rims i cleaned up, and mocked up the swingarm to start the exhaust.
nuff said here's the pics.

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well it's been a while, but here's some update pics.....
welding is done so did the first mock up assembly.
already not liking the bars above the rack in the rear, gonna fix them and have to decide on a set of rear shocks and where the mounts will be, obviously either these shocks will be too long or the upper mounts will have to move up!

dam jd still working on it

Whats the deal with the exhaust?

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yeah been a hectic year, i pinched a nerve in my back in july and that slowed me down a bit, completely remodeled my convenience store inside and out this year....(still working on that). my wife just had surgery last week so the events leading up to that have been a bit rough, and the service bay at the shop has been full til just this past weekend with work not to mention doing some remodeling in my showroom at the shop....
Not enough JDs around hahaha.

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Not sure? what's the deal?
what ya mean?

I don't see why there's a loop:dunno: