Bike Maintenance Q's

Don't forget the spokes, they'll seize if you don't treat them early.:D I loosen and tighten mine every few rides, especially if you go into water. Preventive maintanence. Linkage bearings are easy, just pull the rear swingarm off and grease em. It would be a good idea to grease up the swing arm bolt also, the one that runs through the frame. It gets sticky with water.

maybe time for new reeds or a top end or ring.

definatly a top end and reeds. Ps, I think its "rings" its a 250. Mine has 2 at least.

They are between the carb and intake port and measure the amoutn of fuel/air mixture that goes into the combustion. In time they tend to wear down and can cause hard starting, bad jetting, or poor engine performance. The way you can check if they are any good is to check the petals for a gap between the top petal and bottom petal. Even a .001'' can cause engine problems, you want to have zero gap. Stock reeds are made of fiberglass, which the stock reeds are very good, a companie called Boyesen (www.boyesen.com) makes aftermarket reeds that come in a dual-stage form in either fiberglass, carbon-fiber, or even a high performanced reed vavle. The boyesen Power (fiber-glass) Reeds are good replacement reeds but don't look for too much in a performance increase. I have had great luck with the Boyesen Pro-Series (carbon-fiber) Reeds, in my old CR125. It instantly increase throttle response and helped with the low-end power. The last thing is the Boyesen Rad Vavle (includes special Pro Series Reeds). I installed one on my LT250R which had a stock vavle with Power Reeds. The Rad vavle increased the throttle response dramastically and helped in the low-mind range power and was like as different as night and day with the stock vavle. Boyesen reeds are very worth it.

Power Reeds - around $35-40
Pro Series Reeds - around $50-60
Rad Vavle - around $150-170

the top ends is starting to scare me now, how many hours are on the bike since the last rebuild?

The reeds are a piece of cake. More work to get the carb and airbox off. Once you pull off the carb, the reed cage will unbolt and comeright out. The reeds have some philip head screws that hold themin place, you'll see em. The Boysen Power Reeds are what I got, they work great and help my low to mid. I believe the Pro ones are designed to open up more at the higher rpm range.

The top end can be replaced once a year if you really don't ride it hard and race all the time. I do mine once a year because I don't race but ride a mix of MX and trails all year round. Unless you ride pro, IMO, you don't really notice the little power loss if you don't change your top end every other race. Once you do a top end, it just gets easier each time. There are plenty of top end posts here, just do a search and read them over. They'll give you opinions on OEM or aftermarket top end kits and when to change them. Good luck
Elk