Buyer Beware
by Jerry Matta

OK, I bought a 1996 XR100 motor off ebay for $275. It looked OK in the picture, so I said to myself, "how bad could it be? It has the ignition and it's not that old." Then I bought a Trail Bikes 115cc kit for it. I'm thinking "Cool, I'll be done in an hour and riding today. 8 am, So I pulled the top end off, the cam and rockers look pretty good, but the intake port had all kinds of crap growing in it. No big deal I can fix that. The cases were filthy . . . I can pretty much fix that. So I take the ignition cover off . . . Ooops, someone threw a chain and broke part of the cases . . . Dave Miller can weld it up for me. Also, I had to make a puller, just to get the sprocket off. So by 2pm, I'm back home with the left case welded. I clean out the stator that had a spider living in it and wire wheel the flywheel, since it looked like it came off the Titanic. Next, I filed the welds flush and put the topend together. I think, "Man, the cam chain and sprocket are pretty hammered, oh well I can buy new ones." So by around 7pm I start putting in the bike. I get it started for about a second, but the kick starter keeps hitting the brake rod. I thought, the kick starter was bent, so I swapped it out . . . Nope. So I was bewildered for a while, then I looked at the kick starter shaft and compared it to my other bikes and sure enough, it was about 8-10mm shorter. I'm thinking, "no way." So I pull the clutch cover off and measure the distance to the hole in the shaft and "yep, it was way shorter." So, at 8pm I said I'd finish it tomorrow.
OK 8am, pull the motor back out, and pull the clutch off, "WHAT THE #*ck???"
both bearing holes were welded up. OK whatever, I split the cases, I have a extra kick starter shaft, then I look at the main shaft first gear, "that doesn't look right?" I count the teeth and sure enough it has 13t and a 100 has 12t. So I rummage around to find a complete tranny and I find one. There was a issue with bearing, but I had a new one so no biggy. So as I'm putting everything back together I asked, "why doesn't anybody use grease on their gaskets?" It would save me about an hour or so. So I get the bottom end together with tons of grease on the gaskets, replace two cylinder studs which were bent, throw on a stock base gasket, new cam sprocket clean up the piston which got dirty and put everything back together. I had to modify the rear exhaust mount on the pipe (stock) which was about 1/4 inch too short (what's up with that?). Everything went better at this point, although the last thing I had to do was put the ignition cover back on and I even had to tap those. About 7pm I get it started and take it for and few laps . . . .Big time fun!!!!!! The Trail Bikes kit was perfect for what I wanted. I did about ten laps and put the BBR cradle and IMS pegs on and about 9pm. I was finished!!!!