After rebuilding quite a few other Yamaha Enduros (AT1, CT1, DT3, RT3…) I thought it was time that I had a go at restoring the one that originally started it all, the seminal DT1. Although still common-place in the USA, they are very rare models in the UK, so when I saw one offered on Ebay as ‘original and unrestored’, I immediately hit the ‘Buy-It-Now’ button – despite the high price!
However, once home, and as soon as I started looking properly at the bike, I realised it was the biggest PoS that I had ever bought. Of course, in retrospect, I should simply have demanded my money back, but back then, knowing it was still a rare bike, I thought I’d just get on with sorting it out….
The seller had claimed that the ‘small oil leak’ was caused by a faulty seal on the gear shaft, and like a fool, I had believed him. Actually, the MASSIVE oil leak was from the badly-welded up crankcase, which had been previously smashed near the kickstart.
Not only had this awful weld failed to be oil-tight, it had also been mis-aligned, so that the gear shaft was now binding and not returning. The only practical solution was to replace both crankcases and rebuild the entire motor from scratch, using new seals, bearings etc – not cheap! Thankfully, I was very lucky to find a pair of (slightly later) crankcases in the UK for a sensible price, and after hours of cleaning, they came up looking quite good.
However, this meant losing the matching engine/frame numbers; particularly unfortunate, since my research had revealed that the bike was actually a DT1-C MX, of which only a few thousand had ever been made by Yamaha. This was confirmed by the presence of the high-compression cylinder head with the centrally-located twin spark-plug configuration.
Being an off-road variant, there was also no lighting coil on the magneto or a tachometer drive, two more things that would now have to be sorted out.
Other problems now included finding that many parts (air filter, oil tank, rear mudguard/fender, seat, etc) had been incorrectly fitted from the later DT models (not helped by Yamaha retaining the DT1 frame code on later DT2/3 models!).
Additional components such as instruments, switchgear etc were either completely wrong or missing entirely.
Inside the engine, even the piston had been fitted backwards – despite it having an arrow marked on it!
The front forks had no damping due to internal damage, so they had to be totally stripped and repaired; one rear shock was so bent, it would not move at all.
There was no wiring loom as such; the previous owner had simply cobbled together the basic components with domestic 13A cable(!) to get the bike running.
A wet-cell battery (the wrong size, of course!) had even been cable-tied to the swing-arm!
Most amazingly of all, this total heap had somehow passed an MoT in this condition, albeit in a ‘daylight only’ capacity. Obviously I did consider pursuing this matter, as the bike was a complete death-trap, but as the MoT testing station was not local to me, and I felt that my chances of compensation were extremely slim, I simply gave up and carried on sorting things out myself.
By now, the bike had been stripped to the bare frame, and guess what? I discovered that even the frame itself was cracked, close to the steering head, where similar faults had been found on other models from this range! Yet another ‘instant MoT failure’ that had been missed by this particular joker of an examiner! Luckily, at least I was able to repair this myself, using my TIG welder, before getting the frame powder-coated.
I knew that finding any replacement DT1 parts in the UK was extremely unlikely, so the very long list of parts all had to be sourced from the USA, as they became available, usually via Ebay. In fact, I bought so many parts from one helpful seller in Pennsylvania that we struck up a good relationship and he was able to come up with parts that I needed, that he had not even considered selling previously! He also saved me a lot of money by posting parts in combined batches, and keeping the ‘declared value’ to a minimum, as I not only had to pay shipping, but extortionate import/handling charges on top!
This whole bike had become a nightmare ‘money pit’ of epic proportions, but I could see little option but to carry on pouring cash into it….
Around this time, what should pop up on Ebay UK but another DT1; this time, supposedly ‘in running order’ and rather more reasonably priced.
Although it was not yet UK-registered, I knew this was not a big problem to overcome, having been through the process myself twice before with my DT3 and RT3 Yamahas. The idea now came into my head to buy this bike, swap a few bits around, create one ‘good’ bike for myself, then recoup some of the money by selling the second one. After all, what could possibly go wrong…?
This second bike looked pretty grim and neglected, but after the previous one, most things actually weren’t too bad. It wasn’t long before I had it stripped and the frame powder-coated.
The two rolling chassis were then re-assembled, side by side.
With the two motors together, it was more obvious that the cylinder heads were different.
All the paintwork was re-done in the same colour, with the appropriate decals, pin-stripes and (very expensive) repro Yamaha tank badges. The seats were recovered locally, using new foam on one, and top-quality repro covers from PitReplica in Thailand, a great company that I have used on all my Yamaha restorations. I was even able to find two used DT1 wiring harnesses via Ebay; not perfect by any means, but better than starting from nothing.
All this time, I had been struggling to keep working on the bikes, as I have been suffering from a chronic back condition for many years. This was one of the main reasons I have been building lighter custom bicycles recently instead of motorcycles, and why I had already sold my beloved Harley. Now, sadly, just as I was making real progress with the two DT1s, I found that I simply could not carry out even simple jobs on them without feeling considerable pain.
Gradually, I realised that, even if I were to finish the bikes, I was no longer up to starting and riding them as I had been anticipating for so long, and that the sensible thing now would be to sell them both as ‘projects’ for someone else to complete and enjoy. After all, as far as I knew, I had already sorted out all the serious issues and it was important to me to sell the bikes with a clear conscience.
Over the previous year, I had poured an absolute fortune into these bikes, so I had to prepare myself to make a big loss when I sold them. Thankfully, interest in them on Ebay was massive and I got over 2000 views on the first one, with about 200 watchers. There was even a last-minute (actually, a last-second!) flurry of bids, so I was quite pleased with the end result. The second bike was eventually sold to the second-highest bidder too, so things worked out OK for everyone in the end.
Obviously it was a shame, after putting so much blood, sweat, money and tears into the bikes that I never even heard either of them run, much less rode them, but the whole DT1 saga was just one of those (thankfully, rare) things that didn’t work out for me as planned.
Oh well, I can’t win them all, I guess…..
PS: Massive thanks also go to my friend Tom Cousins for his invaluable help, putting all of these pages online; also thanks to my partner Linda O’Connell for help with some of the photographs.
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