86 Honda rebel limited 250 (halp)

Bendery It Like Beckham

So I'm buying my buddies bike off him, he recently had a seizure and is never getting his license back and wants someone who will be good to it to take care of it. Only problem is, it seems to burn oil pretty bad he says. My first thoughts are that the engine pistons need to be replaced, which got me to thinking about what kind of engine damage could have been done over the 3 years he has had it just adding oil to it once a week. So I started just looking in to a replacement engine but for the life of me I can't find anything. Anyone who happens to be big in the motorcycle world who happens to know what engines can be swapped in to this, and where to find them would have my eternal gratitude. I'm capable of doing all the work, I'm just awful at finding parts for anything it seems.

wmelon

I used to have one of those as well. http://www.hondarebelforum.com/ is a good message board for rebel owners as is http://www.rebel250.com/rebelforum/index.php. If it's burning oil it likely just needs new piston rings, but it may have done some damage over the course of time. I know for certain that you can swap in a 450 cc engine from the CBR450 as well. It shouldn't be too difficult to find a replacement engine on ebay or one of those forums. Alternatively you could probably have a motorcycle mechanic rebuild the motor for about the same amount of money.

Donovan Puppyfucker

Burning oil is almost always piston rings and/or valve stem seals.

Is it lacking power? Or harder to start than it used to be? Probably rings (because badly worn piston rings means lower compression, which in turn means lower power). If not, probably stem seals.

On a simple engine like a Rebel 250, it's a couple of hours work at the most for the home mechanic, a workshop should be able to knock it out right sharpish.