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1998 Yamaha RX Err...New Bike!
Hello everyone,Hope you're all doing well!
This is Bharath,This is my new account here on xBhp. I used to have a 2001 TVS Suzuki Max 100R and enjoyed building it and riding it! But one fine day, The bike was sold to a close friend and I also wanted an upgrade but with 2 rules: It should be a 2 stroke and one that can be used as a daily commuter... Now you may think 4T makes more sense in my case,Yes it does,But I don't think commuting on the 2 strokes are 'bad' in any sense.They are a lot of fun! I love riding old bikes and working on them,so I was generally more inclined on old 2 strokes.
First off,my biggest challenge was to convince my father that I am getting a 2 stroke as he was generally not that happy on me riding rustbuckets and being happy about it lol but finally I was able to convince him as I had maintained my previous motorcycle very well!
I was torn between the Suzuki Shogun and Yamaha RX135 4 speed.
Suzuki Shogun : One mad powerhouse from the house of TVS. Highly stressed and overengineered for it's times (Factory Fitted Megaphonic Exhaust acting as an Expansion Chamber). I was also having some experience on working with TVS-Suzuki with my old Max 100R,so the grounds would be quite familiar, Bike is extremely rare here and owning one would be awesome.But like almost everybody told me, It's strictly NOT for everyday commuting, Parts are difficult to source and the quality is very iffy. Stressed internals mean that reliability is thrown outta the window, 20kmpl efficiency... Biggest problem for me was the examples present here - None had valid papers(No FC for long time), Most had engines with sleeved blocks, Many of it's parts missing (Speedo+Tacho console,Mirrors,Front Mask - All rare and expensive items)
Yamaha RX135 4 Speed: Probably one of the best 2 stroke motorcycles India ever got,with a perfect strike of balance between power, efficiency and reliability! 4TL00 Block Made about 12Bhp and felt so peppy in the city conditions and also can cruise comfortably at 80-90km/h. Twin Downtube chassis felt so much more stable at higher speeds than Suzuki's single downtube one. Yamaha's build quality was also noticeably better than that of TVS-Suzuki Bikes (except the Japanese AX ofcourse). Many told me that it had a healthy fuel efficiency figure (35-40kmpl) for it's power output and was also quite reliable, Parts support is very strong and even the aftermarket support is also huge for the entire RX series in general. Biggest challenge for me was to find a reasonably priced one.
So,The RX it was! Searched on OLX, Quikr for a few days,found a few 135s but wasn't happy with it.Few more days, found a 1998 'Yamaha RXG',Spoke to the owner, Met him the next day,test rode the bike,loved it, had valid papers with FC and Insurance (not too many days left though). Owner had the price at 42K,Started bargaining and got it for 31K. I'm the 4th owner. Did the needful work of checking before going ahead with the purchase: If the block is original or fake - Showed 4TL00 and it was an 'E-2' bore, RC numbers and bike numbers matching, Checked the papers: It stated a '1998 Yamaha RXG' that's black in colour.IIRC, There was no RXG in 1998. But as you will see in the photos, It looks completely different.
So the identity crisis goes something like this: The bike is legally a Yamaha RXG as per the RTO. But RXG's production was stopped in 1997, This bike was registered on 12th Jan 1998. Mechanically, I feel it is a last batch RXG but surprisingly it has the YEIS system(Only the 135 came with one IIRC). Looks wise, It looks like an RX100 - Something which either one the previous 3 owners might have done... Maybe he wanted an RX100 so he used this RXG to look like a 100 using the red colour scheme and RX100 Monograms.
You can see the bike now!
My observations of this bike is coming soon in this thread, Watch out for that
Thank you guys!
This is Bharath,This is my new account here on xBhp. I used to have a 2001 TVS Suzuki Max 100R and enjoyed building it and riding it! But one fine day, The bike was sold to a close friend and I also wanted an upgrade but with 2 rules: It should be a 2 stroke and one that can be used as a daily commuter... Now you may think 4T makes more sense in my case,Yes it does,But I don't think commuting on the 2 strokes are 'bad' in any sense.They are a lot of fun! I love riding old bikes and working on them,so I was generally more inclined on old 2 strokes.
First off,my biggest challenge was to convince my father that I am getting a 2 stroke as he was generally not that happy on me riding rustbuckets and being happy about it lol but finally I was able to convince him as I had maintained my previous motorcycle very well!
I was torn between the Suzuki Shogun and Yamaha RX135 4 speed.
Suzuki Shogun : One mad powerhouse from the house of TVS. Highly stressed and overengineered for it's times (Factory Fitted Megaphonic Exhaust acting as an Expansion Chamber). I was also having some experience on working with TVS-Suzuki with my old Max 100R,so the grounds would be quite familiar, Bike is extremely rare here and owning one would be awesome.But like almost everybody told me, It's strictly NOT for everyday commuting, Parts are difficult to source and the quality is very iffy. Stressed internals mean that reliability is thrown outta the window, 20kmpl efficiency... Biggest problem for me was the examples present here - None had valid papers(No FC for long time), Most had engines with sleeved blocks, Many of it's parts missing (Speedo+Tacho console,Mirrors,Front Mask - All rare and expensive items)
Yamaha RX135 4 Speed: Probably one of the best 2 stroke motorcycles India ever got,with a perfect strike of balance between power, efficiency and reliability! 4TL00 Block Made about 12Bhp and felt so peppy in the city conditions and also can cruise comfortably at 80-90km/h. Twin Downtube chassis felt so much more stable at higher speeds than Suzuki's single downtube one. Yamaha's build quality was also noticeably better than that of TVS-Suzuki Bikes (except the Japanese AX ofcourse). Many told me that it had a healthy fuel efficiency figure (35-40kmpl) for it's power output and was also quite reliable, Parts support is very strong and even the aftermarket support is also huge for the entire RX series in general. Biggest challenge for me was to find a reasonably priced one.
So,The RX it was! Searched on OLX, Quikr for a few days,found a few 135s but wasn't happy with it.Few more days, found a 1998 'Yamaha RXG',Spoke to the owner, Met him the next day,test rode the bike,loved it, had valid papers with FC and Insurance (not too many days left though). Owner had the price at 42K,Started bargaining and got it for 31K. I'm the 4th owner. Did the needful work of checking before going ahead with the purchase: If the block is original or fake - Showed 4TL00 and it was an 'E-2' bore, RC numbers and bike numbers matching, Checked the papers: It stated a '1998 Yamaha RXG' that's black in colour.IIRC, There was no RXG in 1998. But as you will see in the photos, It looks completely different.
So the identity crisis goes something like this: The bike is legally a Yamaha RXG as per the RTO. But RXG's production was stopped in 1997, This bike was registered on 12th Jan 1998. Mechanically, I feel it is a last batch RXG but surprisingly it has the YEIS system(Only the 135 came with one IIRC). Looks wise, It looks like an RX100 - Something which either one the previous 3 owners might have done... Maybe he wanted an RX100 so he used this RXG to look like a 100 using the red colour scheme and RX100 Monograms.
You can see the bike now!
My observations of this bike is coming soon in this thread, Watch out for that
Thank you guys!
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