Solution? Direct and strong, albeit a bit crude - I drilled the kickstarter arm and its shaft and through-bolted the two together. The kickstarter lever spun freely - but uselessly - on its once-splined shaft. The Yamaha’s throttle cable was broken, so I shortened the cable housing and resoldered the steel cable end. Other details required attention, and I vowed to deal with them without spending any money. Finally, a pair of ear plugs offered a cheap and painless solution. Only one thing remained in the way: The faulty main bearing rattled so loudly I couldn’t keep myself from reflexively switching off the ignition each time the engine rumbled to life. With a bit of tinkering (a borrowed battery, beating the pistons loose with a plastic mallet) the Yamaha was resuscitated. Yet, what if … what if the Yamaha should run all the way to the Canadian border or beyond? Then it would be a dazzling affirmation of the beauty and value of junk. Five cents a mile is as good as bus fare, and the Yamaha would certainly be a better ride than a Greyhound coach. For anyone who measures his fun in accountant’s terms, 100 miles would be plenty far. To prove its worth and the worth of the idea behind it, the Yamaha needed only to run a short distance. Maybe the Big Bear would keep running to the border probably not. What better vehicle to use to make a point about waste, about revival and utility, about attitude and travel? Why not do something outrageous with this poor, beat-up old Yamaha - get it running, load it up with a satchel of tools and clothes and take off? Why not head toward Canada and see just how far I could go on a ride that costs as much as a hamburger and fries? But I had grander plans for this $5 throwaway. Well, okay, at least they can’t disintegrate much more.Īs you can see, the Yamaha fit perfectly into my garage. To me these well-worn vehicles show more personality than shiny stuff fresh off the showroom floor, and while New Things are certain to become worn, dirty and dented, Old Things can only improve with time and care. Some have cultural value, yet those that do not I like just the same. It would be very nice, very avant-garde, to suggest my collection currently glistens with Porsche Carreras and newly restored Vincents, but that’s not the case. Close to two-thirds of these vehicles did not run at the time of purchase, and the vast majority were more appropriate for a dismantler than for the highway. The automobile roster has included about a dozen ’50s and ’60s American and English convertibles, an elderly Cadillac hearse, a New York City Checker cab, a Kaiser Special and, most recently, a rumpled Lotus. The beauty and value of junkĪn inventory of the 60 former and present occupants of the Stein garage for senior citizens of the motor world reads, in part, something like this: Eight Ducatis, three OSSAs, an AJS twin that used National Geographic magazine covers as its cylinder-base gaskets, a 1958 NSU Super Max and a score of hyper-kinetic 2-stroke street and off-highway Japanese bikes. Its Autolube oiling system, meant to civilize 2-strokes of that generation, had long ago been discarded. Not running, lame with worn-out tires, a weak generator and a faulty crankshaft bearing, the 20-year-old Yamaha had been scored and ravaged by two decades of salty ocean air. The 250 Big Bear belonged to an industrious young man intent on pursuing his fortune, such as it might be found, in the operations of a Samoan fish-processing plant. The yard sale: There it sat, as appropriately as a discarded Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times might lie crumpled in a dumpster, awaiting a Monday morning trash pickup.ĭesirable when new and useful, the 1965 Yamaha Big Bear Scrambler now seemed lost in a rolling wave of litter that washed over the lawn. Please enjoy the tale, along with an exclusive new postscript that follows up on the fate of this Yamaha Big Bear Scrambler, “Requiem for a Big Bear.” Editor’s note: This gem of a story was originally published in the August 1985 issue of Cycle magazine.
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