hi. new here. just about finished restoring my little yami. looks like a honda 90 trailster. sorry it's from before they invented " enduros ". the motor is the same as in YG1 trailmasters. my manuals don't say how much and what kind of oil goes in the gearbox. i think there is supposed to be a dipstick in the tool bag as shown in parts book. they must have thought about putting it on the filler cap later in life. can anyone help me out with this?
thanks for your consideration, ken.
here's a pic of a 360 RT1 i did a while ago. no paint all powder coated.

that looks really cool. the Red powder coating does a RT series bike justice!

I'd love to see some pics of your MG1T! They are pretty rare!

The MG1T was my first "real" motorcycle when I was a kid. Rode the wheels off of it. Couldn't kill it. Was amazed to stumble across one a few years ago as I had never seen another one even when I was a kid. Got it cheap and cleaned it up. Fun little bike.

I have the tool to check the oil. It's a rubber dipstick. The level marks are 65mm down from the filler cap gasket surface to "full" and 75mm down is "minimum". Bike should be level when checking. (Off the center stand or block up the front wheel slightly to level the bike if on the stand)

I've seen a dipstick made from a thin piece of metal that sort of looked like a "T" or cross. The crossbar of the "T" rested across the filler opening with a narrow strip going down into the trans. as the dipstick Hope that makes sense. Should be easy to make.



Capacity is 400 cc. Yamaha manual says 20/40. You can use any motor or transmission oil rated for use in a motorcycle wet clutch... I use Shell Rotella 15/40 diesel oil. Castrol 4T motorcycle oil is another popular choice. Plenty of special "motorcycle transmission" oils that will work too.

Good to stay away from modern "energy conserving" motor oils as they have slippery additives that may not play nice with the clutch.

When I looked at the picture I realized the steel scale I used in the photo would work as a dipstick. So if you have something like that you could use it. The sliding "T" piece rests across the filler opening perfectly. Simply set the sliding "T" at 75mm and then the level should at least touch the "0" end of the scale but not be over the 10mm mark.

There is a shaft below the filler which is probably why Yamaha didn't build the dipstick into the cap... I think a dipstick would have to be offset slightly... the rubber or the thin scale just leans against the shaft.

thank you markt. that's just the info i needed. i'm sure i can make up something to work as a dipstick. i use rotella oil alot also. now i can fill her up with fluids and see if it is going to run. i did a restore from the ground up using all the original parts. my uncle bought it new in 64 and my cousins and i ran the heck out of it, it wouldn't die. my cousin hung onto it till a couple of years ago when he gave it to me and it was still running but not too well. the shifting mechanism was totaled by the chain breaking, i managed to get new parts. also no paint all powder coat except for the side covers which are plastic. seems there were alot of these motors in bikes in SE asia so lots of parts from there.

well she started right up, a few adjustments and forgotten bolt tightening and away we go, rips thru all 4 gears great and uses all of that 8 HP to carry my big ass around. very low first gear. brings back some fun memories. actually took 650 cc of oil in the tranny.

Awesome! Beautiful work.

Yeah the owners manual is pretty lame... doesn't surprise me it has an error on the oil capacity.

Stock gearing is very low... seemed like a fast bike as a kid... not so much now!

I went with a small rear sprocket off the "street" YG1. Does about 40-45 now.... that's fast enough with the rubber-block suspended leading link front end!

What did you do for the air filter? I built one out of the stock "can" with a paper element by using an old K&N I had around.

Mine is mostly original paint except the frame down tube which the original owner had welded brackets to (and I removed). The paint was pretty chalky and dull but Meguiars products are amazing!

A few pictures of mine:

Nice........
KB

Good to see it up & running, know those motors well with the gear change selector mechanism sitting outboard just waiting to be broken under farm use. Just for a laugh here's a pic of what we used to do to them--well an experiment we never persevered with lol but the farmer who requested them had a very steep wet farm. Still laugh at that pic 50 years later but remember the time well.--trying to attach pic!!.

I`m hooked on the early step thru trail bikes. Mines a Honda 55 trail but they are all cool. I`m seeing an interest in the small displacement trail bikes.
Dave