I have always loved blue smoke two stroke bikes.

I have a 1979 IT 400 being delivered to my house in a couple of days. Has 4000 miles on the clock. Plan on making it street legal and commuting once or twice a week on it. Has been sitting 25 years undisturbed in a garage in California.

Used to be a motorcycle mechanic back in the late 70's early 80's and haven't worked on a bike since. Thought this would be a great project for me and my 15 year old son to work on.

What would be the first things you would look at concerning the engine after sitting for that long? Will clean and rebuild the carb.

I'll be posting pictures as we work on this bike here. Will probably be a slow rebuild as the money becomes available.

I would change the brake shoes before you go for a test ride they can and have become delaminated which isn’t pretty if you go flying over the handlebars 

Hi - congratulations on a very cool bike!  I would check check carb jets for proper size since you gotta clean it anyhow.  I would also flush out oil tank and then bleed pump, start on premix and check pump output against spec.  Also might want to change mag side crank seal. 

It showed up on my doorstep this morning at 5:20am. Has 25 years of dirt, dust, and rust on it. My son and I will give it a bath this weekend and I'll post up a couple pics.

And it actually has about 2000 miles on it. Will probably order some tires and tubes for it this weekend to make it easier to roll around.

Here's our 78 IT400 after its first bath. Still have some degreasing to do. Won't be able to work on it until after the new year.

Nice, looks like you've got a complete bike.

It is complete, the engine is stuck after sitting for 25 years (it has a 1998 CA plate on it from when it was last ridden). I'll be picking up some Kroil and pull the head in a couple of weeks to see if I can get the piston unstuck.

Doesn't look too bad. Good score. Big twostrokes are never that nice on the road but hope it works out. Likely the pipe is oil soaked right through over the years unless its had ideal high speed running. So hope the polution police are away that day. I set up our shop SC500 for the road in about "74, maybe "75 after SC's became last years news lol, hoping it would help sell it. Did sell & went enduro-ing. But was terrible realy on the road & couldn't lean them off enough to smooth out at cruising rpm or they'd bite you. 90mm bore 70mm stroke way oversquare & all to hell. What were they thinking.

Finally got the picture above fixed.

The main reason I got this bike is because the price was right and I wanted to teach my son how to work on two stroke engines. I will make it street legal and commute once or twice a week. I only have a 7 mile commute and it's all surface roads, no highway. I won't have to get it smog tested in my county. Just have to rig up a brake light and I'm good.

I just got the title at lunch and after looking up the frame number it is actually a 1979 IT400F. Wish I could change the title of this thread. LOL