Words: Jeff Ware Photography: JPMedia, Guy Norris
Can you remember much about 1983? A house in most cities was around the $70k mark and a new family wagon would set you back around $8000. More importantly, the new IT490 replaced the mighty IT465 and you could have one in your garage for just $2699 plus on-roads!
Named after the International Trial, the IT range was Yamaha’s answer to the popular enduro segment and the IT was the pioneer motorcycle of the class. The IT400C was the first model to take on the class in 1976 and it was an instant success. It was quickly followed by the easier to tame (for normal humans) IT175 and IT250 in 1977 and 1978.
The bikes were, by now, legendary and anyone from that era or young enough to remember the look of the blue and yellow, the crackling exhaust rasp and the sheer presence of the IT should be smiling right about now!
In 1980 the rare IT425 made a short appearance but was quickly superseded when the amazing IT465 arrived in 1981 and took the enduro world by storm. This was a bike for the serious rider, and it had huge stomp!
With the International success of the 465 placing Yamaha on an unstoppable wave of sales and enduro success, the only way was up, and Yamaha achieved this when they released the mother of all enduro beasts, the infamous IT490 in 1983.
THIS BIKE
With a stonking engine, monoshock suspension and upgraded brakes and forks, the IT490 was the ultimate trailbike and in 1984 Guy bought one brand new.
“I love the big, raw two-stroke power of the 490,” Guy Norris explained, “I had one brand new in 1984 and I was really missing the bike. I just loved the thing.
“I decided to look for one to restore. Eventually I found the bike for me, but it took a solid three months of searching. It was a basket case and I picked it up for $3000 neat from DDR (Dead Dog Racing) Imports”.
As the bike was already stripped, Guy didn’t have a lot of work to do to get it completely in bits to assess and plan the task at hand. The goal was to have it as absolutely original as possible right down to the indicators.
The engine was completely rebuilt. The cases were stripped and repainted or polished, the crankshaft was rebuilt with a new rod kit and mains, the original barrel was rebored, and brand-new oversize piston and rings fitted. The head was cleaned and polished to perfection, as were the ports. Compression ratio remains 4.9:1.
The original 38mm Mikuni smooth bore carby was stripped, dipped, cleaned, and rebuilt with new jets, needle and seat. An aftermarket airfilter was fitted and at the other end a DG expansion chamber set aside for later when the engine was back in the frame. The clutch was rebuilt, then the five-speed wide-ratio gearbox and fresh engine were reassembled back to brand new condition.
Guy then turned his attention to the huge task of restoring the chassis and plastics back to as new condition. There was a lot of work to do – the frame needed stripping and powdercoating, a hell of a lot of alloy needed to be polished, all bearings needed replacing and the wheels needed rebuilding, along with the suspension!
Next week we look at Guy’s work on the chassis and plastics and fitting the engine back in the frame
Protect your motorbike. Call Shannons Insurance on 13 46 46 to get a quote today.
