WANTED Gen 1 RSV Mille, preferably R version, will travel for the right bike

Old bikes!, mine has only 2 previous owners, about 8 years each. So it seems very good, it's only done 15k miles and the oil drain only produced a few very small flakes from the oil (rotax gearboxes seem very hard coating and even the 2 stroke 125's produce some fine metal particles, the only thing I would like on this bike is separate gearbox oil compartment, it makes no sense to me to have clutch friction material , and shards of gears being pumped into the the crank and cams !)

The bike is on its abba stand awaiting the rear shock being returned from a referb (it had no gas in it , the guy servicing it recons it's never been touched in 16 years) and the front forks were low on oil and needed a good service....

My knee is giving concern, I have an infection in the joint, and now on 2 different types of antibiotics, and I've been told to rest the knee ! The op was done at pine hill in hitchin, so very local !

Your chain problem would possibly mean new chain and sprockets, I had a chain break years ago , it's not fun when the rear wheel locks at 70mph (honest officer ! I was only moving slowly when it broke) lol

Might be an idea to change the oil ? You have to drain the oil tank, the oil crankcase sump and then the oil filter, aprilia (rotax) used 2 different sized filters because of oil starvation on the smaller filter ! You have to take the filter out to see which you need , doh...

Here is a pic of the location of the drain sequence...



Stolen from the interweaving Google pictures...

That combination of tyres would possibly slow down the steering a bit. Modern tyres are fantastic compared to what I started on ( a new rd250 with horrible Japanese brick rubber, I rode for 2 months with no crashes, the first rain the bike stepped out, they were lethal lol.)
With any old bike it's a good idea to go through the bike , the wheel bearings I find are always notchy, I take the wheel off and if there is any resistance they are scrap. All the mille's wheel bearing although skf were very stiff. I am sure bearings used to be better than the **** they sell now ?
Same with oil , these bikes run hot and with just over a litre of coolant, the oil does most of the cooling, this stresses the oil, I like to use good oils, and change regularly, every few thousand miles on colour and smell !
Also I like to see if the wiring is good, I don't like breaking down , ( I had a ducati stolen in the late 70's coming back from Snetterton because of **** italian wiring)

Good luck on not finding anything to bad, the wiring for example is a lot better than previous italian efforts, but the main cables to the starter were not good enough when new. You can get good upgrades now, expensive but a thousand times better than oem !

ES-23 Aprilia RSV Mille 98-03 & Tuono 02-05 Hi Cap Electric Upgrade Cable Kit | eBay

That and getting a mosfet regulator , the oem is a shunt rgulator rectifier and stresses the magneto. A 150 amp starter solenoid is a good buy after upgrading the starter and earth wires.

Here is a good a list of upgrades/things to look out for....

Reference Thread - Common Issues Info

The perceived wisdom is that rear tyres should either be 180/55 or 190/55, the latter giving better grip at the slight expense of ability to tip in quickly


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Oh and Metzeler M7RR are my personal favourite - I'd go Michelin pilot road 4 if I did more wet weather and winter riding


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Looking very nice after your clean up......did you sort out if the chip is the right one for twin cans ?