Looks like a fun time. I've seen these heavy adventure bikes under perform in trail situations more times than one. I would imagine in TN you have a lot of water. We did in NJ constantly. A capable trail bike needs to be designed to handle this. The stock XT225 has a pretty good air intake system. The air box acts as a water separator. I too have had to drain water from it without any problems. The center stand shown in your last photo is another bad idea for a trail bike IMHO. Try parking that bike on off camber steep terrain. And mustering the muscle to pull the bike up and over the pivot point. I also don't like opposing cylinders whose spark plug connections and head can take a nasty hit from a rock. The XT225's cylinder is mostly protected from that. As for the XT225, a lot of thought went into the design. The bikes did well by us for all our rides. Pick what works best but know before you go on the trails.

Great pics and awesome story! XT will always get you there and back.

Thanks for sharing, you folks have thoroughly convinced me to replace the snorkel. I really appreciate your collective experiences!

BTD3509 - I think that's a good decision. People make all sort of mods with their XT225s. Each one comes with pros and cons. As for the air intake system on the XT225, the stock design is good. I have had a few instances of water washing over the air box. The snorkel helped minimize water from getting inside the air box. What little did enter was easily drained. If you're not riding in water perhaps removing the snorkel has other advantages. Mods are personal and specific to how/where you ride. The only significant problems we had with the bikes were rear wheel strength and the drum brakes. Something I can forgive since the bike wasn't designed for abusive terrain. That said, the reliability of the design is amazing. Yamaha put a lot of thought into that bike going back many years. It's still a capable bike to this day.

I had to do a bit of plastic welding on the front upper bolt flange of the airbox and noticed it has four, one inch holes just behind where the snorkel should be. Is that OEM?

That isn't stock! It's a simple mod some riders do to get the bike to run lean at high elevation. Usually these are found on the air box side cover so they can be plugged or opened as needed. It's sort of a kludge. You could find gem box hole plugs and use some JB weld to close those holes off. Clean and scuff the surfaces to get a strong bond. You can look HERE.

After a couple weeks of tinkering with the carb, I think I've finally gotten my xt225 running decent. I took your kind advice and tried to get back as close to stock as possible and found I was having issues getting the bike to idle at consistent RPM.

I think the two major problems were the cracked intake boot and I also discovered I had cracked the coasting enrichment cover on the carb. The tiny o-ring that came with the moose racing carb rebuild kit for the enrichment cover was too big and probably caused excessive strain on the plastic cover.

I am still waiting on a new airbox and snorkel and may have to rejet again. I experimented with restricting the holes on my airbox and I'm convinced that modding the airbox and removing the snorkel can't do a whole lot for the bike. It seems to run about the same no matter what I do, short of completely closing off the holes.

Thank you folks so much for all your help and willingness to share advice! My 8 year old son and I rejetted the bike this morning and it seems to be running great!

If you want to rock, keep it stock! Glad the bike is coming around. Also good to get your son involved with a solid hobby, knowledge and experience. Something he will likely enjoy during his life. Enjoy the bike and ride safely. That bike will get you in/out of many places. We found it an excellent access vehicle for exploring remote areas.


Tushar Mountains @ 11.2k and 100 MPH winds. 6/11/2009 in Marysvale, UT. One of many remote areas we explored.
The winds actually lifted the bike up and blew it over.