I have an '03 Ninja 250 already so Im fairly familiar with them with a few exceptions. My question has to do with the front end which is pretty general so Im asking here.

I went to look at a used '93 250 Ninja with 17K It has an issue which I cant quite pin down.

The front end felt like crap put some air in the tire which improved it considerably but still felt strange. The only obvious thing is the front tire is the stock dunflop possibly even the original from the looks of it. The forks arent leaking and feel as soft as normal.

It seems to pull to the right on aceleration a tad and feels strange when riding kind of wishey washy? The front isnt noticibly out and I have ridden bikes that have had handle bars way out of alignment (took the MSF on one) and they didnt feel like this. Theres no crease in the fork though it could be bent I aparently cant tell by looking at it.

I can deal with bent forks Ive rebuilt them before but bent triples or frame how would I know what it is without completely taking the thing apart on his sidewalk. I could probably get away with taking off the farings but he has no garage and the bike is over an hour away from me and my nice toasty barn.

Could it just be the dry rotted tire? I just dont know what to look for in particular.

 

is it possible that the tire is out of balance??? weight might have come off...

 

If the bearings in the steering knuckle are tight, it then sounds like either bent forks, or misaligned forks. It's possible though that the original tire could have some belt separation, or a flat spot from it's old age.