RESTORING THE SUZUKI RL 250
PART I "THE HOME COMING"
After discussing the cost of the two bikes with Bob, (and there were two engines photo A) we settled on the price of $150.00 for everything, including a factory service manual. (See photo B)
As you can see from the photo's, these were not running bikes. But being the visionary that I am, when I looked at them I saw brand new bikes. I never saw the rust untill it was time to tear down.
The first to do when starting a restoration project such as this, is step back and evaluate what you have to start with, and what obvious parts are you going to need. (don't worry, I promise you will need many more than you 1st plan on.)
In my case, it was obvious that the most complete bike was the one to restore 1st.(photo C) The problem with this, was that when we were examining the bike, I noticed that the oil cap was missing. This was not a good sign, since this bike had been outside for a few years. (photoD)
The next step was to remove the engine and disasemble the bike pice by pice taking care to take a photo of each part before removing. then the part and the photo go into a zip lock bag for storage until it's time to be worked on. This is a very important step, since in most restorations, the bike will stay in parts for a long time while you repair, hunt parts, or just find time to work on it. The bags keep parts from mixing up, and photo tells you wher it came from, and how it should go back.
On this bike we were lucky in some ways, we did have a complete set of side panels, which are very hard to find, and they were in great shape.After removing all the bolt ons to the frame, I removed the steering head, carefully noting the number of ball bearings to come out of each end. While the grease was more the consistency of black top, the bearing races were surprizingly in good shape, with no wear groves. However, all of the ball bearins were shot, or at least no worth evaluating. (Note, Suzuki RL250 takes 18 1/4" balls in lower bearing and 22 3/16" in top bearing.)
After removing the forks and swing arm, it was time to send the frame off to the welding shop for repair. If you look carefully in photo C, you can see crude weld repair above left foot peg. This is a very common place for the Suzuki frame to break, in fact both frames were broken in the same spot. My guess it comes from years of general abuse trail riding and jumping the RL.
After the frame returns from the welding shop, it will be sand blasted and prepared for painting. Since this is to be a competition bike and not a show bike, I felt that the paint would be easier to touch up after bashing into rocks. This also saved money since we could paint the frame ourselves.
Thats it for this installment, check back next Month and I will cover the engine rebuild.
