Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Project bike of my friends jumped in to help ou t in the big push to get the bike don e for the race, and by 9 o'cl ock Sa tu rday night, we finally realized that there was nothing left to do but start her up - well, at least try. 1 had one major concern at thi s point: the ignition . After 16 yea rs, wou ld there still be spark? If not, there would be no time left to trace the problem, let alone fix it. And there wo uld be no racing tomorrow . It was time to kick'er over. I kicked, kicked and kicked. Nothing. a t even a hint of it wanting to start. K ick, k ick, ki ck. No th ing . Finall y, we resorted to push-starting . Nothing. It was now the moment of truth: time to check the ignition. I was relieved to see one of the healthiest sparks I have ever see n. Whew! We soon traced the problem to a clogged petcock. That fixed, we tried aga in . Kick, kick, kick. Agai n, nothing. We pushed . Fina lly, a pop. Just like that , it was ru nni ng aga in. My friends an d I took turns running the old RM u p and down the street an d we re ama zed at just how good it ran, and not to mention how m uch power it had . It was jus t as I had remem bered . Next came the most important part of the restoration: installi ng the graphics. Earlier in the week, Mike Tolle of Continued from page 13 After all, it was already out of the frame. A friend of mine offered to do most of the motor work for me, so I ordered up a stock con necti ng rod, upper -end bea rin gs a nd gaske ts from Suz uki, loweren d bearin gs sea ls and cl u tch pl ates from L.A. Steeve, a nd piston and rings fro m Wiseco. Gary Jones from W hite Bro th e rs p erfor med the cra nk wo rk , w h ile m y fri end s lipped everythin g ba ck toget h er - bu t n o t befo re bead blasting and repainting the eng ine cases. The entire mo tor cam e back to me looking brand-new. This wa s probab ly th e turning point of the w ho le proj ect. Seeing that beautifu l mot or nes tled inside the powder-coated fra me fortified th e need to complete the project. Perhaps the one undert aki ng I d read ed most was the whee ls. The spo kes had turned ru sty and ugly, and the rear hu b was already a mess, than ks to a cou ple of crack ed bosses. Since I simply di dn't wan t to mess with the w heels, I kep t pu tting this par t of the project off to the . point that I wai ted too long. If I w an ted to ma ke th e ra ce, I on ly ha d e no ug h time left to co mp lete th e back w heel. Bucha nan Spoke and Rim supplied new spokes and, aga in, Gary Jones at White Brot hers cam e to the rescue at the last minu te by co mpletely overhauling the hub, lacing the wheel and replacing the rim with a new Excel rim after it was discovered tha t my or iginal hoop was cracked. O ne of the prices I pai d for procrastinating was having to stick with my u gl y fro nt w heel for the race - n e w spo kes and rim are on the way, thou gh. Renthal mad e su re I had new sprock ets and a chain . (Stra ngely eno ugh, the rear sprocket on m y 'S2 is inter changeab le with the 2000 RMs' .) Terry Da vis fr om Te rrycable a lso ma de sure I had new clu tch and fro nt brake cables . My p ro crastin a tin g also had me on the p hon e sea rching for a new exhaust MTR Racin g had d ug up for me so me o ld a fte r m a r ke t O'Neal r epli ca tank decals that he had ga thering dust in a box in his garage. {Su zu ki - or O' Ne al, for th at matter - no longer carries the tan k deca ls, bu t Suzuki s ti ll h a d- the side- panel decals in stock .) No t wanting to risk da magin g th e preci ou s O'Neal decals, I brou ght them to work and had th em scanned a nd p rint ed (sim ilar to ph otocopy in g) on paper, matching up the colors the best that we could . Then I carefull y cut ou t the g rap hi cs a nd attached them to the tank by means of clear plastic number-plate backings. It's definitely not a permanent solution, bu t I figu re I can repl ace the decal reproductions easil y enough the day before a race or w henever they are damaged. So far, they still look as good as new. As far as plastic, Suzuki man aged to dig up a n OEM rea r fender, radia tor shro uds and a left side panel. Appa rently, right side panels for the 'S2 RM250Z are extinct , so I stuck wi th a Maier side panel that I had bought for the bike back in 'S3. My original front fender was still in excelle nt shape, so I reused it. One of the last things I did on the bike was to install the seat. The sea t I ha d was a blue replacement H i-Fli te safety sea t, which was the hot se tup Corrtirr ued 011 page 18 (Above) It wasn 't until the night before the Vintage Iron World Champ ionships at Glen Helen that the RM fired to life for the first time in 16 years. (Right) Old bikes are a great way to visit the past. pipe at the las t minute. My master plan was to use my original pipe, bu t it needed major overhau ling an d I sim ply ran ou t of time for that. I was informed that DG s t ill m ake s pipes for m a n y o ld Japanese bikes. To my su rprise, DG had the pipe I need ed in stock and the next day it ar rived on my doorstep. It came in that "works" unpainted loo k . I th ou ght abo u t pai nting it b la ck bu t chose to leave it alone. It really looks too "trick" to paint - maybe later. It wasn' t until the final two w eeks (afte r I go t the mo tor back) that I really made the big pu sh to get the bike ready for the race. However, there were times when I wrote the bike off as far as making the race. Many small parts that I was plan ning to reuse wer e missing, requiring many trips to the loca l hardware sto re and Suz uki shop, and a lot of fabrica ti ng . I s pe n t ma ny lu n ch h ours a t O ra nge Co un ty Suzuki, drivi ng p art s gllY Ali crazy, but he went above and beyond the call of d uty to make sure I go t the pa rts I needed, and quickly. Momen t of truth Suddenly , it was the day before the race, and I still had a lot of wo rk to do. Some Evolution 3 T hanks to Rick Doughty introducing the Evolution 3 class at the Vintage Iron World Ch ampionshi p last.month, I had even more incentive to complete my restorati on on my 1982 Suzuki RM250Z. . . The basic requirem ents for any of the other Evolu tion classes a re tha t the bike m ust be air-cooled , or iginally come w ith d rum bra kes, and the su.spenslon sys te~1 can ' t use link azes, That left mv water-cooled an d Full Floater-equipped RM out 11\ the cold. But the on ly requirement of the Evolution 3 class is that the bike originally must have been produced with drum brakes. Tha t's it. . I like the ide a of the Evolution 3 class, because it opens the door for what 1 think are truly "evo lu tion" bikes - the first water-cooled and linkage motocrossers. How can we "igno re these historically significant bikes just. because the(re water-coolt>? and ha ve linkage suspensions? Even some of thos e first linkage bikes really didn t handle mu ch better than some of the late-model Evolu tion bikes did . The Evolution 3 class will allow bikes such as the very first Kaw asaki KX125 with the Uni-Tra k rear sus pension (19SO) to race, as well as ea rly-' SOs Suzuki ~l 25s and 25?s, t~ e RM465 and the first RM250 (19S1) wi th the Full Floater. (This bike was still aircooled .) Th e class w ould also includ e th e first few wate r-cooled YZs, w ith their Mon o-X linkage sys tems, as well as Honda's CRs and their first wate:-cooled bikes and Pro Link suspension sys tems. Early sing le-shock Maicos can run III the c~ass, as we ll as m an y o t he r Eu ro p ea n b ikes . KTM a n d most o f the early U ~I -Tr~ k Kawasakis, ho wever, wer e ahead of their time and alread y came stock WIth d isc . " . " bra kes . Perha ps a special class can ? e crea ted fo: these bi~es. Some people might not like the Idea of sme lling stea mmg radiators at a vllltaqe race, but 1 like it. Any excuse to have more classes and brmg ~ore motorcycles - vmtage or evolution - back fro m the d ead and see them , and their ow ners, back on the start line having fU11 is fine with me. - ~ C'I .c '" E ~ o Z 15

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