Winter Project - Suzuki RV90

[PolarIce]

Who likes Before and After PICS?

THIS GUY!

I had Xmas Eve day off and hit the cleaning hard on this one.



Here's the bottom, I forgot to take a pic before spraying on the oven cleaner but basically wherever you see white foamy stuff is where there was oil/sand filth.



Here's some AFTER shots.







Still working.... need to get those wheels blasted and repainted, buy some tubes for the tires and maybe we can do a test fire.

[PolarIce]

Still cleaning over here. Once I get the wheels to/from the sand blaster I should be able to get a "test run" going.

Otherwise I'm just cleaning and checking. Went through both of the switches and found plenty of dirt, dead insects and corroded brass terminals.

Got em all cleaned up and switching good. (sorry no pics)

Otherwise this fender was bugging me, so I cleaned it up, knocked down the surface rust and painted the bottom with some bedliner spray.







Cleaned up the exhaust and went to work on the chrome. Brasso to the rescue, still surprised how well this works, even takes out the rust, there's some scratches in there but I'm happy with the outcome.







Finishing up the weekend, I routed new gas lines with in line filters (of course) - Took care of the main and the reserve lines.



That's the update for now.

[PolarIce]

Put in some more work this weekend.

I got the wheels back from the sand blaster, looks like the pitting from the rust was limited to the "inside" of the wheel so I put a few coats of rustoleum on them.





Here's the wheels assembled with new bolts and some Duro HF247's, it's an ATV front tire in the correct size.







In case your forgot what I was dealing with - here's some before and after shots of the rear end.













And here we are with the front tire installed.







I am going for start up this week. I have all of my fluids ready I just need to put a new spark plug cap on the new coil I purchased.

You can see this coil needed some help.

[Wheelman-111]

Greetings:

Where almost everyone else would see only junk, you saw potential. Clearly a labor of love, nicely done!

[PolarIce]

Greetings:

Where almost everyone else would see only junk, you saw potential. Clearly a labor of love, nicely done!

Thanks WM for the vote of confidence.

[donut]

wow great job ... looks like it will be fun to ride!
congrats... another work of scoot art!

[ped]

WOW! look how clean your shop is : ) compared to mine lol. just joking. Very nice work. what a classic sweet bike.

[PolarIce]

wow great job ... looks like it will be fun to ride!
congrats... another work of scoot art!

Thanks Donut!

WOW! look how clean your shop is : ) compared to mine lol. just joking. Very nice work. what a classic sweet bike.

My wife would disagree with you on cleanliness but I tend to clean up in phases. Once I stopped chipping away at the muck I had to clean out the shop just to get my mind straight.

Either way thanks.

[swimmingfree]

hope you get the old girl up and running she dose look good ....
swimmingfree

[LMH]

That really is one heck of a transformation. Great job!

[PolarIce]

hope you get the old girl up and running she dose look good ....
swimmingfree

That really is one heck of a transformation. Great job!

Thanks Guys should be running by the weekend (fingers crossed). I'll post up some more pics and maybe a video of it running for prosperity.

[PolarIce]

Well... I went to start it last night and I am finding a NO SPARK condition. I used a new coil and I put on the old coil still NO SPARK. I guess I'll start tracing out the wiring and looking at the magneto. The Germans make a nice CDI 12V convert system for this bike but it's like 400 bucks. Not quite sure I'm ready to pull the trigger without a little troubleshooting.

Wish me luck.

[PolarIce]

Ok. I'm happy to report that we have a runner now but it wasn't the ground or the points.

Luckily for me my local dealer had the 1 and only flywheel puller in town and it was an exact fit for my application.

Before I got started pulling the flywheel I made sure there was a good ground, a new coil, new spark plugs and a new cap. Keyword here is NEW.

Alas I still didn't have spark, I did my best to clean the points through the opening but it sucked pretty bad and still no spark. So.. yeah flywheel puller to the rescue.






Here's the magneto, points are good, windings are in good order.



I wonder how those magnets look? BAM - looks like this could use some cleaning - took out a scuff pad and went to work.





After I got the magneto reassembled went to check for spark and got it.

Woot Woot - so here's a video of technically the 2nd start - the first one had alot of smoke in the garage to the point where the wife was yelling at me.

Purrs like a 2 smoke -



Boy just when you think you're done cleaning... I had to take off the headlight to service the speedo cable as it had a terrible whine and was dry as a bone.

I found this inside -



Got her cleaned up and dressed again with body parts and took her out for a photoshoot so here she is in the New Mexico sun.









1 More video to cap off the project -

[YOUTUBE]<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/w5IevM2FU9o?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/YOUTUBE]

If that embed code didn't work here's the link:

Suzuki RV90 - YouTube


I didn't do any bodywork as you can tell and I'm not sure if I will. I just wanted to bring it back to life and clean it up. I'm sure my kids will ride and wreck it before too long so maybe then I can think about the Lifan 125cc or the new paint job.

Thanks for reading and good luck out there.

[swimmingfree]

looks good sitting still???? what it like on the road???
swimmingfree

[PolarIce]

looks good sitting still???? what it like on the road???
swimmingfree

It's a squirrely beast that's for sure with the big tires.

Those first 2 gears are just about worthless to get you up to 15MPH, then 3 and 4 get you humming along at meager 40mph.

I need some more seat time and maybe some sand/mud to really check it out.