TOOL BOX TIPS
Bike restoration basics By: Mitch Barnes AHRMA events are always a duality of themes—part vintage race and part vintage beauty contest. My experience is that the family fun events are flooded with both restored beautiful models and bikes of speed. One of the primary drivers that drew me in to the AHRMA clan back in 2017 was the assistance I received from other AHRMA members when I had questions. When I began to passionately restore the first 1975 Suzuki RM125 four years ago, I quickly found out the project was much harder and quite a bit more expensive than my initial estimate. Being a bargain hunter, I had purchased hastily the first and cheapest RM125 that I could identify. It was the wrong choice, but I wanted a bike like the one my brother, Glenn Barnes, (age 15 at the time) raced with me when I was 12 years old. My personal passion after his passing in 2017 had caused me to make some mistakes on the first attempt at
Picked the Suzuki from this substantial stack
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vintage restoration. It was nothing too drastic that couldn’t be fixed with two times the allotted cash. At Louisville Motorcycle Performance, we hope to help you avoid my mistakes, meet some other members and assist you in having some AHRMA fun in the process.
This article’s purpose is to:
a) Assist those who are contemplating a restoration project for the first time. b) Help you identify a worthy restoration candidate. We call it the base bike. c) Provide time saving tips for those who have restored bikes before. d) Address things to avoid and not waste money on. Our shop has restored 15 bikes. We handle special orders from around the country and generally deliver the desired beauty queen to other AHRMA members at the out-of-town AHRMA Roadracing events. Our clients are paying for the memories that were made possible by dirt bikes from the 1970s. Given enough
Ready to take it apart and put it back together anew AMERICAN HISTORIC RACING MOTORCYCLE ASSOCIATION
Sorting parts JUNE 2021
