Suzuki TS185 1974
October 14
The bike was bought from a guy who had had it for about a year and done nothing with it but he’d bought it from the original owner and it had sat most of its life under his veranda.
It has only done a few thousand miles and all that was wrong was a fine rust on almost every part.
I totally stripped it back to bare frame and set about restoring all the parts.
Any dirt bike of this era has a wealth of chrome parts and the TS is no exception. I’d budgeted about $800 for the re-chroming of the parts but it came out almost double that.
But apart from the rust it was one of the only bikes I’d restored that had not been dismantled even once in it’s life so had every single original nut and bolt, which I of course cleaned up and re-used.
The low mileage was apparent when I dismantled the motor to replace all its seals. It literally looked brand new inside. I’m always impressed with the older Suzuki build quality especially with their engines.
On re-assembly (and after reconditioning the carb) the bike started very easily. Again it’s the best part when you know a bikes not run for decades to hear it live again.
As the bike had only a light coat of rust the pipe was still in very good condition so a clean up and paint was all it needed.
After the resto was finished I had it registered and rode it to and from work a few times. Not the most powerful of bikes but still made me grin. Except when it shot out it’s baffle while I was sitting at the lights so I had to rapidly get off and stick it down my jacket. Lucky it had only been running a few minutes. It sounded like an amplified angry bee in a paper bag on the way home.
