Project 1 / 1982 Suzuki PE175

I got this ol' girl from a local motorcycle wreckers ( Independent Motorcycle Wreckers - Toowoomba ) for a bit of a handshake deal, after swapping a boat prop for around the $300 mark. It didn't go but had plenty of compression, so a quick clean out of the carb, check the floats, new oil and of course fresh fuel before giving a good kick. She fired eagerly into life after having a very long sleep; it obviously wasn't a beauty sleep as you can see.

She cracked away and seemed to be very responsive, selected all gears and clutch seemed pretty good, but wouldn't really know until it got to operation temp after a good ride to see the truth about that one.
Anyway, next decision was where do I start; I had been riding a T model on the trail rides and the engine was getting tired, well, it was tired when I got it off Ebay. It had a tired engine and showed on the Crows nest trail ride. So I had a second barrel and piston from Z-model basket case which I did a quick swap. It ran for a while before grabbing a piston!

So it was time to pull the engine and replace it with from my $300 investment, for the time being anyway.

The engine stayed in the T model for a while and performed great, never breaking down at all. Well that's enough T talk, back to the Z. While I still had wheels for trail riding I started on the frame by powder coating it in a gloss black, after taking off all the road going frame tags for indicators as this bike was going to be a racer. I had spare wheels from the basket case and just picked the best out of them, resprayed the hubs, rubbed back the spokes and re- bearinged them. A nice new seat cover off Ebay from a guy in New Zealand made the bike easy recognized of its heritage.
The forks got a clean, polish and sealed. Swingarm had shot bearings and were replaced; the rear mount for the engine where the swingarm attached had excessive wear from use, a common issue that I have noticed on these. So, a reweld of the worn away metal, grind and some paint did the trick.
The plastics were ratshit so a purchase from DC plastics from the US was done. I remember they had no Z model kits and I ordered RM 250 T/X at the time. It was the better choice instead of painting the crappy ones I had. I also got a genuine rear guard for the Z model and used it, but later regretted this as it was an item of value to be used on a racer! Lesson learnt: leave the genuine bits to guys who want a showroom piece.

By this time I was ready to shelve the T model as I wanted the engine back to give it a lick of paint and place it carefully in the frame with the other shiny bits. It was coming up a treat - the tank was rubbed back and polished. It wasn't too bad, would have been better to get a replica tank to go with the plastics. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers. So, out for the photo shoot to see how it looks. It came up pretty well but there is always room for improvement; the plastics looked good even though I had a preference for getting some original looking pieces at a later stage. It was also in need of some decals as well, I'll sneak that purchase in when the wife's not looking ;).

At a later stage I gave her a make over in preparation for Conondale; DC plastics finally had a Z kit which I couldn't resist.

They required less mucking about when fitting compared to the RM set. Also, I had to add a set of bar risers - this made it comfortable to ride for my height (6ft 3in). Below is a shot at Conondale 2010, and later on in 2012. The bike is starting to reach the look I wanted... But you can always do more!
Dazza