| 23rd Jan, 2006: The Wreck arrives! | Off trailer, move into garage. Stare. Nightly at 11pm I venture out for 1 hour. hmm... I see many worn/damaged components. |
| 28th Jan, 2006: Strip-down begins. | Examination continues, making list, started cleaning, sanding plastics. |
| 30th Jan, 2006: Strip-down continues. | Removed rear wheel & swingarm, straightened l/h handlebar. Figured out E24 wiring. |
| 2nd Feb, 2006: Strip-down completed. | Down to bare frame... contemplating lengthy worn-out parts list!. |
| 3rd Feb, 2006: Parts sleuthing! | Sourced NOS blinkers, indicator relay and brackets from Ray at SuziParts. Continued sanding plastics. |
| 9th Feb, 2006: Parts Cleaning... | Sent frame off for blasting & paint. On-going plastics sanding, parts cleaning. |
| 15th Feb, 2006: Cleaning continues. | Rear guard looking Good, side-covers coming along, forks & triple-clamp now looking Good. Fork rebuild underway, begin search for rear hub. |
| 17th Feb, 2006: Cleaning continues. | Side-covers now starting to look much better, but thin. Disassembled/polished/reassembled Light/blinker switch block. |
| 23rd Feb, 2006: Cleaning continues. | Now have the r/h lever and brake switch along with the kill switch. Cleaned up the existing l/h lever, cleaned out the gunk from the spark arrestor; the O-ring is shot... |
| 27th Feb, 2006: Cleaning continues. | All plastics now nearing completion. Managed to sand three finger-tips to red-raw. "Mouse" sander also now deceased! |
| 3rd Mar, 2006: Wheel disassembly. | Wheels now apart. Awaiting new rear hub. Polishing of ancient rims will take days... Front hub has four different spoke sizes/bends. Two missing rear, one broken front spoke. Investigating SS spokes. |
| 8th Mar, 2006: Sanding fuel tank | Cleaning up old spokes, started sanding tank, replaced various split-pins and circlips, painted front hub. Awaiting new seat cover. |
| 10th Mar, 2006: Seat disassembly | Took the remains of the seat apart. Extensive brazing of rust holes in the base before new cover goes on. Cleaned up pipe and resprayed with HT matt black. |
| 14th Mar, 2006: Battery sleuthing! | Defeated with the side-covers. Went for NOS ones and sanded off the black racing-spot. Looking Good. The E24 battery is now confirmed. It existed! |
| 17th Mar, 2006: Wiring confirmed | Received original E24 wiring diagram. Brake hubs resprayed, front hub reassembled. Tank sanding/buffing almost completed. [HA! Feel free to look up the word 'HUBRIS' at this point] |
| 20th Mar, 2006: Chain Tensioner | Rebuilt chain tensioner. Rear hub arrived. Replaced seat mounting rubbers. Seat Cover arrived. Original "C"/"N" spanner acquired. Seems that it's a "C" spanner but it did ship on some "N" bikes... |
| 28th Mar, 2006: Rear hub | Removed bearings from old hub, repacked, assembled new hub. Started cleaning the carburettor. |
| 6th Apr, 2006: DG Head! | A work-mate's father donated a DG Head and other items. Also, the JaneKits nickel-plating kit arrived! |
| 8th Apr, 2006: Seat Cover | Went off to Clarke Rubber and found various rubber bits, hoses, etc. I'll need, including the trim for the seat base. So, put the new seat cover on! Also started at nickel-plating bits and pieces! |
| 16th Apr, 2006: Centre-stand | Bash-plate and optional centre-stand arrived. - but I can't fathom how the loop-spring thing works... Good: The battery box arrived! Bad: Nickel-plating problems. |
| 18th Apr, 2006: Swing-arm | Replaced swing-arm bearings. First one popped out, second was an epic battle. Chain-tensioner and new chain defense installed. |
| 22nd Apr, 2006: Blinkers | Reinstalled wiring, rear blinkers, battery-box, handlebar levers, switches. |
| 23rd Apr, 2006: Centre-stand | After a conversation with Joe Broussard... Have I really, finally figured out the centre-stand spring!!? |
| 29th Apr, 2006: Side-stand | Found a front cable clamp and the side-stand. Brazed up the worn-out foot. All cables have arrived. Rear bearings in and re-laced the rear wheel. NOS fork boots arrived |
| 4th May, 2006: Rear wheel | More time getting the rear rim near wobble-free. NOS rear 48T sprocket and 13T front sprocket arrived. Will order a 15T from Vintage Suzuki if it needs highway gearing. Rivets into air-box, replaced rubber washers on CDI unit. Mounted blinker relay off top CDI bolt, but it looks wrong. |
| 7th May, 2006: Rear guard | Made new spacers and rubber washers for the rear guard. Mounted guard, tail-light, seat. Forks now back on. Dead rear shocks. Looking at "T" shocks to substitute. |
| 13th May, 2006: Rear shocks | Bad: Original rear shocks stuffed. Good: Barry's donated "T" shocks cleaned/repainted/mounted. No, they're not perfect - one of them is 'iffy' too.. Will consider YSS or Ohlin's at a future date. O-ring chain arrived. |
| 18th May, 2006: Battery | Yuasa 6N2-2A-4 battery arrived! Cleaned up/mounted speedometer. |
| 28th May, 2006: Engine | Put the DG Head onto the engine, gave it a coat of paint. Fitted new kick-start lever, new sprocket & sprocket cover. |
| 4th June, 2006: Various | Engine went back into the frame. Pipe went on. Wiring all in, battery installed. Polished up plastics yet again. Seat and tank back on. Finally figured likely location where blinker relay should reside. However, I've now decided to put inside the headlight surround, well out of the way. |
| 9th June, 2006: Cables | Good: Oil into engine case. Put new brake/clutch cables on. Bad: The NOS throttle cable and grip do not match what turns out to be a RM125Z throttle assembly. grr... |
| 11th June, 2006: Various | Good: Getting there. Replaced blown fuse - blinkers blink! Stop light shines!! Bad: R/H front rubber blinker mount torn! swapped right with left. Faulty speedometer disassembled - It'll have to go to the speedo doctor. |
| 18th June, 2006: Wheels | Daylight!. Dunlop D605's fitted, stainless-steel spokes installed. O-ring chain, new brake shoes, cables, hooks, etc. |
| 25th June, 2006: Horrors! | Good: speedo now works and a shiny new front number-plate will arrive this week. Started the engine - yay! all lights working - yay! Bad: Give it a rev - all the bulbs promptly blew. Tracked down Bad earths, etc. Now to find a 6v AC regulator. Also tried to start it today, with volt meter in hand. Engine locked solid. Broken teeth on kick-start idle gear! |
| 27th June, 2006: Clamp | Good: Missing lower-right fork boot clamp solved. Discovered that p/n 51572-41211 fits beautifully. Just nip off the cable-clamp prongs and it's perfect. Sourced a TS185 regulator. Bad: Removed clutch for wrecked idle gear - meshes with clutch basket gear, which is also Bad! |
| 1st July, 2006: Horn | 6v horn now fitted. Original throttle assembly & cable now fitted. Tracked down a poor electrical connection - in the main plug. |
| 3rd July, 2006: Idle gear | Replaced the smashed idle gear. Awaiting replacement clutch basket. Installed new 'trick' reed-valve courtesy of the Institute For Twostrokes and also a new brass head gasket. Mounted the TS185 Voltage Regulator along with the Rectifier under the r/h side-panel. |
| 9th July, 2006: Clutch Basket | Replaced the clutch basket as it too had a damaged gear. Finished wiring-in the TS185 regulator. Tested lights - 'glow-worm' at best... Removed the TS185 regulator and all is fine! Packed some stainless steel wool into the muffler. Pondering construction of a new muffler End-Cap. |
| 29th July, 2006: Muffler | Reworked an RGV road-bike muffler to suit the PE175N. Came out quite well. Not sure if it's quieter, but certainly a very different note. Unfortunately, YET AGAIN the high-beam and tail-light have blown. Strangely, the instrument globe and low-beam are still fine. |
| 12th August, 2006: Muffler | Still not located an original muffler with the impossible to obtain original End-Cap. I thought I had - but no... it wasn't the original. |
| 19th August, 2006: Lights | Tracked down the bad earth for the headlight. Re-soldered. This should resolve the problem of bulbs blowing. Received a bag of 6v tail-light globes from Paul Goff in the U.K. |
| 14th September, 2006: Muffler end-cap | The metal-working wizard, Bob from the U.K. has made and sent to me a fantastic copy of the missing factory muffler end-cap, based on photos and drawings from Fabrice in France. |
| 18th September, 2006: CDI | Located and fitted a NOS CDI Unit. |
| 11th October, 2006: Shock Absorbers | Acquired a pair of 15.25" (387mm) FOX AIR SHOX. Disassembled, cleaned them up, located a rebuild kit from Thor Lawson. Installed the new seals, O-rings and bladders. |
| 2nd November, 2006: Shock Absorbers | Fitted FOX SHOX. 180ml of ATF in each, circa 100psi/150psi into air. Started cleaning up spare engine cases. 108660 is very rough, 113470 is much better. |
| 12th November, 2006: Spare Engines | 108660 is very rough so I spent the weekend cleaning up the cases, replacing all seals and bearings. 113470 is much nicer so it will be the first one to get done. kick-start shaft was welded, so using the one from 108660. Gear-shift selector shaft bent badly, so straightened that with the Oxy. Another 2nd-hand shaft arriving soon. I think I have almost enough bits to rebuild one engine. I do have NOS std pistons - but I need to track down rings! Barrel is in a very poor state. Sent off the cranks to Institute For Twostrokes to get the big-end bearings replaced. |
| 20th January, 2007: Spare Engines | I now have two C/N barrels, two C/N heads and enough pistons in various sizes to get things moving. Will send them off to the Institute For Twostrokes. Checked out possibly using a T/X head/barrel - they are different and don't fit the C/N cases. Discovered that WISECO pistons are still available all way to +2mm ! The last big headache solved - finally located an E24 stator/rotor for the second motor. Also, lined the PE tank with Blue-Lightning fuel-tank sealer. This should stop the tank decals getting bubbled after a few weeks of fuel in the tank. Cleaning up the tank plastics yet again before putting new decals on. |
| 25th February, 2007: Decibels | Jonas came 'round on his XT650 and we played with the PE175 and a CM-130 sound meter. I repacked the muffler yet again and got it down to idling at 94Db. The road-legal limit these days is 94Db MAXIMUM! I'll also test with an RGV muffler. Also after the very kind donation from Greg of some Blue-Lightning tank sealer, I can now report complete success in that area. No more bubbling tank decals! Last item was to replace the faulty blinker relay. Oh and I sent off a pair of guards to Scott at Prix-Historic Fibreglass; he will repro them with his excellent work and colouring. |
| 10th March, 2007: Decibels | OK, more testing with the CM-130 sound meter. I again repacked the original muffler - this time shoving in a very large amount of stainless-steel wool into the front and rear sections. This got things down alot. MUCH better, but still on the anti-social side! I might test next week with heavy fibre-glass packing as an alternative and see if that's better or worse. However, I then did more testing with the RGV-based muffler I'd created back in July last year. This is actually the current solution. It knocks a few more Db off and I now idle at around 84Db with that installed. It still looks 'period' and definately works better. Now that this hurdle is past, I shall take it in to see if I can finally get it road-registered. |
| 6th May, 2007: Decibels | Two months away with work, family issues and illness, so today I spent a few therapeutic hours in the garage! Repacked the standard muffler with FMF "Q" packing. Nice. Much quieter than original. About the same as the RGV250 muffler, but I'm happy, because I can put the standard/correct PE muffler back on. Oh, and I now have factory colour photos of the PE175C and PE175N, so I could clearly see which bolts I should have plated instead of paint! So, I dragged out the zinc-plating kit and re-plated a pile of nuts, bolts and various odds-and-ends that needed doing. |
| 10th July, 2007: N Spanner! | I spent Saturday putting together two spare engines from collections of spares. I then replaced the kill switch with an original, kindly gifted by Dale in Canada. Lastly, after nearly two years of searching, I finally own the correct 'N' spanner. They were the last two items missing. The PE175N is now whole. A very satisfying week! |
| 14th July, 2007: earth | Intermittantly the horn would not work, yet do NOTHING and it would. As with every electrical problem I have ever encountered on this motorcycle, the root cause was a bad earth. So, remove horn wires, create new ones with shiny brass connections and voila! no more problems. Tip for PE owners - if it's electrical, it's almost certainly the earth wire connectors. |
| 16th September, 2007: Rego! | YES, it's now road registered! |
| 17th November, 2007: Decibels | Performance suffered with the over-packed standard muffler, so while quiet, it could not rev out cleanly. So, back on with the RGV muffler until I can develop a truly quiet/effective solution. |
| 9th December, 2007: Decibels | Acquired a carbon-fibre muffler for a Honda NSR 250. Fabricated fittings and mounting band. This weighs almost nothing yet is very effective. A good solution found! Original, standard muffler would IDLE at about 100Db. Add packing and it dropped to 94Db. The RGV muffler, idle around 84Db. NSR muffler, idles as low as 77Db but usually around 82Db. Big revs to get over 100Db. Functional, light and it looks good. |
| 29th December, 2007: Engine | Completely rebuilt 113470 is installed and the original engine out for rebuild. Engine noise is quiet compared to 111626 - some 15Db less! |
| 22nd June, 2008: Forks | Rebuilt forks. Installed YSS cartridge emulators. Also discovered original C/N fork seals are no longer available! Used some non-standard ones off eBay. Could also use T/X seals and machine them down. |
| 12th July, 2008: Rims | Finally got some Bridgestone M22/M23 tyres and finished lacing up the SUN rims with some gorgeous Buchanen stainless steel spokes. The result looks good!. |
| 3rd August, 2008: Decibels | The carbon-fibre muffler was good, but I kept thinking it could be better. After a little horse-trading of PE parts, Bob from Hamilton Engineering in the UK kindly supplied a sample from his extensive fabrication workshops. In this muffler I now have a truly quiet/effective solution. If any further issues arise, I will install a DBsnorkel. |
