My 10 year old son doing a full restoration on a retro Kawasaki KS2 80cc motorbike.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Kawasaki KS2 first off-road test ride after a very long sleep.

Kawasaki KS2 first off-road test ride after a very long sleep

my son was very happy with his new (antique) toy

he didn't seem to bother riding on tall grass...


I love this photo

weed whacker

helmet hair

Coca-Cola!!!

jungle?

going down


riding his bike like on the slab

he still wanted to ride but it was school day the next day



it was also his duty to wash his bike after every ride

getting ready for tomorrow's test ride

the pile on the right all came from the two parts bike

He challenged me that if he can pop a wheelie and put the front tire over his junk pile that I'll treat him sushi for lunch. He was able to do it so he now he is showing how a man he is... hahaha!

Then I challenged him that if he can sit and balance his bike, I'll treat him ice cream for dessert...

Then he told me that if he can stand and balance his bike that I owe him two ice cream...

He did stand-up and was able to balance his bike for several minutes and now he is laughing because I lost and I owe him sushi, ice cream and a double burger, hahaha!

He was also the one who repaired the bikes on the center and on the right. He did a piston ring change on the yellow bike (Suzuki Street Magic) and tire replacement on the blue bike (retro Suzuki Colleda)

I don't know why this photo is dark...

very eager to load his bike

I don't know why he likes loading bikes standing from the right side. He said that he is comfortable doing it because he can hit the rear brake easily...

Friday, October 15, 2010

testing his bike again

 very happy with his little project


I told him to park his bike because it was past 2 in the afternoon and I was really hungry but he kept on telling excuses that the bike needed some minor adjustment but the truth is all he wanted to do is to play with his new (antique) toy.

finished bike

After several months of knuckle busting and head scratching, my 10 year old son finally finished his 1st full motorcycle restoration / repair. The engine has lots of power (fitted with a racer mod piston and cylinder), gear box OK, brakes OK, suspension and tires OK, all key cylinders OK, lights and electronics OK, steering head and swing arm grease-up OK, fuel tank and fuel filter OK, bike is purring like a pussy cat!!! I give him a 10 out of 10 not because he is 10 years old but because he really did a good job. He utilized parts from the donor bikes and did not spend anything for new parts. The front light and the front fender came from a 4th bike donor (KSR) and the front brake master is from the 5th donor bike (KDX125). Other stuffs he got from me like paint, brushes, grease, oil, fuel... and lots of McDonalds, cheap sushis and piles of Coca-Colas and Pepsis :) I think that this is the real classic way of fixing stuffs.

Now most of the "big boys" tend to give-up too easily and just keeps on replacing new parts which I think is not repair but just parts replacement... So for you DIY grown-ups, please don't give-up that easily. My 10 year old son didn't give-up on his 30 year old bike and we wish that you don't too. 

Thursday, October 14, 2010

bike make-up

Cleaning the plastics was the most boring part. It took my son several weeks to finish cleaning the front headlight cowl, front fender side fender and the rear fender. All the plastics were dirty and sun burned. He cleaned them all by using a stainless steel wool/brush (used in the kitchen for cleaning the sink and pots), Scotch Brite, sand paper and water usually after school. I should have given him the electric brush but best for him to sweat and learn doing it the old fashion way. You can see the color difference on the side fender if you check the photos posted earlier. He planned to use the original front fender and headlight cowl but since one of my friend gave him a better front fender and headlight cowl from a crashed KSR, he then decided to use the KSR's parts.

doing some painting using a touch paint pen

Heating the plastics to bring back some shine in them. He also changed the front fender coming from a damaged Kawasaki KSR and tied the crack with plastic tie wraps.

heating more plastic

After touch painting the fuel tank, heating the plastic, cleaning and waxing now the bike is ready for some test runs.



starting the engine

This was the first time he tried kick-starting the engine. After several kicks and still the engine wont fire-up he started getting worried. 

Mom too was excited to see if his bike will really start so she tagged along with us. My son got the bike to start but while he was bragging about his work, the engine stalled because of clutch-mis and we all had a good time telling him that he killed the engine and he has to do the repairs all over again...

He finally got the engine to start and have adjusted the carburetor... now he is one happy biker. Notice the prefab on the background, that is just mom playing ghost... no wonder where my son inherited all his corny jokes... (don't look at me OK, hahaha!)

now I'm left with this big pile of rubbish...

He still might need donor parts so we moved the parts inside our small prefab and had to stay there for several weeks because he can only do his repairs on Sundays and school-off days. Those parts were a real pain in the xxx but I really cannot complain...

with his parts plus mine, it was no fun to walk inside the prefab

cleaning the fuel tank

this was the best of three fuel tanks but it still needed to be cleaned

he had to do this about 20 time plus and he seems to be getting bored...

I thinks this is the fun part...  shaking water inside the tank