Road Track & Trials are proud to present the process and journey that this iconic Japanese classic, Suzuki RGV 250 Vj21 went through during its restoration.
Here is A bit of history behind the RGV 250 , for those of you who aren’t familiar with this bike , it took a lot of design & kudos from Grand Prix bikes back in the late 80s through to the late 90s . Riders such as Kevin Schwantz Ron Haslam to mention 2 of the greats
This bike came to us partially stripped with bits missing and the fairings in a rather poor state , the fuel tank and many other pieces that made this bike the RGV 250 had been removed and boxed . The restoration started off with a full assessment prior to strip down. During the strip down each part was individually assessed to decide weather it needed replacing or could be brought back to its factory look. We collected the fasteners during the strip down and found that most required re plating to bring back a high quality finish to provide protection from corrosion. As you can see from the photographs this bike was in need of some TLC to make it the stunning RGV VJ21 you see today.
When it came to the engine , we disassembled the entire unit then replaced everything showing wear with either OEM Suzuki or performance upgrade parts such as the crank & bearings, pistons, seals and all other parts that eventually perish and need replacing . During the build , after having the engine casings vapour blasted to remove the years of oil and grime built up we noticed , Upon further inspection, that the heads were pours which meant that they needed to be replaced. As you can imagine finding parts in worthy condition was a highly time consuming task, however we managed to locate a pair of later ones from an RGV VJ22 and after replacing the head studs with hi tensile studs it made for an excellent upgrade.
The finishing touches to resto projects is the paintwork, here at Road Track & Trials paintwork is done in house to ensure that the quality and finish that the customer requires is to their satisfaction. In the case of the RGV the customer wanted it to have an original finish with a few extra touches. One thing to keep in mind about paint is that preparation is the key, many hours went into preparing the panels we had sourced so that they were ready to take paint. After the base colour of paint is finished , several coats of lacquer are applied then flatted and polished to bring out the true deep shine and high quality finish we strive to achieve with all of our projects.
Along with the paint finish , many items required special treatments such as Powder Coating and CeraKote work to mention but a few. The wheels and both subframes were treated to powder coating , the wheels being Suzuki white with the sub frames in gloss black. The items cerakoted were the calliper’s and bottom yoke etc ,
Our Client requested that the suspension be re built to his exact standard , this meant supplying specialist spring kits from Maxton engineering with everything else being built in house , were valved the shock and forks , upgraded the fluids and seals and once the bike was built, we set up sag and the rebounds with the client as req.
We hope you like this project and it has inspired you to task us with looking for a project for you. We are able to source bikes as far away as Japan ,Spain and Greece along with UK bikes.
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