Finished!

Well its pretty well back together. I got this from a local Facebook seller.

10 minutes to fit.

 The grab handle just visible behind the shock-absorber came all the way from Australia courtesy of Adrian R from facebook ground "Suzuki Fr50-70-80 2smokers". A great and helpful bunch!

 

Did I say finished?

Well there's one of two things I'd still like to do, the grab handle has some corrosion so that needs to be re-chromed. Ditto the chrome cover on the left side engine case. Petty stuff which I'll do when other stuff (YG1 parts) needs chroming.

Engine work

Well the bike ran before I started out but I figured I needed to refresh it as it seemed low on compression. I rode it to my regular bike shop and told him to take a look. Well the piston was worn but worse was the con-rod had some play in it.

I left the bike there and told him to get on with it.

A week later I got a call to collect the bike. The shop had changed the con-rod and main bearings but was unable to find a replacement piston/ring set (this bike lives in Port DIckson Malaysia so it's not easy to get parts)  so he re-installed the old piston. The bike runs better but compression is still poor and as a result its hard to get a decent idle and it starts poorly.

I checked at a few shops in Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia) and one guy had a used freshly re-bored cylinder with a 1.75 oversize piston. Well this was a step in the right direction so I bought it.

Its not too difficult to do a top-end swap on these bike so I did it at home. All went well until I started to tighten the exhaust bolts.... yep one of them had slipped.

I took the cylinder block off again and installed a helicoil. I also installed a new original carburetor (NOS) which my buddy Kalai located in Muar, Johor.

Put everything back together kicked it a few times and .. hey it runs! Sounds way healthier than before! Idles real well too!

Assembly

The assembly begins by fitting the suspension back on as you want to get the bike on its feet as soon as possible.  No surprises here.

The Swingarm bushes were good enough to re-use.

But the fork got new bearings and new suspension linkages.

Front wheel back on.. I haven't got round to restoring that yet!

Here it is with the engine installed and newly rebuilt rims. The hubs were painted. I decided to install aluminum rims as the chrome ones will probably rust again.

 

New meters, handle covers, indicators and bar controls.

Wiring is new but the main loom is aftermarket and the quality is poor. I had to remake some connections.

Some reflective tape... are they original? They will stay for now.

 

New seat, rear lamp and its chrome mount, new signal-lamps.

Almost there.. lets see if it starts!

Well that's a relief!

Bodywork

The bare body and misc parts which needed to be painted were sent to a car paint-shop. Sorry for the dark pictures.

Hand-sanding

Repair to the side-panels

Strengthened with a bit of metal 

Here's a short video of the painter at work. Looks so easy but its not!

Parts back home!

Now the easy part.. getting it all together!

Buying the FR80 and strip down.

Sometime in July 2016 I bought this FR80 which was sitting unloved outside a bike shop in Port Dickson. The seller (the owner of the shop actually) wanted MYR300 which I thought was high but he claimed that the bike was running. I told him that if he got the bike running, fitted new tubes all round and rode it to my home I would buy it for MYR300.

The bike had been sitting outside for a few months and maybe years! and I found it hard to believe that the little thing could even start! Well the engine hadn't jammed solid and after cleaning the carburetor and fitting a new plug it started up on the third or fourth kick! So now I had to buy it! The seller also threw in a new front fender, he probably couldn't believe that someone would actually buy this!

I don't have a photo of the bike as I bought it, this is probably the first picture I have... probably the enthusiasm has died down and I was in the 'what the hell have I done' phase!

A good clean.

 Some pictures to help with the re-assembly!

Bare chassis... forks still fitted here.. in the middle of being cleaned. There was a lot of old oil and dirt in the middle of the frame where the footrest, stand and engine mounts are. I gave up and took it to a car-wash and got him to use the water jet to get everything clean!

 Here it has dried and I am applying some paint to the bare metal to slow the rusting! Forks are off at this stage.

The area of the body which forms the inner mudguard has some rust. This will need to be fixed before painting.

Need to clean these off...

 

Even after cleaning it still doesn't look good as the chrome has succumbed to rust.

Among the stuff which needed to be replaced was...

• Legshield.. the plastic was brittle and powdery.
• Seats - the metal base was all rotten.
• Misc plastic parts - eg the handle cowls
• Wiring was barely holding together.
• all lamps.
• spokes and rims

Anil