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Misterclean

1972 Suzuki TS 185

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That's right.......a new to me, 1972 TS 185. A friend gave this to me a few days ago for repairing his lawn mower. I've had my eyes on it for several years now and he knew I was interested. So this is going to be winter project. I'm so very slow this time of the year that it is with joy I accepted this gift. It has less than 3100 miles, good compression, every thing looks stock with almost everything unmolested. If it checks out good them me and my oldest son in law will do a ground up restoration. I've never done a complete restoration so this will be interesting. My son in law got excited up on seeing it because it is so cool and a good bike for my oldest daughter.......his wife. He offered to help so we're doing it! 20191210_090235.thumb.jpg.3aa97a05223b871df300906d04379b2e.jpg

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moved your thread here misterclean, we do have a section for motorcycles, if you want, we can also move this to the restoration section ?, seeing how this will be a restoration !.

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Those were nice reliable bikes back in the day!

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Good find ......  I had one similar to it , it was a 125 , around 1974 or 75  , the fenders were different , they were plastic and straight out the back and didn't wrap around the front , it was street legal but a little more dirt looking ,  that one you got is like a Honda equivalent to the CL / street and trail and  mine was a cross between the Honda SL /dirt , but still street legal 

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Yeh Fish, I remember those fenders that stuck straight out. This particular model is one of the better looking models in my opinion.

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I got it running after cleaning the carb. Tested the transmission and clutch.....good. It needs a lot of love though. The wiring is super hacked, the intake boot is so stiff it's unusable. The seat pan is rusted pretty bad, the seat foam and cover are brittle and the fuel tank is rusted. I cleaned the petcock and got it functioning. Going to soak the tank in Muriatic acid tomorrow.  After that I will order the tank liner from O Reilly. If all that works out then we will strip it down and restore.

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I will try to post two pics. Last time only one posted. One pic is of the cap I made so the Muriatic acid wouldn't drain from the tank and the other is proof of a very clean tank. The cap is some sheet metal drilled for the mounting holes,  a business card cut up as a gasket and two mounting screws with big washers to spread out the clamping surface pressure to prevent a leak. It worked as planned. Soaked for about 30 minutes, rinsed with water and a final application of PB Blaster to arrest any rust. I'm ordering the intake boot to the air box if its available and a 22.5 pilot jet because the 25 will not tune with the air screw enough to be crisp........I hate a poorly tuned two stroke.lol20191211_104847.thumb.jpg.abad5d429eb277876b166cb44d128381.jpg

20191211_104126.jpg

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Neat bike I have had this one sitting for YEARS close to 15, i dont know how to do points, it lost spark and been sitting ever since 😞 I think mines a 72? (Ill have to check title) TS250, oil injected. Its complete, i just cant get it to spark lol 

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That is a classic too. Points just ground the ignition coil for a moment which generates a spark at an exact time. Just sand the points so they make contact squarely with each other. Check with an ohm meter for perfect continuity and it should spark. If not the ignition coil may be bad. Also determine whether it is a magneto ignition or battery ignition. Magneto ignitionakes it's own power from a stator and the battery ignition gets its power from the battery.

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One of my uncles had one of those twin 250s. It has a battery ignition if I'm not mistaken, Points gap should be set at .018" after polishing the contacts. You may need new condensors in it by now though... they deteriorate over time and cause the points to arc and fail. They're easy motors to work on. GB is only a few hours south of me... if ya still got it put up come summer, hollar!

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I always thought you set the points with a matchbook cover.. 😆 I might have had a few late night, lets make this run moments though.

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On 12/11/2019 at 9:27 PM, retro said:

One of my uncles had one of those twin 250s. It has a battery ignition if I'm not mistaken, Points gap should be set at .018" after polishing the contacts. You may need new condensors in it by now though... they deteriorate over time and cause the points to arc and fail. They're easy motors to work on. GB is only a few hours south of me... if ya still got it put up come summer, hollar!

I'll have to hit you up on that, I brought it to my buddies 2 years ago and he never has time to tinker on it with me... It would probably make my dad smile if i got it running again 🙂 He gifted it to me long long ago.

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4 minutes ago, toodeep said:

I always thought you set the points with a matchbook cover

 

Yep, thats how I did 'em too, before I owned feeler gauges. 🙂

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6 minutes ago, balljoints said:

It would probably make my dad smile if i got it running again 🙂 He gifted it to me long long ago.

 

Lets see whats happening in late May or June once we get some summer going on... be a good time I think.

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19 hours ago, retro said:

 

Lets see whats happening in late May or June once we get some summer going on... be a good time I think.

 Awesome, Ill hit you up if we dont touch it this winter 🙂

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On 12/12/2019 at 10:06 PM, retro said:

 

Yep, thats how I did 'em too, before I owned feeler gauges. 🙂

is that a hint ^^^ ?..lol. I used match book covers as well back then, most old honda bikes were easy to set with them.

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Some don't realize that points also set the timing........too close is too advanced...........too wide too retarded. LOL Sounds like some of us huh?

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Holy Smoly!!!! Thats way up there! I've always wanted to go up in that part of Canada. I guess there's just about ten weeks of warm weather? ( relatively speaking)  Your Summers are longer than our winters!.........I live about 70 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.......as the crow flys..........mile marker 92 as the freeway drives.

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2 hours ago, Misterclean said:

Holy Smoly!!!! Thats way up there!

 

Its not too bad really... I'm at 46.7 degrees north I think, right on the eastern edge of the spine of the Keweenaw peninsula, about 9 miles inland from Keweenaw Bay, Lake Superior. There are three great fishing streams (a 4th 2 miles away) within walking distance from my shack and I am surrounded by wilderness. Our winters begin in November and snow usually completes melting off the first week of May. We get hammered by lake-effect snows off the lake during winter months, so its generally cloudy here for about 6 months. The summers are nice and sunny though, sometimes get too hot... but thats because we are better accustomed to cold. 🙂

 

It took me 50 years to get here, ain't ever gonna leave... when I die the birds will pick my bones clean! 🙂

 

EDIT: I'm in the states, Canada is on the other side of the lake.

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LOL the members map had you on the southern shore of Hudson Bay!  I think......I didn't verify that but it looked like Hudson bay. Well, I've always wanted to be up in your area as well. I  thought you were up around Lake Superior.

 

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1 hour ago, Misterclean said:

LOL the members map had you on the southern shore of Hudson Bay!  I think......I didn't verify that but it looked like Hudson bay. Well, I've always wanted to be up in your area as well. I  thought you were up around Lake Superior.

 

I can tell you right now, that members map DOES NOT put their dot where they really are ?. mine shows me about 8 miles SE of where I live !..lol. I guess for security reasons ??, fine by me though.

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I had to fine tune mine , I was like in Mobile , Alabama first try !!!   I got in right on , which might not be a good thing ...LOL  --- just put in a new surveillance thingy this week , I new beam system that dings and flashes when some one breaks it  , loving it .... 

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5 minutes ago, Fishfiles said:

I had to fine tune mine , I was like in Mobile , Alabama first try !!!   I got in right on , which might not be a good thing ...LOL  --- just put in a new surveillance thingy this week , I new beam system that dings and flashes when some one breaks it  , loving it .... 

I dont worry about thieves around my house, with 12 camera's mounted all around my house ?, they wont step foot on my land without me seeing them.

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