new guy in ohio

C

camlifter

New Member
hi all. a few years ago i picked up a 1976 suzuki RE-5 running but rusty, planed to restore it, tore it down, put it in some box's, it set for years, i'm now wanting to get back to work on it and have found parts hard to find and very expensive. so i've decided to go the cafe route.
plan to make fiberglass body parts and use modern front suspension and upgraded rear shocks.
looking forward to being part of the forum and learning about the cafe bikes.
 
Welcome to the forum! Wow, a cafed RE-5.....I can honestly say that I have never seen or heard of one. But that's really cool, you will definitely never meet yourself coming down that road! I rode an original RE-5 not long after they came out. I thought it was a pretty nice bike. Way too heavy but what stock bike isn't? I think if Suzuki would have toned down the Buck Rogers styling and made the whole bike a lot less complex, they would have sold well, at least as a super smooth touring bike if they had positioned it correctly. Both the German bike[forget the name]and Norton's rotary were fairly well accepted and sold reasonably well. In fact, Norton's race version of the bike tore up the opposition in Britain and Europe until complaints from other manufacturers made the FIM outlaw it.......If you aren't familiar with the Norton Wankel Racer you should check it out........they were actually very nice looking bikes...you may be able to glean some ideas for your build from it.

I can't wait to see how your build will turn out....please post some pics of your stocker and tell us about your plans for it.

Welcome again!
 
thanks for the welcome, nothing to show for now but some box's full of parts. i hope to update the suspension and brakes, paint the engine wrinkle black and go with a cafe style tank and seat. also thinking of cutting out the lower frame under the engine and beefing up the rest of the frame to compensate. ditch the stock exhaust and go with something under the motor like a buell, and a small speedo for the only gauge.
probably wont get started till spring as my garage is unheated.
 
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