1989 SUZUKI RM 125 PROJECT BY MICHAEL FISCHER: 2-STROKE TUESDAY

Who remembers the 1989 Suzuki RM125? Michael Fischer is a moto-head and always searching different buy-sell-trade sites trying to find a deal, he came across this 1989 Suzuki RM 125 on Facebook Marketplace. Fischer could tell from the pictures it was in rough shape, but thought he would take a look. On this week’s Two-Stroke Tuesday Michael Fischer gives you a behind the scenes look and tells everyone about his Suzuki project.

When I got there, it was sitting in a barn. The cylinder was off and there were mice in the airbox! The project seeker inside me came out and figured I couldn’t go wrong for $250 bucks.

This bike needed basically everything, resulting in lots of eBay searches for older parts. I had a shock coming from the UK, a fuel tank coming from Sweden, new forks, cylinder, pipe, silencer from all over the US. I loved the challenge of making it all come together and to hear it finally start up after a little over a year in the making was the best part!

For the footpegs I found some new OEM pegs on eBay. I wanted to make them wider so it wasn’t like standing on toothpicks. Works Connection makes wideners that can be welded on. So I had the stock pegs blasted, sent them to Jay Clark to have the extenders welded on, and then powder coated them to match the frame.

For the pipe I really wanted the FMF Factory Fatty look. I’m not sure if they made them or just not anymore. I started searching all over the place. I found a pipe on Facebook marketplace coming from New York. Only issue was it was Nickel plated. I worked with a local plating shop to have the plating stripped off. Took about four days in a metal immersion nickel stripper bath heated to about 140 degrees. Came out bare metal, I shipped it to Premier Vapor Blasting down in Georgia where Bobby vapor blasted it, reheated the welds, and did a high temp clear cerekote.

The fuel tank I had for the bike was in pretty bad shape that would have taken a lot of work to restore. I found a company out of Sweden, Factory Aluminum Parts that made aluminum tanks I thought looked great.

The bike didn’t come with a carburetor so I thought Lectron would be a perfect fit. After measuring up the air boot and intake flange ID they were able to help get me setup.

I went with an OEM fastener kit on this bike through SpecBolt. Anything that didn’t come with the kit I took the stock, cleaned it up, and had nickel plated.

My dad was the one who got me started in moto. I remember all the way back to him letting me try to work on my PW50 in the garage with him. We have done many projects over the years together. This was very cool to have him there for the photo shoot and to be a part of it all with me!

TWO STROKE TUESDAY