RRC Restoration takes great pride in restoring the items in its care. They’re mostly bikes, though sometimes they’re other things, like a beautiful vintage bench vise that you’ll see show up from time to time on the channel. Most client projects are also restorations—but sometimes, just sometimes, it’s something else.
This 2004 Beta Rev-3 trials bike can be filed in the ‘something else’ category. If you’re familiar with the channel’s often painstaking restoration work, the first thing you’ll notice is that although this is a new project, it’s not a full-on restoration. Instead, because it’s the guy’s personal bike, he’s focusing on simply making it ridable instead of doing a full-on, nuts-and-bolts restoration.
To be honest, if you’re used to seeing the usual steps, which usually involve things like cleaning up and zinc-plating all the hardware, then this video may seem a little strange. Everything’s a balance, though—and the work does go more quickly because he’s not taking every single thing apart to get it back to perfection.
In the first shot, it’s almost difficult to credit exactly how dusty and dirty this bike is. That becomes apparent after RRC sprays off the inches of grime, revealing some fairly brightly-painted (and not very sun-faded) plastics underneath. They’re busted and broken, and he eventually ends up prying them off to go in the bin, but they look to be in much better shape than they appeared at first glance.
There’s plenty of work that needs doing here, from the wheel bearings at both ends to the chain and sprockets, grips, plastics—and of course, the engine. Since this is at least a two-part video, we only get to the point where RRC drains the engine and pulls it from the frame before the video ends. At the beginning, he mentions that there’s coolant in the transmission, so clearly there are some issues that need addressing with that little thumper.
Sure enough, draining the poor thing reveals some sludge—and that’s before any cases come apart and we get a good look inside. What kind of horrors do you think are waiting in the next video?
