Each Stage of the Restoration

Stage One: Worse than it looks

Home, off the trailer and in the shed. Things are worse than they first looked. The crankcase is full of composted leaves, spiders, snail shells and rat droppings. The tank is completely rusted through on the bottom. The seat base fell into a million tiny flakes of rust when we moved it. Give up? No chance!

Stage Two: The engine apart. Bad news and good news.

The engine comes apart. A sorry state of affairs inside - the crankcases are irretrievably corroded. The gear selectors are bent and have seized the gearbox - which is why the bike stopped at 800km.

Stage Three: Alloy and Chrome

Alloy off to the water blaster, chrome to the plater.

Stage Four: Wheel building, all it needs is a buff and a shine

The rims and spokes are headed to the scrap heap. The hubs look okay. Lots of work here but these will come up nicely. Really! Zinc plating at home - great results if you follow the directions on the pack.

Stage Five: Sandblasting and powdercoating

The black frame parts have returned from sandblasting and powdercoating in glossy black.

Stage Six: Odds and Ends

Parts are arriving, wheels are ready, frame is powdercoated - but there are so many little jobs still to do!

Stage Seven: Red paint and chequered stripes

The painter has finished the tank and sidecovers - beautiful glossy 2-pack red nicely contrasted by gold pinstripes and the black and white chequered stripe.

Stage Eight: Engine rebuild

The engineer has built up our flywheel and crank, all the parts have arrived from around the world, the cases have been water blasted and painted, we have purchased the bearings and seals. It's time to rebuild the engine.

Stage Nine: Electrickery

The photo above was taken AFTER the wiring was completed. Before we got here there were hours (and hours) of wiring and a lot of head scratching. But it all works. Read how we did it.

Stage Ten: Finished!

The restoration is finished. One thousand kilometres of run-in has been done and the CZ 175 has proved to be a great little bike. See the finished bike - and read about the things that went wrong and needed to be fixed.