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Tiny Dirt Bike "Restoration"

TrikeKid

Junk Hoarder
Joined
May 19, 2020
Member Number
246
Messages
1,769
Loc
Spana-graham, WA
My kid's about old enough for a dirt bike, and like everything else I do it's gotta be relatively cheap. Cruising OfferUp one night I find a guy selling a big lot of JR50 parts for $75, half hour later I had a big pile of mini bike stuff, multiple frames, big box of engine parts etc... He'd put one together for his kid and this was the leftovers.
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I dug through the boxes and found that I had most of what I needed besides soft parts. Apparently someone had an issue disassembling the other engines, and these bikes suffer from the usual lack of care that comes with kids bikes because out of five or 6 sets, I ended up with one good set of cases, one good right side cover and had to buy a new left side to get ones that weren't broken. The left case came from one that obviously met an untimely end via being left outside
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About this time my boss bought us a new parts washer at work, so I got all my good parts nice and clean and along with a really nice bolt kit off of eBay I got a bottom end put together, complete with the first gear mod. For whatever reason Suzuki locks the lower gear out in these from the factory so you have 2nd or neutral to choose from. Easy to ride for a kid but kinda hard on the clutch.
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Unfortunately this is where the project kinda stalled for a bit. Turns out tanks, especially steel tanks and good seat pans are hens teeth for these if you don't wanna pay an arm and a dick for them. I'm trying really hard to not spend XR50 money to do this deal. Then I found a "good" complete bike on Offerup and overpaid for it, at least the guy threw in a helmet I guess
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Initially I was just going to get this one running and paint it. Then I started tearing into it and found the bottom of the frame ripped clean off where the pegs mount, at this point it became a very expensive parts bike but it had a good tank and a good seat pan/foam, carb and cylinder were also usable.
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New seat cover via eBay once again, factory enough for my feeble upholstery skills and plenty good for a kid's mini bike
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Tank dents fixed, stripped and painted + new graphics. "Daytona Yellow" engine enamel a little wet sanding and I hit it with some compound and a foam pad on my drill, buffed out good enough for a dirt bike
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Threw some new tires on and grabbed some new fenders and front plate from Suzuki. Kinda funny you can buy brand new OEM plastics for what a fucked up used rear fender will bring on eBay. Got the top end put together at some point too. Need to paint the exhaust and black out the under side of the tank then I think we'll be ready for a test fire and training wheel fab.
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Nice job, I miss them days...
Bought an xr50 (ridden 5 times) for $300 from a customer for my 3 yo kid 30+ now...
Had to hide it till he was older.
Enjoy these days.
 
Nice job, I miss them days...
Bought an xr50 (ridden 5 times) for $300 from a customer for my 3 yo kid 30+ now...
Had to hide it till he was older.
Enjoy these days.

I tried to buy a z50 or XR50, next to impossible to find one here that has a title and isn't priced within a few hundred bucks of a new one. Most of the no title bikes are 1000-1200 or they were so modded for adult riders that you'd be in it 2k before you could put a kid on it.
 
Yep same here, mine had a title and a current green sticker.
yours looks killer
 
Awesome. I'm on the look out for a 50 for my 3 year old.

I'd suggest a PW50 or a Honda if you can swing one, the resale is better and the aftermarket support is miles ahead of the JRs. I couldn't find one priced reasonably around here when I was looking.
 
Got the first fire tonight, been a long slow road but it's getting closer. Waiting on some brake parts from across the pond, need to figure out the clutch (not disengaging) and get a functional kill switch but I can at least make noise and fill the garage with 2 stroke smoke.

[video]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_GPZWJRji3FpB3iCuG7URa_M3zv1MTvY/view?usp=sharing[/video]
 
Found a crf50 for my oldest. Paid $1200. It had one or 2 scratches in the plastic. Cases and exhaust look new. He still needs to earn his helmet.

I tried to buy a few of those this spring with my 'rona bucks. They either disappeared quick or the people didn't want to put any effort into selling em besides posting the ad or mentioning they had one. Tried to hand a family member a grand for one that has been sitting 8-10 years and he wouldn't budge, apparently hanging onto it for his grand kids now...

Mine is waiting on his new helmet, I got the last parts I needed to make this thing safe to ride and we were going to get to destroying the yard Saturday morning when I found out that he got every bit of the giant melon genes from me. I have a youth large helmet hanging in the garage I figured would be too big if anything, barely got it over his ears before he was squawking about it hurting. Got lucky and found one on closeout, be here Thursday.

I did confirm that in low gear with the training wheels on it anyway it's got the appropriate amount of power and lopsided center of gravity to wheelie with me on it, did that before I got the parts to fix the rear brakes, almost plowed into the garage door.

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Badass :smokin:

Make sure you keep it even after the kid has grown out of it, if you can.

My boy had an XR70 as his first and I regret selling it to finance his first 85. We both have fond memories of that bike.
 
Awesome work dad. I'm building 2 70s style mini bike kits right now for the kids to rip around on (and for the drunk adults to steal). He'll have a ton of bitchin memories.
 
Killer! My boy is ripping his 2004 kdx50 (jr50). Hit his first jump last ride. He wants off the trainers but he's too short to touch the ground, even with it lowered.
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But...now my buddy bought his kid a pw50. And by that I mean, sent me money to go pick it up, sight unseen. It was owned by a HACK. SAE bolts, carriage bolt holding the tank on, eliminated the oil injection, disconnected the choke...just a hack.

Got any tips on where to find parts for little bikes??
 
Awesome work dad. I'm building 2 70s style mini bike kits right now for the kids to rip around on (and for the drunk adults to steal). He'll have a ton of bitchin memories.
I've got a 60's JC Penny mini bike frame in the boneyard out back, my buddy and I used to ride it to the store when we were kids. I need to scrounge some stuff up for that thing and get it running again, way too tall for the kid but I could sure get hurt on it just fine. Wish I'd have kept the indy-car go-kart I got from him too when he was cleaning his stuff out of his folks's garage, I guess those go for big bucks now if the local classifieds are any indication.
But...now my buddy bought his kid a pw50. And by that I mean, sent me money to go pick it up, sight unseen. It was owned by a HACK. SAE bolts, carriage bolt holding the tank on, eliminated the oil injection, disconnected the choke...just a hack.

Got any tips on where to find parts for little bikes??

I buy all my OEM parts from Partzilla, tires/universal things from Dennis Kirk. PW50 aftermarket is pretty extensive since they're a big-ish deal still for getting kids into AMA motocross, places like PeeWeeCycle have all kinds of hotrod and replacement stuff. Have to watch Partzilla on shipping times, it's sometimes faster to get your stuff through their eBay store than the actual website.

Deleting the oil injection is pretty common. Despite the fact you can never find a single instance of an oil injection failure causing a bike to break every mouthbreather decides that it is definitely gonna happen and rips all of it off. Of the 6 bikes/trikes in my fleet of crap that had oil injection from the factory, 2 of them still have functioning systems.
 
I've got a 60's JC Penny mini bike frame in the boneyard out back, my buddy and I used to ride it to the store when we were kids. I need to scrounge some stuff up for that thing and get it running again, way too tall for the kid but I could sure get hurt on it just fine. Wish I'd have kept the indy-car go-kart I got from him too when he was cleaning his stuff out of his folks's garage, I guess those go for big bucks now if the local classifieds are any indication.


I buy all my OEM parts from Partzilla, tires/universal things from Dennis Kirk. PW50 aftermarket is pretty extensive since they're a big-ish deal still for getting kids into AMA motocross, places like PeeWeeCycle have all kinds of hotrod and replacement stuff. Have to watch Partzilla on shipping times, it's sometimes faster to get your stuff through their eBay store than the actual website.

Deleting the oil injection is pretty common. Despite the fact you can never find a single instance of an oil injection failure causing a bike to break every mouthbreather decides that it is definitely gonna happen and rips all of it off. Of the 6 bikes/trikes in my fleet of crap that had oil injection from the factory, 2 of them still have functioning systems.

Yeah I've peeled it off of old crap when the tank was cracked, but I've truly never heard of it failing and nuking a motor. I'll check partzilla. Some bits are available through pwonly but their site is a nightmare on mobile.
 
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