Suzuki RG250 HB Replica: Yellow Terror Part 1

Words & Pics: Jeff Ware

I’ve wanted an RG250 HB Replica since I was 17. I finally found one to restore, 30-years later…

G’day,

When I was 17, on my provisional license here in Australia, one of the blokes in the riding group that I had latched onto rode a mint 1984 Suzuki RG250 HB Replica…

I took this photo the day I met Bruno. This is how I took delivery of him, with the spares and as is covered in storage crud.

I have really good memories of that bike. I only rode with the owner for the one summer, 1992/1993, the end of high school and the start of my motorcycle mechanic apprenticeship. I had my TZR250 and we would meet up with Helmut (the late mate that owned my RG500) and other friends and ride the ‘Old Road,’ which is a famous road on the outskirts of Sydney.

Fast forward more than 20-years to my 40s and I, like many of us, started to reminisce about these old days. That one summer chasing Bob on his RG and the crew around, it seems like it was way more than three-months of my life. I guess it is because, at the time, I really had nothing to worry about except riding and keeping my bike running…

20-years of dust, hornets’ nests, spiderwebs, a dead mouse in the airbox and thousands of miles of road grime.

Those thoughts led me to start searching online for an RG250 HB but with no luck. Having given up on the project, I had just about decided not to take on any more builds at all, when an SMS arrived from a friend… “Mate, is this yellow RG250 any use to you”?

The guard was yellow from the factory, this one was painted white but I reverted to OEM.

I was at his factory in five-minutes flat with a very small amount of cash to take it off his hands… We shook on it and then I proceeded to drink a few of his ice-cold amber ales. It had to be done!

The side-covers were cracked, faded and the black stripes had been filled in with yellow.

I stripped the tank back to bare metal, filled the dents, and resprayed it the correct colours.

So, incredibly, I ended up with this beaut original HB. I sent the numbers off to my contact at Suzuki who confirmed the bike is a WE1 MK1 and was sold as an original HB Replica here in Australia. I could not be more chuffed…

Just look how it came up, that dust must have preserved a lot of the bike.

I gave the bike a solid soaking in truck wash and a good pressure wash to try and break through years of road grime and dust. Once done, I soaked the bike with WD40, an entire can, and set it aside for the period that the paintwork was being done – a good few months including time to get replica stickers and decals made.

#11 The freshly repaired and painted bodywork (plus my RM tanks there) ready to be decaled and clear coated.

This bike is super original but needs a lot of work. A full strip down and rebuild. I’ve got a bunch of these early RG engines, so I will build a fresh one. I bought the engines with the idea of rebuilding and selling them to pay for the restoration of this bike with the profits…

The sound from those stingers is awesome – that unmistakeable RG250 crackle...

I will be spending plenty of time on the wire wheel removing that flaking paint and prepping for all the black bits to be resprayed.

By the way, the bike is called Bruno. I’ve named it after the famous HB Man (HB-Männche) used in HB advertising in Europe for decades up until the mid 1970s…

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