Bridgestone Time

Many moons ago, I bought an old crusty Bridgestone 90 Trail from a guy in the Seattle area. An autocrosser from the area picked it up, and delivered it to me at the Atwater National Tour. I think this was in 2005? It was the year Sean and ran my STi at the ProSolo event the following weekend.

As you can see, this prime little machine apparently lived at the bottom of the ocean:







After an hour with the cordless impact:


I then proceeded to strip it, and paint it, starting with the frame. I also went through the basic running gear, including fresh tires/tubes, rebuilt front forks, and cleaned up brakes:






I then decided that the Bridestone was going to become a cafe racer, especially since most of the original chrome bits were in such bad shape. I formed up a cafe race seat/tail section, and mounted up a Honda S90 gas tank. I liked how it looked, so I continued the theme and got everything painted up:


Shortly after, I came across a Bridgestone 90 Sport on ebay, located in Visallia, CA. I ended up "winning" the auction for something like $52. Many months later, we ventured down to pick it up. It was actually in much better shape, including a sport engine (higher compression than the trail) that turned over and supposedly ran at some point. I have no photos of this beast though, but did end up breaking it down. It mostly gave me an engine, which I quickly had in the frame:





Then we moved. And I haven't touched it for at least 3 years. Until tonight:



Front and center! I finished cleaning the carb and mounted it. Now I need to turn my attention to getting it wired up, set the timing, and see if I can get spark. It turns over great and has strong compression, so I'm hoping to hear it bark at some point.

Strangely, just about all documentation for these old Bridgestones is available online in PDF format, including service manuals, parts manuals, old brochures etc., thanks to bridgestonemotorcycle.com

Lots of little things still to do on it of course, but I figured it was time to pay the Bridgestone a little attention.

C'