Frame ballache

I called the powdercoating place yesterday and the owner told me the frame was finished. I was over there first thing this morning to collect it.

I don't know why he told me that - I wasted a journey because it's not finished - it's only just been blasted and there's a fucking great rust hole in the bottom. I left it with a fabrication place to repair. So whilst it's annoying to be given the run-around, I'm glad I was able to get it repaired.

On the way home I went to see how Tony the painter was getting along with the bodywork. Better news there - the body is also down to bare metal and it actually looks pretty good. He's done a great job straightening the front panel up, and has welded up a few small splits that needed attention. He plans to paint it next week.

Meanwhile, I finally got in touch with Dietel Fahrzeugteile and sent them some money, more shiny bits to arrive soon...

New stuff

A big box of bits arrived from Hasse Oldtimerteile today - handlebars, mirror, tacho, full replacement loom, rubber bits, clutch plates, carb rebuild kit, bearings etc etc. All arrived amazingly quickly.

I placed another order (€390) with another company called Dietel a few days ago but I haven't even had a response yet... Arghhh.

More cleaning

Disassembled, cleaned and reassembled the front brake drum and rear drum / drive components yesterday. They came up nicely, and the pads and bearings seem fairly new.

Help has arrived

English-speakers on a German IWL Board

Result.

Exhaust painted black

The exhaust that came with the bike was in a bit of a state. I wanted it matte black anyway, so today I sanded it down and sprayed it with VHT paint. Looks rad ass. Will probably add heatwrap to downpipe for full effect.

The painting begins...

Managed to drop the body, front panel, front mudguard, headlight housing and fork cover piece off to the spray shop today. Tony the painter suggested the body be vapour blasted to remove the surface rust. He's going to straighten the big dent in the aluminium front panel.

I also dropped the frame, plus ancillary parts, into the powdercoating place. The frame came home with me again because the lower bushes needed taking out before it goes in the oven. I ripped them free with a big screwdriver and a mallet, only to discover they were held in by the grease nipples. Another intelligent, effective design overpowered by ham-fisted idiot and brute force.

The frame

This is the frame. It had been recently brush-painted with black Japlac enamel paint when I bought the bike. The paint is extremely glossy, hard, but is brittle and scratches easily. Not that it matters much, since you can't see it once the thing is assembled.

But hidden or not, I just don't like the scratched paint. I don't feel great about the brush marks. I don't like knowing it's there, and it would wear better if it was powdercoated.

After yo-yo'ing for several days over saving money and time vs being a tart, I called a friend's dad who knows about such things and he suggested that if I wanted it period-correct, the frame should be properly enamelled, but powdercoating would be the more sensible choice. So now I need to find someone to do all the bits. And the money to pay for it.

Begin engine strip-down

I didn't make it over to the spray shop today, so instead here is my work from yesterday evening. I disassembled the outer parts (mostly cast aluminium) from the engine, covered them with a degreaser and scrubbed them with a toothbrush. They were well preserved underneath 49 years of grime. I washed the degreaser away in the kitchen sink as my girlfriend cooked a nice dinner...

I expected total horror from an ancient communist scooter motor, but this engine is better than I would have imagined. It came apart cleanly, the aluminium castings are nice and the piston is marked to an accuracy of two decimal places. Two decimal places, Jeremy... that's insane.

Quick assembly and paint considerations

I laid the main body parts out in the living room to assess paint options. I have one litre of urethane in a colour called RAF Blue Grey, which I was going to use to paint my Honda C100. It's a great colour - a deep, dark grey with a blue tint, and would be perfect on the Berlin, if not correct. I don't like any of the original colour schemes of the Berlin since they make the bike look like an old kitchen appliance, and the bike's current sky blue and cream colour scheme (I presume original) is right up there with a Kenwood Magimix of the same era. The earlier SR56 Wiesel had cooler paint - most that I see in pictures are straightforward, blocky military / industrial-type colours and they look heavy, tough and a touch sinister.

I'll drop into my local spray shop tomorrow afternoon to see what they say about painting the body parts.

The Auction

I won the bike two weeks ago on eBay. The seller listed it as an abandoned project with the following description:

• Complete bike stripped for restoration
• Forks profesionally powder coated by Triple S in Bingley
• Three brand new Mitas tyres on cleaned up wheels
• £200 worth of new parts, inc. all cables, damper, swinging arm bushes, chain, and front sprocket.
• Many smaller parts and frame repainted
• Bodywork and fuel tank solid and almost rust free
• DKW (forerunner of MZ) engine turns over and has compression
• New parts book and owner's manual in German
• Matching engine and frame numbers
• This bike comes without documents and has not been registered in the UK but can be dated and verified through the MZ Riders Club.

I set up a snipe and waited with mixed feelings about whether I wanted the bike or not; I couldn't really afford the time or space, and I already had a project on the go - my 1966 Honda C100, dismantled and awaiting paint and rebuild of it's very tired engine. Meanwhile my other bike, a 1978 Honda C90, was shitting itself left, right and centre with a mass of problems which had been present from a few days after I bought it last November.

The auction finished and I received an email on my phone whilst eating dinner. I told my girlfriend, and she laughed in bewilderment. She doesn't understand why I felt I needed a third bike, but she knows how it goes...

Within a few days I received a phone call to do a job in Cheshire, conveniently only 40-miles from where the bike was located. I collected on the first Wednesday of March from a friendly bloke called Dave. Dave was big into his Soviet bikes and didn't have a car (or a TV) - just a pair of gnarly Nato-green Urals, some sidecar thing parked on the driveway, and a very cool workshop. He talked me through the boxes of parts and wrote down useful names and numbers.

Jam packed amongst lights and camera equipment, Berlin-in-a-box and I sped south to Leicester, where I spent the night in a hotel since I had a job nearby the following day. I don't know what the journalists made of me turning-up to the shoot with a crusty scooter shell protruding from the back of my Volvo, but I don't really care either. This is how I roll.

Introduction

My name is James and I am a photographer from the UK. When I'm not working, and sometimes when I should be, I enjoy playing with mechanical things.

This blog is for my IWL SR59 Berlin scooter, bought recently as a box of parts on eBay. I have wanted an IWL for a couple of years, having been seen a picture of Berlin's forerunner, the SR56 Wiesel, whilst reading about Soviet motorcycles on the web. I never found a Wiesel for sale, but the Berlin is almost identical except for an extra gear and a bit more power.

The Berlin is a two-seater scooter built in the south Berlin suburbs in East Germany by Industry Werke Ludwigsfelde between 1959 and 1962. The bike is in need of restoration, although the steel bodywork is in half-decent shape and most of the mechanical components are a aluminium and appear fine.

It is powered by a 7.5hp two stroke MZ 150cc engine which I know nothing about, having only ever worked on small four stroke Honda singles and car engines. I plan to rebuild this engine.

These bikes are rare in the UK, having never been imported here, but spares are readily available from Germany. When I was at school, we had an option to learn Spanish or German, and of course I chose Spanish, most of which I have forgotten anyway...