Hello Everyone,

Last year I managed to find a stock TVS Suzuki Shaolin with just 30K on the dial. It's owner worked in the TVS hosur factory and had shifted to Chennai and the only long distance trip he had done was to drive from hosur to chennai when he had shifted. All this with a real bargain price tag of 3K made me close the deal at 2.7K!!!

Here was the catch: she hadn't been used for almost a year and was left standing outside the house exposed to the harsh madras weather. This had left the bike to look like a cosmetic wreck!

With the help of my friend i towed the vehicle to my friendly neighborhood mechanic in Triplicane. When we started to strip her down to examine its condition, things started to become clear.

The Tank had collected water from downpours and had caused it to rust and this had compromised it's ability to hold fuel. we fixed it with some M-seal and installed a fuel filter from the tap to the carb. Next we changed the Rims and spokes to HH splendor ones. Next was the meter. The RPM meter and the Odo were in perfect shape but was given for a gen checkup and resetting the meter. the guy who fixed it had confirmed that it was indeed a OEM and hadnt been tampered with. We chucked the old battery which had already leaked and replaced it with the maintainance free stuff. Next came the clutch plates, which was changed to the MAX100R due to unavailability of OEM plates. What came next was surprise for us. We decided to drain the engine oil and replace it with Valvoline stuff which my friend had recommended. The Drained oil was free of particulates and was practically brand new!! We filtered it just in case and filled her up with the "old" oil and attached a test bottle with fuel and kick started the beast and she responded to our calls Quickly! after a quick spin we were surprised at the engine response and the way she ran. There was not a slightest Indication of any bore noise or another malfunction.

After 400 odd kilometers i rested her in my garage only to be long forgotten thanks to my college and frequent outstation trips.

when I returned after 8 long months, I almost felt tears rolling down my eyes. She was covered with dust. Her Indicators were broken. Her meter was shot. All this with the vandalism of my neighbor's pesky kids had left her scratched and destroyed cosmetically (yet again).

Now that I am back in town, I'd like to restore her back to stock form. This includes painting and a engine job. I'm planning to take her to a kind of popular mechanic here in mylapore who own a track racing team but with my budget stuck at 12K i am not sure how much he'd charge for the engine alone.

I'd Like some inputs such as what to change and where to source these from. I'd also like to know if there is any Digital CDI which can be adapted to my long ignored steed!

Any Help would be appreciated guys!

Ragav