A romanian love story that began with spare parts – AWO 425 Sport

The story of this motorcycle begins in 1960 in the Simson plants of Suhl, Germany. Using innovative technological solutions, my bike is one of the 85,000 copies produced of the 425 Sport Model. For the 1960s, the performances of the motorcycle were quite impressive, having a 4-stroke, 250CC, 14 hp engine with a top speed of 110 km/h.

I got the bike in 2003, piece by piece. As luck would have it, riders from Arad began to sell their Simsons for faster, more reliable, Japanese motorcycles, so I “inherited” quite a few replacement parts, albeit in different states of wear.

With a little help from my older and more experienced friends, I managed to breathe new life into my Simson in 2005, when it got its new license plates. I wasn’t able to make a complete overhaul, but the bike was ready to go, even if I did not dare to venture too far from the city due to many breakdowns and my lack of experience in roadside repairs. Inevitably, I bought a Japanese motorcycle that was faster and more reliable over longer distances, but I just didn’t have the heart to sell my beloved Simson.

After a four-year stint abroad, which ended in 2017, one of the first things I did was to take my Simson out for a ride. I stored in the bicycle garage of my apartment building, so it got protected from corrosion and inclement weather, so I was able to use it in this state until January 24^th, 2019.

The whole process lasted half a year

From that point, I decided to do a complete overhaul of the bike, part by part down to the last screw, but well within the limits of my tight budget. In the first phase, I had to design and build a lot of devices, presses and extractors, to be able to disassemble the engine. Then I made a compressor from recycled “scraps”, and I painted the bike as I imagined it would look like in its heyday.  The frame and accessories were taken to a specialized workshop where they were sandblasted and painted in an electrostatic field, while others were sent to Oradea for chrome plating. Being unable to source all the original parts, I had to use parts from Russian copies of the Simson. We sourced the headlight housing with mileage, tank, seat, ignition system, charging, electrical installation with signals (non-existent on the original model) and the cylinder heads. I was very lucky with to be helped by two true masters of mechanics, two lathe operators from Arad with a lot of experience and patience, who did magnificent job to bring the engine to back to life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, in the end I could say that such work can only be done by putting a lot of heart and passion, as this is not at all productive or efficient, because you have to be completely invested in the work once you enter the workshop. The upside is that you feel all your worries go away in an instant. The pleasure of restoring the Simson, was as great as that of driving it. I would love to know the other side of the story, from 1960 to 2003, but I am afraid it will remain a mystery forever …

A special thanks goes to our partner ADDINOL Romania for providing us with this special love story.