The rotary engine has such a distinctive sound, I have always been a fan of Mazda rally cars. Even now a nice RX3 ( pretty rare now ! ) or RX7 burbling past on the road makes me feel good.

So I has surprised to find that Suzuki produced a bike with out a crankshaft in the mid seventies ! It was at the top end of their range along side the GT750. A quick google came up with

http://www.suzukicycles.org/RE5/RE5-Rotary.shtml - worth a look.

This new knowledge has come about because a customer bought in some parts for a RE5 restoration. The whole machine is having a top to bottom rebuild and that includes the wheels. He bought in rear hubs which incorporate the drum, front hubs and a rim. The hubs cleaned up fairly easily and that included corrosion on the steel liner in the rear drum. The rim is aluminium and has surface corrosion on the outside and a corrosion / tire / tube fitting lube combination in the tire well. After some experimenting, a quick scrub with a wire brush helped lift the grunge off.

Some pictures here, hopefully there will be more later. The intention is to polish the hubs and rims before rebuilding with new spokes. So far he says the finish is better than he has had before so it should require less polishing to get the finish he wants. Great news, that polishing is time consuming work !

rear hub with steel brake lining

before and after

front hub RE5