First love! !
Wouldn’t you want to find your first two-wheeled love? Lloyd Davies found his, sparking a major restoration.
Who hasn’t said the following: ‘I wish I still had my first bike!’ It’s something most of us would admit to. It’s a potent mix, motorcycles and nostalgia…
Lloyd Davies (left) knows this only too well and, while many of us hope to find our first steed, most are not as lucky as Lloyd, who did find his beloved moped. “I first purchased the yellow Yamaha FS1-E DX in 1980 (registration PMH 787R) when I was 16 to get me to college and back,” recalls Lloyd. “Sadly, I sold her in 1984 to upgrade to bigger and better things. She was finally gone. I always wished I hadn’t let her go as she was not a one-year wonder for me, like some 50cc mopeds were for other 16-year-olds.”
Lloyd’s memories of his Fizzy stayed with him for more than 30 years. “As the years kept ticking by, I always wondered if the old yellow Fizzy still existed,” he says. “Then, some years further on, upon checking the DVLA website it became apparent ‘my’ Fizzy did exist, was not scrapped, but it hadn’t been taxed since 1985 – the year after I sold it – so there was a glimmer of hope, but then the trail went cold.”
Lloyd did try to widen his search for the DX. He says: “For the next 20 years or so I asked clubs and even placed adverts to find my Fizzy, but nothing concrete came out of it. An old buddy and big Fizzy fan, Ted Levett, kept me going with words of encouragement and we started putting out feelers once more. This was real ‘power of the internet’ stuff. Then, out of the blue, my yellow Fizzy was located in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, some distance from where I originally sold it in Essex!”
There was soon the realisation that after more than 38 years since he first bought it there was some good and bad news. “It was clear my Fizzy was in one hell of a mess,” he says. “But the silver lining was that the original engine had been fully rebuilt by Fizzy expert Charlie Owens and, better still, the bike was more or less complete, with matching frame and engine numbers!” What followed was a frustrating time of waiting, negotiating and collecting the bike before the big day. “On December 18, 2018 the Fizzy was finally back home with me. What an early Christmas present!”
Now the 2019 restoration could start and Lloyd was in no mood to cut corners. “A full-on restoration was decided as this was my first bike I had for the road. It meant so much to me at the time and now, so it had to be a pukka job,” he says. “This meant putting in a lot of work myself. Every night and every weekend I was either in the garage or on the internet searching for parts. I also used some brilliant specialists out there.
“Most of the chrome was sent to Derby Plating Services, who did a wonderful job. I used as many of the original parts that could be saved as I could and the rest were either New Old Stock or good second-hand parts.”
The elephant in the room (or garage) was the fact that Lloyd had a tight deadline of around five months. He says: “I wanted the bike finished and fully restored in that short time scale as, locally, we had a big bike ride-out charity event for May 26, 2019!”
Sourcing some parts was an issue. “Upon rebuilding the front forks it was found one stanchion was slightly bent so we had to find a replacement. I eventually found a NOS one in Germany. Genuine new wheels were sourced. The rear wheel hub was stripped and blasted and polished, then rebuilt with new bearings and new spindle spacers with some help from fellow biker John Parry. On the braking front, in came a new master cylinder and a new genuine front brake calliper. With pretty much everything needing rebuilding, many of us put in countless hours into the Fizzy over the next five months, but the transformation slowly began to happen.”
When the Fizzy returned to Lloyd it was clear that the original speedblock yellow had long since disappeared. “I sand-blasted the yellow panels and etch primed them myself,” he says, “but I left the final painting to fellow biker friend Lee Du Heaume, who did a great job.”
As the deadline approached things began to be pulled together – right up to the last minute. Lloyd says: “We were working on my Fizzy right up to the very night before the event, really. But it was an amazing moment when on the very morning of the event she was running and ready to join the other 1000 or so bikes on the ride.”
For Lloyd, the event marked the renewal of his love affair with his Fizzy. A bike which he bought in 1980 for £80, sold in 1984 to a dealer for £200 and spent almost £2000 to get back to perfect condition.
“That charity ride had almost all the other makes and models of motorcycle you could dream of, but you can guess who got the most attention! Yes, my beloved Fizzy,” says Lloyd with a smile.
“The charity bike run was over 30 miles and my Fizzy never missed a beat. So for now the bike is getting enjoyed being used,but when winter arrives I will be putting some final finishing touches to her. Yes, she’s now a keeper!”