There’s something enormously satisfying about taking an old, worn-out thing and making it almost like new again, isn’t there? It’s a thing that requires time, patience, and of course money—all three of which seem to sadly be luxuries in these times. Still, if you have enough of all three things, it matters less that you already know what you’re doing, and more that you’re willing to learn what you don’t know.
That’s part of why RRC Restoration’s videos on YouTube are so satisfying to watch. While the guy behind the channel clearly knows what he’s doing, the fact that he’s willing to show so much of his particular processes in his well-edited ASMR workshop videos is both brilliant and soothing. Grab a cup of your favorite beverage of choice, and maybe a snack, and settle in for his paring over 2,000 hours of work down to just 25 minutes—for our amusement.
The subject is a 1986 Honda CR250 dirt bike, and it’s definitely seen better days. It’s full of all the kinds of things you’d expect on a bike of this age: Rust, sun-faded plastics, gunked-up internals, past-it steering head bearing, perished rubbers—and more. For a bike that’s nearly 40 years old, it’s not particularly surprising that it’s in this shape, if we’re honest.
With seemingly endless hours of careful and attentive restoration, though, you can see it slowly start to come back to life over the course of this video. While this particular composition is an overview of the entire project, RRC has handily assembled a playlist of all the individual, longer-form videos that concentrate on individual parts of this bike. We’ll link it in our Sources if you want to bookmark it and work your way through as you have time.
Meticulous attention to detail is evident with every step. Whether it’s media blasting surfaces to get them cleaned up and ready to go back together (possibly with paint, possibly not), replacing gaskets, relacing and truing the rims, cleaning up the plastics, or pretty much anything else—the sheer amount of care that goes into this work is impressive. If you’re not based in the UK, as RRC is, you may find yourself looking up some of the chemicals he uses (Hint: Deox-C is apparently similar to what Americans know as Evaporust), but that’s also how you know you ‘re really into it.
While none of us are at the stage where a restoration like this can truly happen in under half an hour, it’s still cool to see, and maybe view it as a sort of video mood board to get you hyped for your own next project. If it’s your first project, so much the better—and welcome to the club!