Suzuki GS550E — NOS Seat!

Finally found one 😉

This is just a small post to say that i finally found a brand new seat for the GS550!

A legend in Germany had one for sale on eBay and it arrived recently, looking pretty bloody good too!

I ordered new hinge pins and, after years of having to make aftermarket parts fit, was ecstatic to find it just went on and that was it. No adjustments, no cutting or trimming, it just fitted perfectly, on a forty-year-old bike.

To find a seat pan like that is the holy grail. The trims, the strap. WOW! 😍

So nice, and unusual nowadays, to have the original design on the cover. 

I know it's only a seat, but I've been looking for a good used one for bloody ages. To find a new one blew me away!

And it looks amazing!

And what a difference to the way it rides! 

The comfort from this seat is just unreal compared to what was on here before. I had no idea how much the seat forms part of the suspension before, keeping you isolated from the pounding of the road. It now feels like you could cover massive distances in a day. I'm so impressed with it.

And being that much thicker than the old one, my knees are no longer so bent up either. In all those years of riding, I've only ever had one new seat before and that was on the BSA in the nineties. It'll be much higher on my list of priorities for the old bikes in the future.

More soon...

NOS - New Old Stock (Not Nitrous)

Trawling eBay for "NOS"
Don't you just love it, mooching through the pages of NOS stuff on eBay and you find the exact part number you need?

Thirty years on and someone had old 61211-31310 sat amongst their old spares. Unused and on the other side of the world just waiting for the GSX to be brought back into contention.

So, bought and sent from the UK, I now have something to hold the swing arm in the bike. Job jobbed.

And on another note...
Managed to find a company in the UK selling aftermarket brake caliper slide pin rubbers for the GSX. Mine had expanded far beyond useful and I needed new ones to keep the grease in, and the crap out.

Motorcycle Products Ltd. have a massive selection of bike parts and I got 5 rubber boots for fifteen quid. Not bad, it was nearly ten bucks per boot from Suzuki and, as I only needed four, was left with a spare just in case.

So the front calipers are now finished. Another tick in another box. Slide pins move nicely, new pistons, seals and brake pads. Check out these before and after pics.