Suzuki GS550E — I'm attached to this little bike.
It's nowhere near restored or concourse, and likely never will be, but looks pretty good considering the condition it came to me in. I'm always doing little jobs on it, and enjoy the odd ride out even if the seat is as hard as wood.
The chain and sprockets were well worn, in fact the chain I was using came off my Gixer1000 years ago. So when I saw a NOS standard rear sprocket for next to nothing on eBay, I snapped it up (obviously a fifty tooth sprocket for a GS550 is not a common item now). The gearing on the 550 was way over the top before, and was fitted with a 43T on the back. I'd always thought it had the wrong chain guard on it because of the huge gap underneath, but that wasn't the case. Standard size was seven teeth bigger.
So now I needed a front sprocket and an O-ring chain to go with it. A quick look on eBay and there was a shop selling both, with different sized fronts if need be. I decided to go for a 16T to give the GS a sightly more relaxed time (15T is standard). The prices were superb, and with a little more investigation I found out they were actually on the Gold Coast.
So I popped in...
The Bandit is pretty damn awesome!
Especially considering, for the last couple of months, the shock absorber has been breathing its last and dumped its oil. Not bad for a 24 year-old bike.
Hustling it along was ok as long as you didn't force it. Maintain pace and keep things smooth and it handled most roads perfectly. But while I've been off for the Christmas break, I figured it was time to sort it all out. With a GSXR1000 K8 shock ready to slot in, it was time to upgrade.
Resistance is indeed... futile.
As the previous post eluded to, the big Bandit's tachometer is now working only by hooking into the black/yellow coil-feed wire. This is how Suzuki did it on the later Bandits, and I'm having to do this because the later model CDI unit I bought doesn't run a feed to the tachometer.
After joining the two wires together where the looms plug into the CDI unit, I initially thought my troubles were over, until i hit the 4,000 RPM range.
But then the needle went berserk, floating all over the rev range until you dropped the engine speed to four grand again.
I put this down to interference from the coils, and wondered whether a resistor inline with the tachometer might help.
There were various performance shops around the world selling such items for race cars so, with a bit of shopping around, found that a 10,000 ohm resistor was the way forward. Worth a punt for a few cents (unless you find the guy on eBay who was trying to sell them for $16 per resistor! 😐).
I bought a pack of 25 for $5.82 😀 (you never know when you might need another).
Comfort.
I think I've been cramped up on sports bikes too long, because I absolutely love the comfort of the GSF1200! Just this Sunday, after a bacon and egg roll and flat white at Cafe Metz, I headed up the Goat Track. For those not in the know, it's a cracking little road full of hairpin bends that takes you up to North Tamborine. Great fun, up or down, whatever bike.
Fifty K's per hour is how fast I was going. Fifty K's!
I was more mellow than a bong-induced mellow guy from Mellowford, and happy to cruise. Until six or seven bikes flew past me like I was on a pushbike!
I took chase, but gave up when the front got a bit iffy in one of the bends. All good, back to Sunday morning cruising.
So what's this thing like day-to-day?
Honestly, it's blown me away. It's quick when you want it, happy to mooch around at snail's pace, just a cracking allrounder. I'm fixing up little things as I go, and making a list of things I want to do.
One thing that was niggling me since getting this thing running was the rev-counter... it wasn't counting the revs. I had two secondhand CDI units, it didn't work on either. I had continuity from the tacho (black/red), back to the CDI. I had 12v and a good earth at the tacho itself. So the tacho must be faulty? One would assume so. But to assume...
New Old Stock.
Secondhand rev-counters were going for around $150 on eBay, if you could find them. But then a NOS one came up for $300.
Nissin Calipers Overhaul.
The Bandit has been a lot of fun so far, but one thing was niggling me. Although all the discs and pads looked quite new, the rear brake was squealing so loudly I was actively trying to avoid using it.
So a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd whip off the rear caliper, clean up the pistons and pads, and apply some grease to the backs of the pads. During the cleaning of the pistons, I noticed part of an O-ring sticking out on one side. The only thing I could do was unbolt the two sides of the caliper and remove the pistons to see what was going on.
The secondary O-ring (dust seal) must have been so dry at some point that it got caught on the piston and worked its way out. However it happened, I popped out the pistons, cleaned everything up in soapy water, blew it all dry and refitted the O-ring along with rubber grease. With careful refitting of the piston, all was well. Obviously this was done with both sides of the caliper, and then new brake fluid was flushed through. The back brake was then perfect... and silent.
What I did notice while the caliper was apart was the amount of orange, jellied brake fluid hiding within. There is no way this stuff is getting out unless you strip the caliper completely, which left me wondering about the fronts...
Rusty Tanks? Sounds like a Blues singer.
And if you leave the rust to spread, the blues is what you'll be singing.
Takes me back to when I was 18 or 19, riding a '58 Triumph Speedtwin. My mate and I were on our way into Hereford, the traffic was backed up a bit from the roundabout and we were busy swerving our way through when he came alongside me, on his Stan Stephen's Stage-3 tuned, RD350 YPVS, to tell me that I had a water leak.
My initial response was "F#ck, where from?"
It dawned pretty quickly that there is no water in a pre-unit Triumph! The tank had split and petrol was absolutely pissing out all over the head and barrels! I killed the engine, which helped a little because the vibration stopped, and calmly pushed (very quickly) it over to the bike shop that used to be on that very roundabout. A mechanic there gave me a tray to put under it, and my mate gave me a lift back home where I borrowed a Transit from work to pick up the old Trumpet. Job's a fish.
But I digress, as usual, because we're now in Bandit country. One of the first things I noticed about the Bandit was the fuel gauge, and it didn't move as Suzuki intended. There was also rust visible in the tank.
A quick test of the fuel gauge goes as follows: unplug the tank sender unit, rear right of the petrol tank on the Bandit, and insert a wire into both terminals of the loom. This is basically returning 12v to the gauge (or mimicking a full tank). The gauge went to the full position so happy days. Time to pull out the tap and fuel sender.
Bigger cubes!
Part of the reason for putting the GS550 on the road was to take things at a gentler pace. While the CBR600RR is amazing — compliant, smooth, light, quick — probably too quick, you need to be a bit careful where the constabulary are concerned.
Ambling round on the GS is great, it's happy mooching round and gives you plenty of time to take in the scenery. I absolutely love being on old stuff too. Points and condensers, carburettors, air-cooled engines... they just have more soul. The smell in the garage after they've been for a run is awesome too.
But then you hit that steep hill, loaded with hairpin bends, and she struggles in first gear just to make it round. It starts me thinking about GS1000's, GSX1100's, something a bit bigger, torquier. Something that will go two-up with ease, trundle around all day on the sniff of fumes and sit at 3,000 to 4,000 RPM.
Mmm... nice but too expensive nowadays.
So, it got me thinking. What about the first of the Bandits? 1157cc, oil/air-cooled monstrous fours that ooze torque and charisma, and will wrench your arms off just off idle. Basically the detuned engine out of a GSXR1100. Always wanted a GSXR1100. Mmm, here we go again!
Gumtree.
Such a visual feast of all things bargain, if you look properly. There were lots on there, later 1250S models with the water-cooled engine, but all were runners and commanding large sums of money. I prefer a project for much smaller sums of money. And I found one. But it was a thirteen hour drive, for a non-running Mk1. It looked in reasonable fettle (obviously in photos) and Murray, the guy selling it, seemed pretty legit, in fact an absolute legend. So transport was organised...
