Yamaha R1 — Project Streetfighter.

I love a bargain... or punishment!

Gumtree and Marketplace are taking up my life. Both sites are out of control! Where commonsense once led the way, I keep asking:

1) Do I need another project? No, I have too many, walk away now.

2) Do I need another project? Of course, one more wouldn't hurt.

After all, I could sell something to make more room...

Streetfighters.

I've always wanted the genuine sportsbike version, with all the proper kit from the period - suspension, brakes etc. - but never felt like ripping the fairing off a perfectly good bike. So I kept my eye out for something that maybe didn't matter. Something that hadn't been looked after in the first place and either needed new fairings, or a new look altogether.

So what is it about the older sportsbikes?

They're old school cool, and aggressive. Making good power, proper suspension, with handlebars and no fairing. What's not to like?

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...

Suzuki GS Series — Starter Clutch Rattles

The final check?

As anyone who has followed this blog will know, the engine out of the GS550E has been stripped completely. And, obviously, this was the ideal time to do a simple check on the starter clutch. And I full intended to, had I had the correct flywheel puller. A simple M14 x 1.5mm bolt is all it needs...

But no!

I'd already bought a pretty extensive universal puller/slide hammer with all sorts of adaptors, but none of them being a basic M14 x 1.5mm bolt. Anyway, I ignored it, and refitted the crank with flywheel still attached, not realising what could happen behind the flywheel.

And there it is, flywheel/rotor with starter clutch and gear bolted up behind it.

Suzuki GS Series — Clutch End Float.

Low speed rattles?

There's a few common places that annoying rattles can resonate from on ye olde GS. One of them being the clutch.

It's a heavy unit to be spinning around on the big needle roller bearing and you will always see and feel the [normal] movement when you get hold of the clutch basket. Considering that the huge helical gear around the outside of it is being driven by the crank itself, movement isn't what you want. That sort of freeplay doesn't really matter, for instance, if the clutch is being driven by chain or belt as there is more flex. Gears don't exactly flex, but they will wear. 

On top of this, there is a gear sat behind it, driven by the basket, which then drives the oil pump. A lot going on for something that only has one bearing. 

Now a couple of the intelligent folks at GSResources forum removed some of the play by machining a little off the bearing hub that runs on the inside of the needle roller bearing. In effect, this removes a little of the end float and holds the basket at the angle it was designed to run. Thereby keeping the gears at the correct angle, and reducing some of the noise inside. Sounds good huh?

That's the back of the clutch basket. The large gear is driven by the crankshaft. The two slots in the back of the clutch centre drive the gear that, in turn, drives the oil pump. The springs you can see are for cushioning take up of drive as you let the clutch out to pull away etc. These sag slightly with age and, ideally, need replacing because they start to rattle. Or, as I was about to do, you can shim them with washers to quieten them down.

So this unit has a few jobs to do. Probably best that it spins as it should instead of flopping under its own weight...

Suzuki GS550E — Steering head bearings.

Wandering Aimlessly...

Since the new Metzelers have been fitted, there has been a slight weave at low speed. I hope it's a steering bearing issue and not a trait of the new boots. Being as it was on the list of to-do's for along time, I ordered a genuine top bearing from Suzuki, as there doesn't seem to be an equivalent generic part number, and the old "32006" taper roller from the local bearing shop for the bottom yoke.

While it was apart, it would be time to clean up and paint various parts on the front end. A month and half later and I'm still waiting on the springs to come from America. Postal service is struggling as they're waiting for flights!

Anyway, back to the clean up. The main things on the list were the yokes/triple clamps, headlamp brackets, indicator brackets, and maybe the speedo surround and headlamp itself.

Suzuki GS550E — Quarter Turn Throttle Conversion.

 Converting your throttle tube to a 1/4 turn.

I'm pleased to say the GS550/673 is going really well — the engine has been faultless so far. One thing that is annoying me though is how bumpy the front end is, and it's really obvious since sorting the Bandit. The 1200 front end is now feeling incredibly refined and plush after a fork oil change, so I wanted to change the springs in the front of the GS to try and help her out.

As luck would have it, a pair of new Progressive springs came up on eBay for $110 delivered. Result! Although the general consensus now is to fit straight-rate (linear) springs, this was a bit of a bargain. However, they got stolen on the day they were delivered by some scrote who told the postie that they lived at my house. And that was the smaller of three parcels! Luckily I got my money back via Paypal, but that's besides the point. I was not impressed.

Metzeler Tyre Test — Suzuki GS550E

First, a bit of history... hey, life isn't all just fun you know!

When the old GS came to me, that fateful morning in 2012, I knew it was going to change my life. It sat there for a long time, mournfully looking to be put back out there, to race around on the mountain roads, to show what it was really capable of.

But I had a GSXR1000 and a DRZ400 supermoto for the fun stuff. This one would wait. However, it kept looking... and I kept ignoring. 

Until, one day, it was reassembled enough to run under its own steam. The excitement was building. The little GS felt proud, there was potential and we could both see it. She was ready to go out and try the roads for the first time in years. The front tyre, however, was looking a bit lame. So I bought a secondhand Dunlop on eBay that was originally fitted to a Harley, the little GS wasn't happy about that, but it meant we got to ride. The rear Barracuda (the what?) had plenty of tread left so she was good to go. And for years she rode around on those old tyres, the front now being seventeen years old 😱.

Suzuki GS673 Conversion — The Road Test.

 What'll it do mister?

There are no certainties in this life. All we can do is work with the best we've got, and to the best of our ability. When you work with old vehicles, you are left with a hell of a lot of choices. Replace everything for fear of something breaking down the track, or use experience to decide what will keep going, and maybe rely on a little bit of luck. It's probably fair to say we use all of these methods without a second thought.

It would be nice to change every bearing, gear, thrust washer, bolt, moving part etc., but that generally isn't viable. Instead we check, measure and work out what we can get away with. Lots of parts aren't even available anyway so sometimes we are stuck with far greater tolerances. When there is wear in vehicles, we immediately feel it when we ride or drive them but, as human beings, we automatically adjust to cope with the discrepancies. Some better than others.

Sure it's nice to be on a brand new bike, where everything is perfect, but they also leave me feeling somewhat robbed (not just with the cost of them either:). They let you get away with things, incredible brakes, plush suspension, tyres with more grip than you know what to do with. You may even think you're better than you actually are (oof, perish the thought!). 

But with old stuff you feel everything that is happening, hold the bars too hard through the bends and the weaving starts, fight it and things get worse. But relax and let it work everything out for itself and they usually settle down quite nicely. You feel that you're achieving something, that a living being is out for a blast with you, stirs the soul don't they say? (It does get tiring though...)

So ladies and gentlemen, just once, get on an old bike and be amazed at what they will do if you're just prepared to put in the effort...

Suzuki GS550E — GS673 Conversion Progress.

 Finally getting there...

Once painting of the cases was done, I put the crank and gear clusters back in the crankcase. Turning everything over, something I hadn't noticed originally was pitting in the teeth of one of the gears. It turned out I needed sixth drive gear (obviously unavailable from Suzuki now), but a search on eBay came up with a NOS one in Cyprus. With a delay on postage due to COVID-19, all I could do was wait. 

The pitting is visible in this pic. The largest gear in the top cluster.

One NOS gear from Cyprus. Whoop!

GS673 Conversion — Cleaning The Crankcases and Painting Engine.

The 673 kit.

The next step for the GS550 is to relieve the crankcases slightly so that the bigger diameter liners will fit inside. I'd just ordered a new Dremel as my old Draper version was getting a bit tired. That thing has been amazing and I've had it almost twenty years — it's done lots of porting and polishing. Anyway, i was in the process of grinding out some of the casing when the Draper tool finally gave up and spat chunks of plastic out the side. The Dremel came just in time!

If you're wondering about the quality of the deburring tools, sandpaper barrels etc., the Dremel ones are superb! I've always bought the cheaper versions and they wear out in seconds, The Dremel ones are worth the extra cost. 

But on with the job. 

I found it easier to slip the cylinders over the studs, turn the case upside down and mark where the liners were touching. Then remove the cylinders and start grinding. Bit by bit, they went lower and lower.

Suzuki GS550E 673 — Stripping the Engine, Decking the Barrels.

And skim the head!

The next thing on the list was the broken fin on the barrels. I cut out a similar shape from some old aluminium that was lying around, then filed it somewhere near. I wanted the barrels to be hot before welding to avoid cracks etc., so a trip to the oven was in order. Half an hour at 150 Celsius was perfect and the liners slid straight out. This was even better because No.4 sat slightly proud before I started.

Roughly shaped, let's take a look.

Suzuki GS550E — 673 Conversion.

Slight Misfire Halts Play!

It finally happened, I knew the engine was on borrowed time, but it's been happily running me around for the past couple of years, relatively drama free. Now, still running reasonably well considering, it's misfiring on one cylinder and after a quick compression test, no.4 was found to be sadly lacking. You could also hear the familiar chuff-chuff out of the righthand pipe from a burnt exhaust valve.

The reason, you may well ask, why this engine was on borrowed time was because there is wear in the camshaft journals, so not ideal to do a top-end rebuild with the original head. And finding another head for one of these seems to be impossible in Australia. Plenty in the UK and America, but postage wouldn't be worthwhile.

RPM Moto Nerang — New Chain and Sprockets for the GS550E.

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...

Suzuki Bandit 1200 — Suspension Upgrades.

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.

Suzuki Bandit 1200 — Tacho Update!

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).

Mk1 Suzuki Bandit 1200 — Tacho Not Working!

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.