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One of the advantages of
belonging to a local vintage bike club is the little pointers and tips
people casually toss your way - its wonderful, and hugely appreciated !
One of the things our local CVMG club offers is a cut rate deal on
powder coating two or three times per year and so with one of these
coming up I had to decide what I wanted to get done. I have two bikes
on the go currently this one, and also a 1977 GT500, and while it
probably isn't too smart to have both of them in pieces at the same
time that is what I've decided to do.After washing all the parts I took everything over to the good folks at Consolidated Compressor here in Calgary to sand blast all the bits and pieces. I wrote about them previously here , and this time I also used their indoor glass bead blasting cabinet for the smaller items and the outside sand blasting stations for the two frames. I have to admit, for someone like myself who doesn't have to do this sort of thing for a living, there is a certain fascination about watching the old paint, rust and anything else that happens to get in the way and isn't firmly attached get blasted into oblivion !
I was careful to wear disposable mechanics gloves, as I did not want to touch any of the bare, clean metal with my hands as doing so could potentially cause the powder to not adhere. Once I had the parts back home, I blew out the grit from everywhere I could find, and also washed the freshly sandblasted parts down with brake wash, just to be absolutely certain there were no traces of oil which would ruin the powder coat application.
The next step then is to strip the donor GT750 bike down, salvage what I can and also go through the Rubbermaid tubs that came with the Kincardine GT750 bike to see what should be kept from it. I also have to tag and store all the bits from the GT500 as well - the photo shows the two frames, as well as the other frame components which are all to be powder coated. |
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Here are a couple of 'before' photos - as you can see the gauges looked pretty tired.
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And here is how they look now !
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I supplied Allan with new glass lenses which were made for me by Ron Walder, owner of The Glass Guild here in Calgary. He and I met at an antique auto-restoration work shop put on by the Reynolds Museum in Wetaskiwin. The new lenses fit perfectly, and really dress up the look of the refurbished gauges ! Also, as a part of the refurbishment process, Allan checks the calibration of the gauges and adjusts the mechanism as required to ensure they read as accurately as possible, so in that respect they are probably better than new as from the factory, Suzuki gauges really were not too accurate above about 60 mph !
Of course I now have a small problem - somehow I need to bring the rest of the bike up to the quality of finish of the gauges, otherwise they will make the rest of the bike look bad ! It is a nice problem to have ....
Several of the chrome plated parts are in very poor shape, so I've looked around for a chrome plating outfit to redo a few of the parts. Its surprising the range of opinion you get when you start trying to get recommendations for custom metal work - many of the folks I asked at custom bike shows here in Calgary and Red Deer advised me to not use any chrome shops in the Calgary area ! On the other hand, shipping costs start to become a real issue with large metal objects, so having someone local that you can easily deal with is a plus. The other aspect to be considered is the level of re-chroming actually desired. Most Japanese bikes in the 1970's had relatively poor quality chrome plating. Spot welds are clearly visible for example, and if you look closely there are many small imperfections in the finish - it certainly isn't the 'show quality chrome' you see on modern custom bikes. Over doing the quality of the finish on a restoration is a common mistake people make, and in many ways detracts from the authenticity of the restored bike, as well as adding a lot of unnecessary cost.
In the end I've decided to try Alberta Plating Ltd. as a couple of members of the local Calgary 'Loyal Order of Water Buffalo's' spoke well of them. This week I dropped off a couple of fenders - one of which is in really rough shape - just to see what sort of work they do. They should be ready just after Christmas and I'll post a few photos. If I like the work they do, then I have about another half dozen bits and pieces for them to do for both the 1973 GT750, as well as the 1972 GT750 I'll be doing up next winter.
Richard,
the fellow who runs the PinkPossum
web
site did a short write-up some time ago about a simple conversion for
the swing arm on the GT750 which I wanted to try. Starting in 1977, the
newer model Suzuki’s had needle roller bearings in the swing arm which
helped to improve the handling. The standard swing arm bearing for the
GT750 is actually 
a fiber bush which works OK
when new, but tends to
get sloppy over time. There are bronze bushes available as direct
replacements, although you have to be careful that you get some that
actually fit ! The ones sold by PartsnMore
for
example, measure fine on the ID, but have too big an OD and so need to
be turned down somehow before
they will come close to fitting into the swing arm. Proper sized bronze
bushes are
available from the Kettle
Club
in
the UK who sometimes also sell them via eBay. As well, on a couple of
bikes that
I’ve pulled apart
for spares, I’ve noticed that the metal bushings seem to have
lubrication problems as there have been signs of significant scoring.
Of course that could also just be due to poor maintenance, but I wanted
to try Richard’s needle roller conversion ( details
can be found here
) as it just seemed like a better idea.
Finding
the bearings here in Calgary was not a problem, although I understand
that Timkins has recently sold their needle roller production division
to Koyo and so the brand names may change. I was slightly concerned
initially as the fit is just a tiny bit on the loose side. I
suppose it would be nice if there were a .001 less clearance, but once
fitted in the frame and bolted up it actually feels fine with no
noticeable play at all and I’m quite happy with it. A photo of the
pivot shaft, with the two new spacers (left and right) together with
the Timkins B-1412 bearings, two per side is to the left. Note that
when this assembly is installed into the swing arm, you need a thrust
washer of some sort at each end as the spacer protrudes about 2 mm – as
Richard of the PinkPossum site suggested, I just cut the old fiber bush
lip off, and used this as it is the correct thickness.
With everything re-installed and bolted up, it feels really good - no side play at all that I can see, and it feels quite smooth. For the $30 in bearings, it is a nice easy conversion. My thanks to Richard for doing the leg work to figure it out - recommended !
The radiator has been cleaned out, pressure tested and painted by Crossroads Radiator here in Calgary, so I’m on to the next steps of paint, and getting the rest of the bike bolted together ! With the engine in the frame and the swing arm re-installed, I've done a trial fit of the major components just to see what I'm still missing. In the photo to the right, the fork ears are just place holders, So far so good - I have the parts to re-spoke the front and rear wheels, but it could use some front brakes !
1973 was the first year for the dual disc brakes on the GT750, and the set-up was unique (of course !!) to that year. Nothing is ever easy.A key change from the 1972 GT750 to the 1973 model was the addition of dual front disc brakes to replace the original internal cable operated drum brakes. I’m told that brake hose should be changed about every 6 to 8 years, regardless of what it looks like – much like tires – as the materials supposedly fatigue and perish which could lead to catastrophic failure. Of course I’m told this by people trying to sell both tires and brake hoses, and while I don’t doubt their sincerity, I also can’t rid myself of the nagging thought at the back of my mind that perhaps the recommendations are a trifle too self-serving. None the less, I also have no doubt that 37-year-old tires and brake hoses desperately need to be replaced, as the ones on my 1973 GT750 project bike are severely cracked, checked, split and harder than a teenager with his first copy of Playboy ! There was, of course, one small problem.The GT750 disc brake design went through a couple of changes over the course of the model releases, mainly to do with the hoses and master cylinder and 1973 was the only year in which Suzuki used hard walled steel brake line together with flexible brake hose (two middle hoses to the lower brake lines and an upper one to the master cylinder) on the GT750. This steel line and the middle hoses have been long discontinued, and the later replacement model of hoses uses a different fitting on the brake calliper itself, so you need either to modify the callipers, or replace them with later model calipers. I have a box full of later model callipers, but I was interested in retaining the original 1973 look if possible and while I have seen a few NOS or good used hoses, lines and fittings, they are all of course 37 years old and therefore suspect from a reliability perspective. You don’t want to be thinking about potential reliability issues when you are trying to stop !
So I decided to see about having new hoses and lines made to order, and
went looking for an outfit that was willing to do small custom work at
an affordable price for vintage and custom vehicles. While I’m positive
there are places in Calgary that would have done this for me, I
couldn’t find any actually ad
vertising this sort of
service on the internet (always my first port of call) , and when I did
call one that I found after a search through the on-line Yellow Pages,
the person that I talked to was a complete idiot which was
disappointing. After a bit more searching, I located another Alberta
located outfit called Edmonton
Brake and Clutch,
located (not too surprisingly) in Edmonton, Alberta that both specifically
advertised this sort of custom service on their web site and also were
very helpful and knowledgeable when I called – I was actually able to
talk to the fellow in the shop (Blayne) who would be making the
fittings up for me, and on the basis of that discussion I sent them a
set of what I needed to have replaced. A couple of days later they
called to say they were ready to go !
While I wanted to retain the look of the original installation, I’m not such a slave to authenticity that I minded making a few small changes – for one thing I was quite happy to have all the fittings in stainless steel. I was also happy to move away from rubber hoses, to braided stainless steel hoses as it allows much more pressure to actually reach the brake callipers – which can be quite useful when trying to stop ! The downside of this is that the braided hoses are a bit smaller in diameter than the original ones, but I can live with that. I’ve attached a photo to the right showing the original hoses and steel lines below the new ones – due to the smaller diameter of the new braided hose, I will leave off the wire coil found on the old upper hose, but I will retain the rubber hood that goes over the fitting attached to the master cylinder (the one in the photo is torn, but I have several others available). All-in-all I’m pretty happy with the end result and so if you need custom brake hoses made up for some reason, give Blayne a call and I’m sure he can get you all fixed up !
Next on the list is to rebuild the callipers, re-spoke, true, install new rubber, balance the wheels, finish off rebuilding the wiring and switch gear, rebuild the carbs, decide whether I’ll use an electronic ignition or just stay with points, and wait for Cyclemania Artworks in Okotoks to finish doing the paint. I’d also like to get the engine running, but that means having to sort out the exhaust ……… I’m aiming to have this ready for a show and shine June 12. Could be close.
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than do the middle and right ones, plus of course the middle carb is
jetted differently from the outside two. Right off the bat, I had a
problem as when I looked at what I had carefully, I found that a couple
of the bodies were damaged or had been modified - for example the
throttle slide stop screw on one had evidently been lost at some point,
and replaced with a Robertson headed machine screw !  |  |
