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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 1973 GT750, 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 GT750 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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The wire harnesses of both the 1973 GT750 and the 1977 GT500 were in very poor shape - many wires had been cut, poorly spliced, the correct connectors were missing, the protective jacket had been removed or it had just weathered away with age. Replacement wire harnesses are available in some cases from Suzuki, and also from some specialty suppliers such as KnK Cycle but items like handlebar switch gear are generally only available via eBay, and of course these will be the same age and often in the same state of repair as the ones you already have. I plan to rebuild the switchgear and repaint it as shown here, but the harness posed a few problems - chief among which was where to source the components. Luckily, I was directed to an outfit in the USA that supplies most of what I needed !
Vintage Connections sells the OEM style fittings, both the 2.8mm latching and non-latching box connectors used in the headlamp shells for the harness interconnects to the instrument pods, and handlebar switchgear, as well as the larger 6.3mm box connectors (latching and also non-latching) used for connections to the regulator panel and ignition coils under the tank. They also sell the black vinyl tubing in sizes suitable for you to replace the protective sheathing leading from the switchgear to the headlamp shell, and from the headlamp shell around the headstock to under the tank, and the leads from the ignition to the electrical connections panel and under tank connections. I like their crimper, although for smaller wire sizes (22 ga. for example) I use a second crimper or sometimes actually solder the joint, just to ensure things won't come apart at an inconvenient time !
Currently I have finished rebuilding the wire harness for the GT500, and I am ready to start redoing the switchgear sometime in the next few weeks. I've done a 'hot' test just to ensure the lights, turn indicators, brake switches and horn are all working correctly - so far, so good !
One thing about the GT500 variant is of course that there are a few items that are quite specific to those years and that model which are no longer available from Suzuki, and are in fact very difficult to locate anywhere which is a problem if you are trying to do a 'factory' restoration - the front fork dust boots for example. These were only used on three models of Suzuki - the 1974 GT550, and the 1976 and 1977 GT500's. As a result, they have not been available for quite a while and although many parts for other models show up regularly on FleaBay I have yet to see these. Luckily, via the Sundial Moto board (a must if you happen to work on older Suzuki's) I was able to locate a fellow in France who is making good quality reproductions of the original pattern, so I ordered two sets which arrived this past week.
As you can see in the photo to the right, they look very nice indeed ! The original is on the left, and the copy is on the right - the new ones measure exactly the same as the old ones and will look very smart when I finally get them installed !
If you happen to need a set of these for your rebuild, send me an email and I'll pass along the fellow's name and contact information.
