3. Frame, Body, Chrome, Etc.
- Powdercoating - Prep
- Powdercoating - Process
- Re-Gauged
- Chrome
- Swing Arm Needle Roller Conversion
- Getting Hosed
- Accessories and Other
- Carburettors
- Wheel Rebuild
- Trim
Powdercoating - Prep
I've spent the past few days disassembling and getting them stripped down, taken lots of photos and bagged and tagged many of the smaller bits and pieces, nuts and bolts. Today I spent some time washing off the accumulated dirt and oil from 30+ years of use. I had briefly thought of doing this in my driveway using my pressure washer, but very quickly rejected the idea as it would flush various amounts of oil and grease down the storm drain. Instead, I took everything over to a local Shell car wash as they (supposedly) are set up to keep this sort of debris out of the storm water system.
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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Powdercoating - Process
I hadn't seen this type of paint application done before, so for me at least it was quite interesting. Essentially, the metal is electrically charged and then sprayed with a plastic powder - the charge causes the powder to 'stick' to the metal, after which everything is put into an oven and baked at 400 F for 40 minutes. Below to the left my parts are being sprayed, in the middle shows the parts fresh out of the oven and cooling down, and on the right back home and ready to be unloaded..
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Re-Gauged
The gauges arrived this week from Barbados, where they were rebuilt by a friend of mine, Allan Tucker. He operates a small Suzuki gauge repair business from his home there, and he is passionate about his hobby. I had planned to refurbish the gauges myself, but had seen his work and thought it would be just one less thing for me to have to worry about - plus knowing what a perfectionist he is, I was reasonably certain they would turn out better than if I tried to do them myself ! Looking at the results, I'd say I made the right call, as they do look virtually brand new ! Here are a couple of 'before' photos - as you can see the gauges looked pretty tired.
And here is how they look now !
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 ....
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Chrome
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.
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Swing Arm Needle Roller Conversion
a fibre 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, and also from Reiner in Germany. 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 fibre 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 left, 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.
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Getting Hosed
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 by folks who sell these things that brake hoses should be changed about every 6 to 8 years, regardless of what they looks like, much like tires, as the materials supposedly fatigue and perish which could lead to catastrophic failure. Of course, given 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 callipers. 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 advertising 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 Black Diamond 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.
Update: Since writing this some three years ago, I noticed that the solid wall brake lines specific to the 1973K are being offered (in 2013 at least) by Cruzinimage in Japan. I ordered a pair of the brake lines just to see what they looked like, and as with other items I've purchased from Cruzinimage, they are a good fit and work well - recommended !
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Accessories and Other
The chrome I had done at Alberta Plating turned out well, but not completely without issues. The small screws that hold on the front fender stays were a disappointment as when I went to install them there were two issues: the threads had been chromed so the nuts would not fit the threads, plus when I tried to use a die to clean up the threads, the chrome finish 'popped' off of the heads of the small screws. Possibly a better job could have been done - I'm not an expert in the plating business, but of course the original ones were chromed so I know it is possible to do it well. In the end, rather than get fussed with it and as everything else had turned out well I just swapped out the screws for stainless steel.
For the radiator, I wanted something more than just the stock look available in 1972/1973. In 1974 a plastic grill that covered the entire front and sides of the radiator was introduced - for the 1973 model year, Suzuki went to chromed radiator plastic end caps (in 1972 these were painted to match the tank) but the face of the rad looked pretty bare. I managed to track down an OEM accessory grill (part number 94960-31000) which was offered by Suzuki for the 1972/1973 GT750 model years from Reiner Schneider in Germany which arrived very quickly and looks really nice. Reiner has probably one of the largest collections of NOS Suzuki parts on the planet - recommended.
The other thing I was thinking about was suspension. I wanted to retain the original look of the rear shocks which was not a problem - I bought a set from Reproduction Decals which look very nice - in point of fact they probably look much better than they actually work, and for serious riding I suspect they will be borderline useless, but it is the right original look (tall upper cap) which is what I wanted.! The front forks were another matter - from the factory, the area under the fork ears was not chromed so over the years, water accumulation at the lower end of the fork ear leads to severe pitting of the fork tube. In my case, several of the corrosion pits were almost half the depth of the fork tube wall, which I wasn't happy with. Fork tubes are available from Frank's Maintenance and Engineering in the USA for about $300 a pair with shipping. I was planning to order these when another option presented itself. The local Buffalo guru (Fred) came across a supplier in Japan (Cruzinimage_co ) offering replacement fork tubes and he bought a set. Looking at them, they appear to be perfect and cost about $80 a pair (plus about the same again for shipping). Yes they are probably made in China, and yes its possible that the steel is of poor quality, but they do look pretty good, being chromed the full length and they measure exactly the same as the originals. I bought two sets as I will want a pair for the 1972 I'll be doing at soe point - for the amount of use they are likely to get, they will do just fine. I have also bought gasket sets and clutch plates from the same outfit previously - I actually like the gasket sets better than the Athena kits available from PartsnMore and other places as these ones are more complete. Recommended.
Below to the left is a shot of the OEM radiator grill from Reiner, the middle photo shows the pitting on one of the front fork tubes, and to the right you can see the new fork tube along side one of the four old ones I had available (yes it is also bent as well as pitted !).
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Carburettors
Each carburettor body is stamped on the engine block side with a (very) small L,M or R to show where they go. Of the six bodies I had, four were usable and luckily the one of them was a 'left', two were right and one was a middle. So far, so good. When I checked the spring lengths I found they were a mishmash of lengths - I suspect it likely that the shorter ones came from 1972J GT750's as the 1973K had a different, taller, cap than did the J and so also had a shorter spring. At any rate, after carefully checking through all the bits and pieces I felt lucky to have enough bits to build three carb's.
I had picked up an ultrasonic cleaner from Harbor Freight on our last trip into Montana - this particular unit was large enough that I could fully immerse a carburettor and it did a really nice job. I used a small amount of malt vinegar with some Simple Green and water. After a couple of heated four minute cycles, the carburettors came out spotless. After a rinse in clean water, and a blow out with some carburettor cleaner of the smaller passageways and then an air hose, I was good to go.
I used a carburettor repair kit from Japan - really all I wanted was the gaskets and it was the cheapest way to get them - I re-used the jets and the needle as there were no signs of wear at all on the ones I kept. I suppose we will find out soon enough if that was a smart idea or not !
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Wheel Rebuild
The front wheel I wanted to use had good chrome, but a big flat spot on one side of it, so I was faced with either living with it or changing it out. I hadn't done a wheel rebuild before, but based on comments from other folks on the Sundial board, it didn't seem that hard if you took your time so I decided to give it a try. I had picked up a wheel stand from Harbor Freight on one of trips into Montana more to be used for balancing, but of course also perfectly suited for wheel building. It turned out to be not hard at all - I had a spare rim that was in good shape that I'd been saving for some time and I picked up a set of the correct spokes from GW Cycle World here in Calgary. They had 1 1/2 sets, and offered me a deal to take the lot pretty much at Thailand prices so it was an easy decision.
Obviously I needed tires as well, but I wanted something that resembled what came with the bike originally both in tread pattern and profile. That meant trying to locate 'inch' measure tires, rather than metric, but pretty well all you can buy these days is metric measure tires. After some internet searching and discussion with a couple of the folks here in Calgary who also wanted 'original look' tires for their older Suzuki's, I imported six sets (so a dozen tires in total) of IRC GS-11 AW front and rear tires from Dennis Kirk in the USA. These are inch size and so are the correct profile, and also very close to original in the tread appearance. The landed cost after duty and taxes was $78.47 per tire which I thought was quite reasonable. The only down side is that now I'm on the Dennis Kirk junk email list, but I suppose I can live with that.
My 'partners' were pleased to get their 'old style' tires, but they also had access to a proper motorcycle tire changer - I didn't and so used the plastic bag trick to put mine on. It worked quite well - recommended !
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Trim
I used Reproduction Decals here in Canada this time for the tank and side cover badges. They sell the same product as Badge Replicas in Australia and so far at least, I've alternated back and forth between them depending on which one the currency exchange favours ( Reproduction Decals, even though a Canadian company sells everything in US dollars, but on the plus side, the prices they quote do usually include the shipping cost). At any rate, when I placed the order, the exchange rate slightly favoured buying in US dollars so they got the order.
The quality from both companies is normally excellent, and the side cover badges were exact so far as size and colour to what would have been original, however it was a bit disappointing to see that the tank badges were about a 1/4 inch narrower than the original ones as per the photo. Evidently this is due to shrinkage of the casting metal, but really I would have thought that the amount of shrinkage would be simple to calculate and allow for in the design of the mould. At any rate, the result is the new badges can't be made to fit the original mounting holes in the tank and so the advice was to cut one locating pin off of the back of the badge and then just glue the badge on. Not completely ideal, but it does work.
Seat trim was another problem as currently no one sells this as a separate stock item. The Suzuki seat trim for this model goes all the way around the seat, finishing on both sides about 1 1/2 inches from the front seat edge, and is made from polished stainless steel. Folks like Cool Retro Bikes will sell you trim as a package when you have them do you seat for you, but they actually became quite rude when I asked to buy just the trim by itself. You have to love that customer focus eh ? I explored a couple of other options, but in the end did what I usually do and just looked for a used seat having good trim - if I also ended up with a good seat pan and some foam as well then I considered that to be a bonus.
The seat was recovered by Calgary Seat Cover who are quite happy to take whatever cover you have and properly put it on your seat pan in exchange for a reasonable number of currency tokens. While it isn't a super difficult job to do yourself, I also wanted the foam rebuilt and so for me at least it was just easier to have someone else to the whole thing for me.
It didn't take long to locate a suitable candidate on eBay and after it had arrived, I just removed the trim, worked out any little nicks or dings in it, and then polished it back up. I mounted it on the seat pan with stainless steel screws, nuts and spacer washers and everything was ready to go !