Suzuki F50 SaltLaker

devilishdesigner

Been Around the Block
Not sure what category this fits into, but I'll go with Tracker for now...



Suzuki F50 scooter. 1970's 50cc scooter of great obscurity. We scored a pair of them for around $100 off ebay. The red one had the motor in bits, whilst the blue looked complete.


Half a day of tinkering with a sticky carb and the discovery that there is no sign of an ignition or kill switch and the old girl fired up. A few quick runs up and down the drive on a plastic bag of 2 stroke and she was running and idling fine, which is when we discovered the only way to shut her off was to block the carb and starve it!


Here's what it looked like when we first got it back:
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Removing the top bolts at the rear gave an indication of the intended rear ride height, but the front still gave a problem, having a massive headstem sticking up above the frame
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This was attacked by cutting down the headstem, carefully removing the headtube from the forks and moving it downward, then shortening the sides of the forks to match and reusing the upper brace after some minor reshaping of the fork tops.
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Some bicycle handlebars provided the basis for the handlebars, welded over solid tube through an original hole in the forks
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Some end of day silliness with the original headlight
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The original height of the blue against the height of the red
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And the beginning of the rear suspension modifications, another subtle hardtail job ;D
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The end result will be super clean, super thin, 50cc saltlake record contender :cool:





Joe had a play with the exhaust, cardboard form looked great but wasn't likely to do much expansion wise within the bie's meagre rev range:
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He's also been working away on a seat pan which is coming along nicely:
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Our second exhaust idea looked great too, but sat on the ground when we flipped the bike over :p
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and a possible use for the original head badge:
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Very cool! Are you in Salt Lake City? We just picked up a '64 Suzuki k11 in great condition for my wife at the beginning of summer.

"Burnin' oil and smellin' royal!"
 
no, afraid not, in Victoria Australia, the SaltLaker title is in reference to the fact that we're dreaming of taking her to the lakes in South Australia once finished for a chuckle at the 50cc speed records :D
 
Got bit of progress on this beast today. Here's a shot of how it looked this morning:
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Started welding away on a custom made expansion chamber designed by Joe:
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Fitted nicely on the second attempt:
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Sounded HISTERICAL but actually works, on a later test run we got the revvs high enough for the combustion chamber effect to come screaming in. Click the last image to get the video of a test ride with sideways exhaust ;D
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This is coming along nicely, but i must admit that I don't think I have the balls to go 70 mph+ on it :)
looking forward to hearing that engine in full roar though (movies movies movies GO! ;) ) I have an old KTM Foxi GT I was thinking about giving the same treatment (with a custom frame though) :)
 
You Aussies and your scooters. Haha...

Looks, interesting to say the least. Just make sure its safe please, and keep us posted.
 
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