A tale of two GT550s'- cafe bike almost done!

Thanks to my very loving wife, it was possible recently to pick up a pair of Suzuki GT550 two-stroke triples. One is in really pristine shape other than a few pirated parts- lenses, chrome, etc are in almost new condition, tank is already stripped for paint, and the cases have no oxidation and barely a scratch on them!
The other bike is lowered, missing the signals front and rear, no seat, no tank, and is a perfect candidate for a full-scale cafe assault! So then the plans are:

Bike one- restore to as original condition as possible. The work/parts list to do this is:
Recover seat, looking for a reproduction OE cover, having it done is a last resort
Paint tank- again an OE paint scheme or a modified version of the same, with original badges etc.
Restore or replace gauge panel -probably the hardest part! No idea how to do this exactly, just watching ebay, forums, etc and hope the right parts pop up
Replace carbs

Bike two- full-on cafe rebuild-

No need to strip/paint the frame as the paint is in fantastic condition
Aluminum tank unless I can find a nice used one somewhere
Cafe seat, possibly aluminum
has a set of dirt-bike bars on it now, probably replace with Clip-ons or Clubmans
paint for bodywork and tank, no idea on color yet
expansion chamber exhaust
Already has pod filters but it too needs a set of carbs
make up a set of rearsets
figure out some sort of speedo/tach arrangement thats not as goofy as the OE
hide or eliminate as much of the wiring as I can
Other cool little touches Ihave no idea of yet

Ok pics!

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Well its been awhile since I started this, got very busy in the shop and other things for awhile, but here we are again! It took some time to locate a few things I needed and to make decisions as to what exactly was needed to get results, but progress is finally being made.

First, the "resto" project is on hold, mainly because my time is more and more limited and it takes a lot of patience and looking around for just the "right" part when your trying to put a vintage bike back together the way it was. one of the major stumbling points have been the dash- the one with the bike is in poor condition, with cracks to the plastic housing and the lens for the gear indicator missing. It has been very difficult to even locate a dash, let alone one without cracked or broken lenses and in working condition. Other parts are not terribly hard to find, but gathering them at a good cost etc. has taken time so the project is on hold until I have all the bits physically here and ready to go.

The cafe project however, is zinging along. I pulled the wiring harness, controls, rear fender and liner etc. so I can really clean the greasy/nasty frame. The thought of yanking the whole thing apart and powdercoating the frame and some of the other bits flitted through my head for ohhhhh, three minutes. The paint on the frame is in fantastic shape for its age, with just a little patina to let you know shes been used but not abused. Since this bike will be actually ridden and not sitting in a collection to be gawked at, the few chips etc in the paint will be touched in and away we go.

Missing parts, such as the carbs and seat pan, were ordered over the weekend and hopefully will be here sometime this week so next weekend I can start putting the thing back together. I ordered the Roadracer model seatpan from RocCity after having read some of the posts on here and visiting the site over and over again. I nearly built my own, since fabrication is a large part of what I do here, but in the end the $120-something bucks the seat cost was far cheaper than what it would have cost me in my time in the shop.

The side covers, Ram-Air "Cylon" engine cover, and some other alloy bits are off the bike and waiting either paint or polishing, or some combination of both. I usually use a polisher a town or so over, but there seems to be a local guy on this board who does polishing so if his work checks out the job will likely go to him.

The side covers and tank are being prepped for paint. TOOO many choices for colours, as I have in stock a fair number of really custom colours. These are the front-runners:

Liquid gunmetal- very cool gunmetal colour with shimmery effect
Hyperblue- really hard to descibe blue that almost glows on overcast days and has a ton of "pop" in bright sunshine.
Black chrome- pretty cool effect

I am honestly leanign to the Hyperblue, since it really seems a lot of bike are black, flat black, or some version of grey/gunmetal/silver. I am going to do up one of the side covers in the blue and maybe a test panel in the gunmetal and black chrome as well and post some pictures for input.

The last things on my list are the rearsets and possibly a custome tank. it looks like these will just be something that gets fabbed here as time allows. For the rearsets currently looking at doing a sort of steel or aluminum sheetmetal formed trestle sort of look rather than the more typical milled aluminum, mainly because it will be very cool and I have all the stuff here to do it, insluding some aluminum sheet that is begging to be cut/bent/welded into something useful. For the tank, probably something along the lines of the stock tank with knee dents, maybe a little wider/flatter, and maybe a more interesting shape at the front. Honestly would already be working on the tank but somehow managed to run short on .080 sheet and simply havent brought more in.

I will try and get some pictures as I go but I tend to work first and remember to take pictures as I am driving home.

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Nice man! Keep it up, and remember to get some pics next time!

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Awesome, sounds like a good plan (kinda skimmed through tough), Im with Von, more pics!

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Yeah yeah I know- I am horrible pic taker. I just get working and before you know it the day is gone and no pics have been taken. I will bring the camera down to the shop tomorrow and get some pics of the bike. in the mean time, heres some pics of my shop-

An unassuming outside-


The back room right after I moved in- a real mess!


The back of the shop facing the office-



Some Welding, a 4"SS exhaust downpipe for a Subaru, ignore the massive amount of undone work in the background!

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Carbs came in today. The seller told me they were rusted up and the linkage was seized, which is fine because I am used to dealing with that sort of thing, BUT neglected to mention that one of linkage pivots, a cast aluminum piece, was broken with a piece missing! Yay! I hope I have a spare one in my box of parts, otherwise I am going to be fairly hacked off!

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Firestarter said:

An unassuming outside-

Some Welding, a 4"SS exhaust downpipe for a Subaru, ignore the massive amount of undone work in the background!

Click to expand...

unassuming to whom? gsx - rx7 - stealth gt.....

is that an RB25/26 swap in the 240 in the background? wanna hire someone?

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Its actually a 1JZ toyota motor into the Nissan 240 you see

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

nice....so you wanna go fast

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Yeah, its kinda what I do ....

I have some more pics here-

an Eclipse GSX road/track car I am building

album- http://s218.photobucket.com/albums/cc259/dwalker460/Eclipse%20GSX/

N/A to turbo FC RX-7 with water/air intercooler, external oil injection (injects 2-stroke oil instead of engine oil), etc.

album- http://s218.photobucket.com/albums/cc259/dwalker460/Bryan%20RX7/

my personal RX-7 race car (available for rent!)

album http://s218.photobucket.com/albums/cc259/dwalker460/RX7%20Race%20Car/

my 911 racecar, still building it-

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

eclipse gsx for a road/track car?? wouldnt you want reliability for that?

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Yeah I guess, but then we ran the same engine/trans in the grey car for I dunno, 4 seasons? Multiple 10.XX sec passes (here at altitude), few trips around town, the usual. Did have to put a clutch in it once we hit the 800awhp mark, and once we hit the 1000awhp mark we decided it might be a good idea to go through the shortblock, so I guess we might want relability? I dunno, unlike the rest of the DSM/Honda/ TOONER world I dont play around, my background is all with road racing Porsches at the club, vintage, and Pro level, so generically dont have many problems with reliability...

Playing with the bikes for me is more like therapy, just something I can pick up and put down as time allows. I go back and froth between new(er) sportbikes and vintage bikes, never much interest in cruisers etc., just like cool fast stuff.

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

That 911 is some hott shite. You should bring out here and run it up Pikes Peak.


Wait a minute, you said at altitude. Where are you located?

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

lol i was just playing with you, i know once they are built they rarely have problems, just look at john shepards car. i know a few people that have had dsm's and had nothing with problems with stock bottom ends and trying to mod them especially the crank walk problem.

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Hot Rod Troy said:

That 911 is some hott shite. You should bring out here and run it up Pikes Peak.


Wait a minute, you said at altitude. Where are you located?

Click to expand...

Denver, Colorado

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Firestarter said:

Denver, Colorado

Click to expand...

I'm down here in the Colorado Springs.

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Very cool! There seems to be a pretty good old-bike/cafe/racer sort of following around here. I keep meaning to go to Steeles and poke around for a decent tach/speedo setup for the 550, just havent had time. Are there any good bike salvages down your way? Always on the lookout for cool stuff..

Oh, and I have sponsored a PPIHC car for the last several years, and looks like I will be renting a pair of cars to a set of racers from Luxemburg

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

There is one place down here that I go to for used parts and some new called Action Cycle.

I worked as a tech inspector for the hill climb about six years ago, when Monster was almost DQ'd for his Suzuki Esteem running two motors. One under the hood running the front wheels and the other in the trunk running the rears. I don't know how we missed that one. I think that was the last year for Steve Millen also.

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

I should have the paint test pieces done tomorrow, will get some pics and post up so I can get some input.
Further inspection shows the tank has been bent and straightened out fairly professionally, but still needs a skim coat of filler here and there before its ready for paint.

The paint process I am using is pretty standard. After the filler the tank will get a coat of Everfill G2, which is basically spray bondo, a sort of super-filler-primer. That will be sanded and then wetsanded down to about 400grit, until the tank is straight and smooooth. My prefered method from there out is to lay down a couple coats of epoxy primer, probably PPG DPLF and let it flash out about 30 minutes. The colour coat will then go down, usually two coats covers, flashing 15-20 minutes between coats. Another 25 minutes after the basecoats goes down the first coat of clear goes on. I tend to use MotoStorms Speed clear- its really really clear, sprays on like water, is very self-leveling, and dries extremely fast. Following Motostorms directions for Speed clear, two wet coats go down with, you guessed it, about 20-30minutes of flash time between coats.
The clear sets up overnight. If thats it, the clear gets cut/buffed and we have a nice pretty part/car/bike/whatever. If theres a design, colour or pattern going on, then the speed clear is used as an "intercoat". The part gets scuffed back with 600 grit, wiped down with wax/grease remover, then the design/flakes/graphic/whatever gets taped out and paint goes down. Once all the colour coats are applied, the final clear- I usually use either MotoStorms NanoClear or one of the PPG clears. Then the final cut/buff.


A lot of cool stuff can be found here- http://www.innate.com/Paint/Chrome/chromepaints.htm
and I also use a lot of the water-borne paints from Auto-Air- http://www.autoaircolors.com/
If your painting your tank or what-have you in your garage the water-borne paints might be something to look at. They ane MUCH less toxic- no reducer/laquer thinner smell, cover like you wouldnt believe, blend perfectly, and are easy to clean up, spray out well with "lesser" equipment. I have seen MANY great paint jobs done using these paints sprayed from very low-cost guns. I personally use a Devlibiss Starting Line mini-gun for the waterborne paints and it gives excellent fan and control, does a great job!

Re: A tale of two GT550s'

Well its been a really busy week (or so) with a lot getting done on the babys room and the house, but not too much getting done on the bikes.
I did manage the tank ready for bodywork, its got a couple small spots that will need filler but nothing major. The side panels are getting there. The left side was HORRIBLE, some prior owner sprayed it with a really crappy primer and an even crappier colour coat. Worse by far than Krylon. Paint test panels are ready, so I gotta get moving on the bodywork.

Work to be done:

-fit Roc City seat
-figure out tailight and signals before seat is prepped for paint
-finish body and paint
-assemble carbs (need another carb cleaner bath then a soda blast)
-Clean frame and engine
-polish or paint engine covers,
-check points
-install wiring harness
-clean and paint battery and toolbox
-replace front tire
-refinish triple trees
-replace throttle cable
-replace chain, possibly sprockets as well
-check to see why clutch is binding, replace if needed
-decide on headlight!
-fab indicator light/ignition switch panel/mount

Parts needed:
-Tach and Speedo! I DESPERATELY need a tach and speedo, thinking maybe a CB350 or similar setup, but Im open to anything that looks cool
-Taillight and signals- still sort of deciding and very open to ideas here!
-Carb kits- theoretically on the way
-Throttle cable- one on the way, will use the one from the other bike if it doesnt get here in time
-chain- local shop says they have one on the shelf to fit, will see in the next day or so when I get by there
-grips, plugs, new battery, other assorted small, cheap, but never on hand when you need them parts so when its all going back together I dont have to hunt them up


I will get some new pics this week as time allows. Hoping to have the mock-up and fitting all done by the weekend so I can paint the parts maybe Saturday and take my time doing assembly next week.