Like a lot of people, I reached a certain age where I looked back on my life and what I’d enjoyed. One thing I had enjoyed was motorcycles. I had bought my first bike when I was 15 for £5. It was a Tandon, a single seat bike with a Villiers 150cc engine. It wasn’t much but it got me to work and it was on that bike I passed my test. That was in 1963, I have had many bikes since then but the time I enjoyed most was during the 70’s. My brother then owned a cycle shop and decided to move into selling motorbikes. He approached Honda but their conditions were very stringent whereas with Suzuki we would just drive over to Suzuki Headquarters in Croydon and take them off the shelf.
At the time, I lived above the motorbike shop and prepared, serviced and repaired motorbikes for the show room. The bikes I really took too were the GT’s (250, 380 and 550’s). For that reason, I decided 4 years ago, to buy another GT550. Unfortunately, they are like gold dust and cost ridiculous money bearing in mind a new one in 1974 was about £600.
Eventually I found one in Brighton for a sensible price but it required a lot of work to get back on the road as it had been sitting in a shed for the last 35 years. What I looked at when buying it was that the exhausts were in reasonable condition. That might sound a bit odd but they are no longer made and I wanted the bike to look original; everything else you can get or have made.
I did not want to go for a full (showroom) restoration on the bike, just a sympathetic rebuild. I wanted a bike I could ride and use frequently. However, I did want to make it look as good as I could.
Without a purpose-built jig, I removed the heavy engine from the frame by lying the bike on its side resting on some old cushions, undoing the engine mounting and when the engine was loose bringing the bike back up into an upright position. The picture below shows the engine with cylinders removed. It must have been in a shed with a leaky roof and the spark plugs left out.
It looked like the mice had made a nice home.
When I got the crankcase apart it didn’t look quite so bad so I sent the crankshaft away for new bearings and connecting rods. I also despatched the crankshaft, cylinder and cylinder heads to be vapour cleaned and had the cylinders re-bored.
While these parts were away I dismantled other parts of the bike and cleaned the frame. Powder coating proved to be unnecessary as the frame came up very well.
At this stage I ordered the parts I thought I would need to rebuild the bike.
When the crankshaft, cylinders and cylinder heads were returned I was ready to start the rebuild. It was at this point I realized that what I could do in the 70’s was lost from my memory 40 years later.
The only workshop manual available to me was a Haynes which left some gaps in information required. So at this point I started a Facebook group specifically for the Suzuki GT550 where I thought if I got enough people to join I’m sure I can get advice. Within a few weeks I had over 200 members (three years later that has swelled to 1500). True enough the advice came, much of which proved to be extremely valuable, others less so.
Once the engine was back together I refitted it back into the frame reversing the order of removal. It was at this point I realised that I would need a bench for the bike, as bending down or laying on the floor wasn’t a good way of working. I managed to buy from Ebay (not my first choice for buying things) for £200
The rebuild took about 6 months of which a lot of time was spent removing rust and polishing, for example replacing the lens on the speedo and rev counter.
I know the purists won’t like this but I changed the points for an electronic ignition system.
The problem with the points on this model is that they may need resetting every couple of months, Whereas the electronic system once set remains constant. The system I bought is manufactured in Germany and is a straight swap, everything required is on the module.
It was a great moment when I started the bike for the first time knowing it hadn’t run for at least 35 years.
I took it for it’s MOT and it passed. It is of course exempt as the bike is over 40 years old but it had to be done for the first time having been off the road for so long.
I now ride the bike on a regular basis.
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