What can you do? Some ancient relative pops his clogs, wifey demands I clear out the garage. Can keep what I want, the rest goes in the skip. This was more of a shed than a garage, concrete slab sided and disintegrating asbestos sheet roof. Looked like it was propped up by the various contents. Hoping to find some old Brit twin, if not a Vinnie, I started the laborious chore of digging out a lifetime's accumulated junk.
About a third of the way into the rubbish, the only useful find so far a commode that might pass as an antique, I spied a couple of motorcycle wheels. These were attached to an unlikely object of desire - an early seventies Suzuki GT250 stroker twin. I vaguely recalled the relative pottering around on a big red motorcycle when I was still in diapers - this must be it.
The whole thing was covered in a thick layer of grease which had attracted all the insect life in the immediate vicinity to an untimely death. After disentangling it from an old iron bed frame I pulled it out of the garage. No easy task as the front disc had locked on and the tyres disintegrated. I immediately wanted to do a runner with my new toy but knew there would be some heavy comebacks if I didn't finish off the clearance job. Just as well that I did, found three old BSA thumper engines/gearboxes right at the back. All filled to the brim with oil.
As was the GT250. Being of a basically lazy but not stupid disposition, I'd decided to replace the spark plugs before trying to light the engine's fires. Revealed that the crafty old relative had filled the engine with oil, right up to the tip of the spark plugs - they were only half screwed in! It did need the points cleaned up and a new lot of wiring for the ignition circuit, as that had all rotted away.
Before getting serious, though, I had to empty a couple of cans of Gunk over the chassis and throw buckets of water at it. Only way to shift the layer of grease which ruined both my tee-shirt and jeans within seconds! That was how I discovered the petrol tank had rotted from the inside out, a big chunk of metal stripping away from one side. Oddly, the other side was very solid. A bit of an old Ford Fiesta door was welded into the hole!
The mileage on the clock was only six thou. Given the state of the engine bolts I tended to believe it - they all looked factory fresh. I emptied the oil out of the engine and gearbox, cleaned out the tank before adding fresh engine oil and new gearbox lube.
Petrol added, it flooded out around the tap's gasket, which had rotted with age. Some Araldite sufficed. The next day, the engine stuttered a couple of times but didn't threaten to burst into life. The spark was yellowish-blue rather than bright blue. Try some spare coils and HT leads, off something equally ancient - old Honda, I think - and a nice blue spark resulted.
About twenty kicks later the engine growled into life, giving off a massive amount of pollution - the silencers had also been filled with oil! After ten minutes of ticking over this cleared up a bit, but not before the neighbour had stuck his head over the fence and threatened to call the fire brigade! The exhaust note was actually quite inoffensive below five grand, then turning into a snarl that flattened out into an ear-tingling wail at maximum revs. Loved it!
Without any tyres, all I could suss was that the gearbox worked, the engine ran and that there didn't seem to be anything amiss with the motor. Foolishly, I accepted the first couple of tyres that the breaker thrust at me - Chin Sins, ancient ones at that. They went on without puncturing the new inner-tubes, though the lever took off great chunks of chrome on the steel rims. Not even the grease had saved the spokes from the dreaded rust. Eventually, each wheel was wire-brushed and painted matt black.
The caliper actually came apart without too much trauma, it was the hydraulics that had seized the brake on. New EBC's, new fluid and some used hose. What else was needed? A bit of chain, clutch cable, the rest of the electrics, a used battery and some footrest rubbers. That got the bike in a state that allowed me to test it. MOT (pushed it to a nearby garage), tax and insurance saw off just over a hundred notes. The police around Luton are zealots, not amused by noisy old strokers; better safe than sorry!
The first ride, then. It bounced about a yard when I let out the clutch, promptly stalled. Clutch drag. Repeated this half a dozen times until it finally connected properly. For the first few thousand revs acceleration was a bit miserly but fluid. Then the mill stuttered, stuttered some more, and suddenly caught. The thing flew forwards so fast that it was in the red before I knew what had happened. The gearchange was nicely slick until I hit on fifth which wasn't there!
At this point I was doing about 75mph in a 30mph zone, the engine screaming away in the false neutral. A massive cry for instant arrest in mediocre modern Britain. No surprise, two plod mobiles came out of nowhere. By the time they were in action I'd braked down to 30mph and had the engine at tickover... trying to look all innocent, like.
They almost came to blows over who should do the interrogation. I waved my doc's at them and after a cursory glance at the machine they went off to whatever they did when not trying to apprehend noisy motorcyclists. Once the motor was warmed up by revving it into the red, the midrange fit of the stutters did a disappearing act but was always a worry in town for the first ten minutes.
The gearbox was even more of a worry. There was actually a fifth gear but it would only engage if the throttle was momentarily snapped shut and a very minor amount of pressure applied on the lever. Just to make life interesting, it would occasionally jump out of any of the gears when motoring along at a steady velocity, though never under acceleration.
Within a week, the gearbox was making a strange whining, keening, noise. When I checked, there wasn't any oil left in the compartment. Filled it up, the same trick repeated after another week of dicing with death. The crank's seals must've been partially worn, pulling out oil from the gearbox whenever high revs were used. Storage of old strokers dries the seals out, though I don't see how this could've happened when the engine was full of oil. There wasn't much capacity in the gearbox, I just kept on filling it up with the cheapest oil I could find - sure beat doing a total engine strip to replace the crank's seals.
The speedo cable stopped working after the second week, didn't bother to replace it. By then I'd found out the top speed was only 90mph, but only after awkwardly laying myself down on the bike and using the pillion pegs as footrests. Upright, it went totally dead smack on 80mph. Just wasn't the power to do any more against the sit-up-and-scream aerodynamics. Confirmed by fuel diving from 45 to 30mpg when the machine was ridden flat out!
There wasn't one area of the bike that could pass muster as comfortable, even the engine vibro-massaged the chassis in an annoying manner. The seat foam had long ago dissolved and my knees and arms cramped up after about twenty minutes. It was tolerable for town commuting, though.
The chassis was also in a somewhat state sad. The suspension barely contained my meagre 150lbs, threatening to turn into a pogo-stick when the tarmac went rough. The swinging arm bearings rapidly went all loose and nasty - some plastic rubbish that cracked up! The breaker sold me some phosphor-bronze replacements, plus Girlings, rear-sets and ace-bars - out of an heavily mangled example he had in the back of his shed. From his personal abuse, told me to look him up when I wanted to sell!
Fitted out with this stuff, there was a bit more litheness from the GT but it always felt a bit jittery in bumpy bends, as if the frame wasn't as straight as it should've been. Maybe it was just the tyres, they were certainly bloody dangerous in the wet, sliding every which way at the merest provocation - had to keep the revs below five grand!
For a day's work clearing out someone's garage, the GT was a bargain find (the Brit engines were sold for serious money as they were pukka Gold Stars!). As a high speed hack they work okay, though I'm not sure I'd want to pay the hundreds of pounds many demand for them!
I did 4750 miles without much further hassle. The petrol tank felt like it was ready to cave in, one of the silencers had a hole in it near the bracket, the bulbs would blow on a whim (from the vibes) and the front disc was starting to gum up again. Didn't find any great pleasure in riding the little stroker twin - performance, handling and riding position (the ace-bars did in my neck, by the way) were all uninspiring even by the standards of the day - my friend's RD250 would kill it dead!
Felt happy enough to take 300 quid off the breaker, he grinning like a rapist let loose in a nunnery, muttering about tuning the motor to 35hp and how they didn't make them like this any more...
About a third of the way into the rubbish, the only useful find so far a commode that might pass as an antique, I spied a couple of motorcycle wheels. These were attached to an unlikely object of desire - an early seventies Suzuki GT250 stroker twin. I vaguely recalled the relative pottering around on a big red motorcycle when I was still in diapers - this must be it.
The whole thing was covered in a thick layer of grease which had attracted all the insect life in the immediate vicinity to an untimely death. After disentangling it from an old iron bed frame I pulled it out of the garage. No easy task as the front disc had locked on and the tyres disintegrated. I immediately wanted to do a runner with my new toy but knew there would be some heavy comebacks if I didn't finish off the clearance job. Just as well that I did, found three old BSA thumper engines/gearboxes right at the back. All filled to the brim with oil.
As was the GT250. Being of a basically lazy but not stupid disposition, I'd decided to replace the spark plugs before trying to light the engine's fires. Revealed that the crafty old relative had filled the engine with oil, right up to the tip of the spark plugs - they were only half screwed in! It did need the points cleaned up and a new lot of wiring for the ignition circuit, as that had all rotted away.
Before getting serious, though, I had to empty a couple of cans of Gunk over the chassis and throw buckets of water at it. Only way to shift the layer of grease which ruined both my tee-shirt and jeans within seconds! That was how I discovered the petrol tank had rotted from the inside out, a big chunk of metal stripping away from one side. Oddly, the other side was very solid. A bit of an old Ford Fiesta door was welded into the hole!
The mileage on the clock was only six thou. Given the state of the engine bolts I tended to believe it - they all looked factory fresh. I emptied the oil out of the engine and gearbox, cleaned out the tank before adding fresh engine oil and new gearbox lube.
Petrol added, it flooded out around the tap's gasket, which had rotted with age. Some Araldite sufficed. The next day, the engine stuttered a couple of times but didn't threaten to burst into life. The spark was yellowish-blue rather than bright blue. Try some spare coils and HT leads, off something equally ancient - old Honda, I think - and a nice blue spark resulted.
About twenty kicks later the engine growled into life, giving off a massive amount of pollution - the silencers had also been filled with oil! After ten minutes of ticking over this cleared up a bit, but not before the neighbour had stuck his head over the fence and threatened to call the fire brigade! The exhaust note was actually quite inoffensive below five grand, then turning into a snarl that flattened out into an ear-tingling wail at maximum revs. Loved it!
Without any tyres, all I could suss was that the gearbox worked, the engine ran and that there didn't seem to be anything amiss with the motor. Foolishly, I accepted the first couple of tyres that the breaker thrust at me - Chin Sins, ancient ones at that. They went on without puncturing the new inner-tubes, though the lever took off great chunks of chrome on the steel rims. Not even the grease had saved the spokes from the dreaded rust. Eventually, each wheel was wire-brushed and painted matt black.
The caliper actually came apart without too much trauma, it was the hydraulics that had seized the brake on. New EBC's, new fluid and some used hose. What else was needed? A bit of chain, clutch cable, the rest of the electrics, a used battery and some footrest rubbers. That got the bike in a state that allowed me to test it. MOT (pushed it to a nearby garage), tax and insurance saw off just over a hundred notes. The police around Luton are zealots, not amused by noisy old strokers; better safe than sorry!
The first ride, then. It bounced about a yard when I let out the clutch, promptly stalled. Clutch drag. Repeated this half a dozen times until it finally connected properly. For the first few thousand revs acceleration was a bit miserly but fluid. Then the mill stuttered, stuttered some more, and suddenly caught. The thing flew forwards so fast that it was in the red before I knew what had happened. The gearchange was nicely slick until I hit on fifth which wasn't there!
At this point I was doing about 75mph in a 30mph zone, the engine screaming away in the false neutral. A massive cry for instant arrest in mediocre modern Britain. No surprise, two plod mobiles came out of nowhere. By the time they were in action I'd braked down to 30mph and had the engine at tickover... trying to look all innocent, like.
They almost came to blows over who should do the interrogation. I waved my doc's at them and after a cursory glance at the machine they went off to whatever they did when not trying to apprehend noisy motorcyclists. Once the motor was warmed up by revving it into the red, the midrange fit of the stutters did a disappearing act but was always a worry in town for the first ten minutes.
The gearbox was even more of a worry. There was actually a fifth gear but it would only engage if the throttle was momentarily snapped shut and a very minor amount of pressure applied on the lever. Just to make life interesting, it would occasionally jump out of any of the gears when motoring along at a steady velocity, though never under acceleration.
Within a week, the gearbox was making a strange whining, keening, noise. When I checked, there wasn't any oil left in the compartment. Filled it up, the same trick repeated after another week of dicing with death. The crank's seals must've been partially worn, pulling out oil from the gearbox whenever high revs were used. Storage of old strokers dries the seals out, though I don't see how this could've happened when the engine was full of oil. There wasn't much capacity in the gearbox, I just kept on filling it up with the cheapest oil I could find - sure beat doing a total engine strip to replace the crank's seals.
The speedo cable stopped working after the second week, didn't bother to replace it. By then I'd found out the top speed was only 90mph, but only after awkwardly laying myself down on the bike and using the pillion pegs as footrests. Upright, it went totally dead smack on 80mph. Just wasn't the power to do any more against the sit-up-and-scream aerodynamics. Confirmed by fuel diving from 45 to 30mpg when the machine was ridden flat out!
There wasn't one area of the bike that could pass muster as comfortable, even the engine vibro-massaged the chassis in an annoying manner. The seat foam had long ago dissolved and my knees and arms cramped up after about twenty minutes. It was tolerable for town commuting, though.
The chassis was also in a somewhat state sad. The suspension barely contained my meagre 150lbs, threatening to turn into a pogo-stick when the tarmac went rough. The swinging arm bearings rapidly went all loose and nasty - some plastic rubbish that cracked up! The breaker sold me some phosphor-bronze replacements, plus Girlings, rear-sets and ace-bars - out of an heavily mangled example he had in the back of his shed. From his personal abuse, told me to look him up when I wanted to sell!
Fitted out with this stuff, there was a bit more litheness from the GT but it always felt a bit jittery in bumpy bends, as if the frame wasn't as straight as it should've been. Maybe it was just the tyres, they were certainly bloody dangerous in the wet, sliding every which way at the merest provocation - had to keep the revs below five grand!
For a day's work clearing out someone's garage, the GT was a bargain find (the Brit engines were sold for serious money as they were pukka Gold Stars!). As a high speed hack they work okay, though I'm not sure I'd want to pay the hundreds of pounds many demand for them!
I did 4750 miles without much further hassle. The petrol tank felt like it was ready to cave in, one of the silencers had a hole in it near the bracket, the bulbs would blow on a whim (from the vibes) and the front disc was starting to gum up again. Didn't find any great pleasure in riding the little stroker twin - performance, handling and riding position (the ace-bars did in my neck, by the way) were all uninspiring even by the standards of the day - my friend's RD250 would kill it dead!
Felt happy enough to take 300 quid off the breaker, he grinning like a rapist let loose in a nunnery, muttering about tuning the motor to 35hp and how they didn't make them like this any more...
Jim Holmes