One day, while looking at the bike ads in the local rag, I noticed a 1980 X7 for sale. I quickly phoned the contact number and on arrival at the seller's house I was ushered around the back where the beast awaited me, covered in a plastic sheet. Apart from a small split in the seat cover and a rather flat battery, the X7 was immaculate. The 11000 miles on the clock seemed genuine.
The owner explained how he passed his test on a C90 and suffered from severe diarrhoea when he wound the X7 open. His wife was also pressing him for some dosh for the family holiday, as well as being tired of washing his underpants. He dropped the price from £250 to £200 and fitted a new battery.
I found the X7 a light and responsive machine, with good low down power that I have never experienced from an aircooled stroker with its origins in the seventies. I put this down to the reed valves and CDI ignition, a vast improvement on the points of the earlier GT250.
Fuel consumption depended on throttle abuse, 40 to 55mpg. On short runs there was a tendency for the engine to clog up, especially if used at low speed in town or heavy traffic. The remedy, to find an open stretch of road and give it a good blast to clean out the engine, rather like exercising a racehorse.
Though the X7 is a rapid machine, I have some doubts about the euphoria that surrounded its launch back in 1978. They claimed it would do the ton, which was backed up by the test rides, but many examples that hit the road seemed rather slower. A mate with a 1981 bike found it would only do 90mph flat out. On my bike, 11000 miles of abuse had had an effect and the huge mirrors ruined the aerodynamics whenever I got my head down. With a little fettling and careful preparation, the magic ton may well be possible, as many tuned examples have exceeded that.
For the next twelve months the bike ran perfectly and the only maintenance required was that of changing the oil and plugs, plus checking the chain tension. However, after covering some 4000 miles a noise developed in the left-hand crankcase and on removing the barrel I found that there was excessive play in the big-end.
Luckily, a local breaker had a good bottom end for £30, so I decided to get the motor rebored whilst it was in bits. The summer of '86 was taken up with me running around gently until I had covered some 700 miles, after which I rode the bike flat out. There was a considerable increase in performance.
Some months later, while giving the bike its regular cleaning, I noticed that some of the paint on the bottom weld of the tank and also on the frame, around the footpeg area, was starting to flake away. This came as no surprise as I knew, from previous reports, that the finish was not its best point. I had already taken the precaution of painting the base of the seat in black Hammerite
About that time, I'd been experiencing feelings of seasickness, attributed to the leaking OE rear shocks. They had at least lasted for 18000 miles. For a tenner the breaker furnished me with an excellent used pair. New pads and shoes were also fitted in preparation for a trip around North Wales. The bike ran well, making easy going of mountain roads whist returning over 50mpg; passing weekend cagers as if they were driving in reverse.
Some miles outside Ruthin, I observed a tractor and trailer parked on the left side of the road. Dropped a couple of gears in order to make a clean and rapid pass. As I approached, the tractor driver made a sharp right turn across my path. I slammed on all the brakes, managing to stop just clear of the tractor. In Wales, it's only the sheep who are careful of who's approaching them from the rear!
Until March '87, things were uneventful, the bike had survived commuting throughout the winter, giving great service. One morning, when I opened the garage door, there was a strong smell of petrol, though there didn't appear to be any leak. About a week later I noticed that there were drops of fuel on the left side of the tank. The bottom of the tank was rusting through. I managed to repair this with sealant from a car shop.
As time went on, performance decreased a bit and the best top speed was 80mph. When someone offered me an immaculate 400 Superdream, I decided to put the X7 up for sale. The advert went into the local newsagents, and I received 19 phone calls over two days, getting the asking price of £180 without any great trouble.
Some five years later I was commuting 39 miles a day and I was looking for a small, economical bike with a reasonable turn of speed. I ended up with an '82 X7. The motor was very smooth and quiet, with good acceleration. The petrol tank had been replaced due to rusting, as had the front guard with a plastic item that didn't help with the rigidity of the forks. The seat base had been repaired with GRP.
For £300 I had bought a bargain, during the next five months the bike ran fine. Capable of 95mph and totally reliable. A few weeks before Christmas, the engine was rather noisy in the region of the top end, so I decided to completely strip and rebuild the whole bike.
The frame was shot-blasted and powder coated, the engine fitted with a reconditioned crank and rebored, the tank and plastics painted in Vauxhall Regatta blue with some laser cut transfers added. Total cost, just over 400 notes.
After running in, the X7 ran like a brand new machine. One of the advantages of owning this type of bike is simplicity. The only special tool needed when rebuilding was the flywheel extractor (£11). To keep things going I managed to buy some spare engines from breakers, as good used parts seem to be quite rare.
When looking for an X7 it may not always be best to buy the cheapest one or the bike with the nicest motor. It should be remembered that the latest models are twelve years old and it is very difficult, nowadays, to find a good standard example. Things to look for are, as already mentioned, tanks, seats, front guard (the rear's plastic) and fork stanchions. Also, the exhaust rusts and the frame around the shock mount can corrode through.
Engine problems are of the usual two stroke variety, with the bores and crank being the main horrors. I have also heard of several gearbox failures. The electrics are more reliable than on earlier models, the main weakness being the left-hand handlebar switch (a new one costs £55).
Summing up, the X7 is an excellent lightweight sporting bike, though I feel too light for long distance two-up riding, and there is still a reasonably good supply of new spares available. It is cheap and easy to maintain (even more so than some Iron Curtain hacks), ideal for good biking fun on a low budget. Prices vary according to condition, though £300 to £350 should see you right for a good, useable model - I have seen them on offer at up to £695.
At present, I do not see them as collector's machines, though there are people about who insist they are, and thus ask silly prices for them. Having had much enjoyment out of mine, and put in the time and money for the restoration, I intend to keep it and maybe one day it will be a classic like its ancestor, the Suzuki T20 Super Six.
K.D.
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£750 for a 1979 Suzuki GT250X7? Twelve years old and an unknown mileage (the speedo was 500 miles old). Overall condition was good with new consumables and an original paint job that suggested the bike had never been ridden over the winter. The brief blast up the road revealed that the engine had a siren song out of all proportion to its capacity. I was hooked and the deal was struck.
Riding the twenty miles to my York abode it was big grin time. Keeping the revs up, the eerie howl really getting to me, we hustled through the bends like Barry Sheene on a bad day and I thought I glimpsed God a few times! All good things have to come to an end, for some strange reason. This time my euphoria shattered by the front tyre exploding.
The bang, the shaking bars, the sudden descent into a black reality as the whole front end went berserk. The only good thing was that I'd whacked down through the box for a sharp right-hander and the fall happened at a mere 25mph. It still hurt, wrenching my shoulder and twisting an ankle. The bike was a sorry state as it'd flipped up into an ancient tree which shook the ground in anger and smashed up the front wheel, forks and guard.
There was I, barely able to stand but still able to utter the usual curses, with a bike that looked like it'd fallen off a cliff and no easy way to get home (ten miles). Out of the haze of distorted vision appeared the evocative shape of a brand new Triumph Thunderbird ridden by an old school friend. Relief was mingled with embarrassment, which turned into open envy after a fantastic, almost surreal, lift into town.
Had the X7 been a fifty quid hack I would've abandoned the dangerous heap but having too much money invested in it, I arranged for a mate with a Transit to come to the rescue. On examination, the font inner-tube proved dangerously patched, an accident waiting to happen. Parts from the breakers resurrected the GT but it took me a while to regain my nerve.
This was just as well. For the next 3500 miles the bike behaved itself impeccably. Couldn't even get it to oil the plugs in slow town riding. Then, slamming on the anchors to match a psychotic set of traffic lights (or maybe I was distracted by a bint in a micro-skirt), the rear drum locked up as solidly as a bank vault. I almost burnt out the clutch when it was time to take off, which already had an annoying rattle at tickover.
There I was in the centre of York with a bike that was completely immobile. Even the OAP's sniggered at my attempts to gain the gutter, which after doing my back in I finally managed. After booting the brake arm a few times it freed off and I was able to hobble home. Sole use of the front disc, an antique if ever there was one, wasn't sufficient to keep the X7 under control, the steadying effect of the rear brake compulsory to stop the lightweight machine hopping all over the shop.
When I pulled the back wheel out there was enough asbestos dust to make an environmental officer come. I couldn't understand why one of the wheel bearings fell out until I cleaned off the grime to clock a bloody big crack in the casting! I also found that the swinging arm bearings were shot.
Funnily enough, despite these horrors, I hadn't found the handling that bad as it was light enough to throw around like a moped and didn't produce a wobbly even with the ton on the clock. Admittedly, I didn't hold that speed for long because revving into the red equated to massive vibration and the probable early demise of an engine which had a bit of a rep for blowing its small and big ends. Just a little bit of caution was a good idea on these kinds of bikes, not that it spoilt the fun.
When I bought the bike, I was assured that the chain and sprockets were almost new, so it was a real pisser to find that with just four thou under its wheels the sprockets were well hooked and the chain dragging along the ground. The replacement wheel had a decent sprocket and I purloined a reasonable bit of used chain when the breaker wasn't looking, so total financial disaster was avoided.
It wasn't long after that when the clutch rattle overwhelmed the silencers' howl. By then I'd come across a couple of other GT250 owners and had been warned off pattern plates with stories of them cracking up. A new set of plates and springs was installed, not a difficult job I thought. 400 miles later one of the springs fell out! Manifested by grinding noises and massive clutch slip. I did a roadside repair as it was impossible to ride the bike like that...no real damage to the motor.
The curious thing was that these problems didn't turn me off the Suzuki. The combination of stroker power in the form of 30 horses and only 300lbs of chassis made for a hell of a lot fun, whether in town or down the back roads. Even on the main routes there was sufficient performance to take on the faster traffic. If I wanted to push the parameters, I could cruise for a hour at 90mph! After that amount of time, lack of comfort rather than the prospect of a seized engine made me back off.
It wasn't so much the saddle that impinged as the forward mounted pegs getting my body all out of shape, although the bars were a useful compromise between comfort in town and motorway cruising. Neck and thigh pains blitzed through my body, becoming really painful after a few hours even with a stop for fuel every 120 miles.
Consumption wasn't bad for a hard charging stroker twin, 45 to 50mpg. Suzuki were the only viable rivals to Yamaha's attempts at perfecting the stroker concept, Kawasaki triples being fun but totally impractical. The Suzuki was even moderate on oil, until about 6000 miles into my ownership when it was doing 120 miles to a pint.
I knew something was amiss before I realised that the oil consumption had gone up. The plugs started oiling up in town. I tended to change them every 1000 miles to keep the starting a first kick affair, but was doing them every 200 miles and becoming worried about riding below 4000 revs! I kept riding until the performance was affected; a 250 with a 65mph top speed was not impressive!
I should've seen to the motor sooner, leaving it that long meant that instead of needing just a new set of oil rings both bores and pistons were dead meat. To make matters more exciting two of the head studs stripped their threads. After ringing around breakers, decent barrels and pistons were obtained, whilst meticulous application of that essential stand-by, Araldite, solved the thread problem - it really is wonderful stuff.
After all that effort I expected searing performance and an excess of good times. Instead, I had a 90mph top end instead of 100mph and a deficit of acceleration that made burning off Superdreams hard work. After two weeks the problem was revealed by a rasping noise from between cylinder and head; the latter was slightly warped, either by my own cack-handedness or old age. It was obvious that I'd have to have it skimmed, the increase in compression ratio being a useful boost to performance.
After the second rebuild I was back in the game. 100mph and searing performance, the engine sounding sublime when into its power, the kind of cackle that made young women weak at the knees and had the ancients banging their hearing aids. After a bit of practice, for the first time ever, I even became proficient in the art of pulling wheelies. The bike was, in short, turning me into a born again juvenile delinquent.
Actually, it would burble along below 5000 revs in a very mild, sedate and civilised manner, making old codgers nostalgic for their days on Scotts and Ariel Arrows. Many a commuter probably never explored the extremes of their parameters, though there wasn't any improvement in economy. As the last of Suzuki's 250 strokers, the X7 was very well developed.
I traded mine in after 11000 miles (in 14 months). I'd noticed a fierce vibration at 6000rpm and a bit of careful ear to screwdriver work on the engine convinced me that either the big-ends or main bearings were on the way out. I may have been wrong but I wasn't willing to take the chance having already had more than my fair share of hassles. Overall, a neat little motorcycle with a fiery heart but expect lots of problems even if you pay top money.
Dave Kelly