There are few Suzuki T350s left on the road. Compulsive fanatics in the Vintage Japanese Club will deny this. But in the past six years I only ever saw one on the road. That was such a rat that had he turned up at the Club he'd been strung up. When my bike was first sold in 1971 the 250s were vastly more popular as they were learner legal.
Starting was often so nasty as to put off the less dedicated potential owner. Most of this, I feel, was down to the poor quality of the points that are, these days, available. I'm sure that the original machine didn't need them adjusted every 200 miles as mine did. I suppose it was a useful safety factor, if they were slightly out the spark was so dim that there was no hope of the altered timing holing pistons - the damn thing wouldn't start even with brand new spark plugs, which themselves needed replacing every 500 miles.
This finicky nature wasn't down to dubious ignition coils as I tried both new Suzuki items and some from a breaker, nor was it down to poor wiring; almost as soon as I bought the bike it required a complete rewire. Evidence of this was brought to my attention by blowing fuses that stopped the engine dead in the middle of traffic and a front headlamp whose intensity suddenly flared from glow-worm status to searchlight intensity before going bang! I'd once owned a rat GT250 that did the same trick, which responded to my disinterest by catching alight. I deserted the fireball before someone arrested me for something. So there was no way I could ignore the Suzuki which had cost me £400.
Even with everything sorted, a brand, spanking new battery installed, the lights were still as dodgy as those on an ancient Raleigh Wisp that my mother still wobbled to the shops upon and which I had fooled around with at the tender age of 16. On a good day, when the full power was getting through it was good for 40mph on unlit roads; a bad day was accompanied by screaming car drivers complaining about my lack of a front light, the main beam gleaming strongly enough to past muster as the pilot beam on a modern superbike. Curiously, the back light shone brightly enough at tickover for alert police officers to suss the numberplate from a quarter of a mile away!
If the lights were crap the power delivery was sublime. The directness of the two-stroke power pulses have to be experienced to be understood. The T350 was never going to be as extreme as a Kawasaki triple of the same era, having only 30 horses on hand but what a delight it was to get the revs beyond 6000 revs in the lower gears. Zap! It was ridiculously easy to get the front wheel off the ground, although that was as much down to the weight distribution as the power pulse.
The bike came to me with entirely standard suspension that was probably worn out after a mere year on the road, if not the moment it came out of the factory. By the time I got my hands on the thing, there was absolutely no damping and so little springing that they were down on the stops with my mere 11 stones on the saddle. It would've been sensible to fix the suspension before testing the limits of the engine but I didn't want to waste my time and money on the bike unless I was assured that the two stroke twin was up to spec.
I selected a straight, smooth road that I knew well. Lots of go in the motor (it'd been rebuilt) but weaves come 50mph, most of the distress coming from the back end where the flimsy swinging arm felt like it was working its way through the swinging arm spindle. I thought I'd have a quick blast up to 75mph in third gear just to check that the power flowed in smoothly. Come 65mph both wheels were getting way out of line, each wanting to go their separate ways. Then the handlebars started juddering in my hands, a vertical movement rather than the more usual wobble. It was like holding a jack-hammer, with ominous grating noises drowning out the wail of the exhaust. I figured there was nothing wrong with the engine and grabbed a dose of brakes.
Out front there is a TLS drum. In theory it was a pretty meaty device and, indeed, the couple of times I'd used it in anger in town I was quite impressed. I could pull up safely, just short of locking the wheel. No nasty calipers to sort out and shoes that would last forever, I smugly told myself. So when I grabbed a handful, with a bit of fear inspiring my grip, I was more than surprised to find the juddering increased and the braking to be all but nonexistent.
I was close to screaming in terror, going numb with panic, as there was a bloody big bend not too far away. Dropping the throttle dead and whacking on the rear drum whilst resolutely hanging on to the bars, allowed me to shave off enough speed to skid off the road before the curve. After I had recovered from the shock of near death (about 15 minutes and five fags, if you must know) I kicked the front end which felt solid enough. When I got down close to the wheel I found that the drum was cracked! That's how come my T350 has a front end off a GS450E, and I don't give a damn if the vintage fanatics wet their pants. A lot of 25 year old drums are likely to be going the same way!
Sorting the back end looked a lot simpler until I realised that the swinging arm was halfway rusted through. Don't believe anyone who tells you that a GT250 arm will fit, it won't. As it happens, I had a nice pair of Koni shocks that had the wrong end fittings for the existing swinging arm, so it seemed the best thing to do was to have the old one welded back into good shape with the addition of some new brackets for the shocks. The guy who did the job for me was all for adding a few pounds extra bracing but even a cursory look at the swinging arm mounts on the T350 reveals sod all torsional stiffness; adding a couple of pounds extra unsprung weight was the last thing that I needed.
As well as sorting out the suspension the bike needed new bearings all round, including the wheels. Perhaps because I went to the bearing factor for the latter, the only way they could be bashed in was by freezing the bearings, heating the wheels with a blow-torch and hitting them in with an extremely large hammer in a frenzy. I was lucky I didn't crack any alloy (or my fingers) - oh, for a 500lb hydraulic press.
After all that effort I expected transformed handling, was, indeed, rewarded with a tolerably competent hustler up to 80mph. Thereafter some quite large weaves occurred, down, as I expected, to the weakness of the swinging arm mounts. The one time I put the ton on the clock the chassis presented the perfect definition of being hinged in the middle. At least there was no sign of the wrist snapping juddering nor of the dreaded tank-slappers. For such an old bike the T350 was a perfectly acceptable handler.
It also had a gearbox that was as slick as many a modern bike. I think a lot of that was down to its separate compartment which took thicker oil than that demanded by the engine (the mill was modern enough to have a separate oil tank and pumped lubrication system, none of that petroil nonsense). The T350 was part of a series of stroker twins that went from 250 to 500cc, and the gearbox seemed to suit the 350 much better than the other models (the 500's being especially dubious). Even neutral was easy to find at junctions; an amazing feat for a machine of this era, as any Honda owner will reluctantly testify.
Not so amusing was the way the engine would clog up in town, taking just ten minutes of slow riding to sulk and ultimately oil its plugs if not given a wild burst of acceleration in second or third. That lays down quite a thick cloud of smoke and makes a rather tinny wail, neither of which go down very well with young kids dressed up in police uniforms. My explanation that I had to ride that way to keep the engine from cutting out did not stop some youth from giving me a fifteen minute lecture on my civic responsibilities. I stayed quiet and took it all, refrained from telling him he should be out catching bike thieves, muggers, drug abusers...
Despite poor low speed running and being dangerous at night, there were times when I had no other machine running and was forced to use the T350 for commuting. The power delivery kept me in a happy frame of mind, whizzing between the cages like there was no tomorrow. I can get away with that kind of manic behaviour as I've been riding for 20 years and have developed all the necessary reflexes.
Lots could be written about the dubious nature of seventies stroker's mechanical reliability but given frequent maintenance and a slightly tempered right hand (which doesn't limit the fun but avoids the red sector like the plague), T350s (or T250s and T500s for that matter) can run for tens of thousands of miles. My admittedly well rebuilt engine has done 26000 miles without any mechanical trauma, the clock now reading 64000 miles! It seems to be running better than ever. Famous last words...
Ian Newington