I've owned my 1983 Suzuki GS250 twin for the past six years. It was a low mileage, pristine bike when I bought it and now is a 60,000 mile rat. What happened? I started off full of good intentions but after six months became so bored and pissed off with the little vertical twin that I decided it wasn't worth the effort of doing regular maintenance or even cleaning it.
It's interesting to compare the current state with the newish bike. In good nick top speed was 85mph, fuel nearer 70 than 60mpg and handling whilst dubious was basically safe. The brakes worked after a fashion but the front disc would cause the forks to judder slightly during emergency stops.
The custom looks brought a lot of wrath down upon my head from real bikers. They took a great delight in taking the piss, although I did get my own back once by burning off a wallowing Harley through a series of curves. I caught the grimace of the bearded rider in the mirrors and felt sure that he would have given me the finger had not letting go of his bars thrown his bike off the road.
I have to admit, though, that such antics were a bit dangerous as it was easy to catch the stands on any bumps in the curves. There was also a tendency to run wide and shake the tiller-like bars when running out of corners under hard acceleration. The only way the bike would accelerate was by keeping the throttle wide open and changing up through the box sans clutch. This technique perhaps explaining a chain life of 5-7000 miles!
The first sign of age came at 13000 miles when some holes developed in the silencers. The noise didn't increase significantly but this mere interference with correct exhuast flow was sufficient to put several flat spots in the rev range, futher emphasizing the need to rev the motor until it dies. Even more trouble came at 15000 miles when I decided the solution was to fit a 2-1 exhaust. After much fiddling I managed to get the engine to run above 5000rpm but below that it either stalled dead or misfired depending on weather conditions. Fuel improved to about 75mpg, which indicated that the engine was running lean.
That exhaust is still there but very rusty now. The Suzuki won't do much more than 70mph and turns in a mere 55mpg; not an impressive combination. The front brake doesn't work any more.......they needed a strip down ever 6-7000 miles to avoid permanent seizure but the calipers are so worn that even new seals don't help. I don't use the bike for anything other than short hops so until the MOT is due I can survive.
Fond memories of summer tours stop me throwing it off the side of the nearest mountain. One good thing about the bike was comfort - as long as you can take a 50 to 60mph cruising speed! After 20,000 miles with the suspension well shot that kind of speed was the most that could be safely maintained. I could do 200 to 400 miles in day without too many complaints.
Vibration was never a problem until about 35000 miles when some tingling got through to the tank and pegs. More than 150 miles in a day would leave me less than enamoured with the little Suzuki. Which wasn't a complete disaster as the bike had become less than steadfast in its reliability on long runs.
The first time I was caught out was when the CDI went down. Complete ignition failure 70 miles from home. Luckily, I was only a five mile push from a Suzuki dealer. Of course, they didn't have one in stock but agreed to take one out of a used bike in the showroom if I was willing to pay the new price for it. I didn't have much choice.
The next little trick was for the rear wheel bearings to start grumbling. The already weird handling became wild, with wobbles and a certain tendency to run right off the road every time I banked over a few degrees. I made it the 15 miles home without needing to resort to pushing.
At 42000 miles the cables decided it was time to start snapping. The throttle was the first then the clutch. New cables are real rip-offs but I had no time to make up my own. The original battery then decided it was time to go dead but it didn't do the usual trick of taking out all the other electrics. The only other problem I had was with the indicators flashing beserkly - fixed by using a car control box.
By the time 48000 miles were up I was expecting the engine to fail but frequent oil changes had paid off......I hardly ever checked the valves or carbuartion, they seemed to have worn into permanent settings. Of course, there was a bit of oil seeping out of the engine gaskets and a gradual diminishing of power output.
I once tried to take off the clutch cover to investigate drag at low revs but the engine screws refused to budge. The only one I managed to shift snapped off. After that I decided to leave well alone.
Once I'd fitted the new battery it whirred away the starter motor so furiously that after a week it jammed solid. A hunt around the scrap-yards found one in slightly better nick. Starting had always been good just so long as the spark plugs were changed ever 2500 to 3000 miles. The only time it refused to start was when the ignition coil started to die, although a bump start would still work.
The latter was hard going as the sick front brake always had pads that dragged heavily against the disc and for a lot of the time the chain was half seized up due to the need to keep it going for as long as possible. For such a relatively light motorcycle, pushing the Suzuki around at low speeds is absurdly hard work.
Recently, the running became rather too rough, tracked down to a split carb diaphragm, a common problem on Suzuki twins. Various solutions to this that avoid the horrendous cost of a new one, mine was to Superglue the rubber back together. Not a perfect solution as it's still a bit rough running but on such an old, tired hack it soon fades into the background.
The swinging arm bearings are now becoming a bit slack; the front fork seals went about 4000 miles ago (drain forks before the MOT test) and the rear shocks are down on the stops if I'm ever foolish enough to put a pillion on the back. Handling is okay up to 40mph! It's a useful way of persuading caged friends, by taking them pillion, that I really am completely mad, out of my head to be involved with this two wheel business. One guy, with an obvious lack of character, not to mention stiff upper lip, limped off the bike and promptly spewed up his dinner over an outraged ped. I sped off, left them to fight it out.
The most impressive part of the bike is the engine which has so far refused to fail. That said, it never made much more power than a good 125. The least impressive, the chassis, which in both looks and function, even when newish, was about twenty years behind the times.
I neither hate nor love the Suzuki. It isn't the kind of bike that causes much passion. I was forced to keep mine as I could not afford to buy anything else. Unfortunately, I still can't afford anything else so when the motor finally fails I'll be back to walking the streets or begging lifts from vengeful car drivers or equally insane friends with dubious rat-bikes.
Mike Barclay
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Weird shit. Buying a bike off a woman. She simpered like sex might be on the menu, but one look at her eyes persuaded me it'd be like putting me wick in a waste disposal unit. To be fair, the bike appeared in reasonable nick and the £750 price wasn't bad. I mumbled something about the exhaust being a bit tatty and the chain about to fall off. Would six hundred quid be alright? Her face turned into a Thatcher clone and if there'd been an hatchet near she might've turned nasty. £700 was hastily agreed, money and docs exchanged. She sweetly told me that it was due for an oil change and service. Bitch!
I was still swearing five miles down the road. Then it opened up into a dual carriageway and I thought might as well see if I'd bought another dog. The private bike market's all very well but it's dead easy to get it all wrong. However long you've been in the game and however much you know. The GS had a bit of a reputation for burning out its valves but this one was free of exhaust smoke and engine noises.
The engine's a bit gutless, all or nothing on the throttle. The gearbox was still slick and the clutch light. I used the throttle and box, roared up to 85mph when the bike ran out of spirit and I felt like I was going to be spat off the back by the wind blast. Maybe 90mph on a good day. Not bad for an old 250 with 52000 miles on the clock.
Home was a welcome sight. The high bars and set back pegs were not well matched. The seat was well padded and nicely shaped but not so good as to make up for the riding position. As little as thirty miles was enough to have me leap off to shake my legs like John Cleese in a tantrum. Oh well, can't expect perfection for this kind of money.
The bike was still shiny so all I had to do was change the oil, set the carbs and do the valves. This was when I found out someone had Araldited the sump plug in. It popped out when a five foot long steel pole was attached to the socket wrench and a couple of heavyweight mates persuaded to haul on it whilst I counterbalanced the machine. Easy, though I, ignoring the tearing and popping explosion of metal.
The only slight problem was that rather than come out, the surrounding alloy had snapped off, leaving a gaping hole in the crankcase! A gush of murky oil poured forth like blood out of an artery. To add insult to injury, I slipped on the slopping lubricant, falling on my arse. My mates found the whole incident hilarious and it soon became a bit of pub lore - how to ruin your engine and break your spine in thirty seconds!
Drunk, later that night, I phoned the previous owner up, gave her a piece of my mind, that was far too filthy to repeat here. Two hours later half the police force tried to knock the front door down. They interrogated me for half an hour, refusing to let me put any clothes on over my undies. Threats of being prosecuted as a sex pervert and stalker were left ringing in my ears once they went off to rig some evidence elsewhere. It's an unfair world.
An old school friend had a worldwide reputation as a bodger and was summoned from his cellar where he had a reputation for performing unsavoury acts on sixteen year-olds. No problem, alloy weld the plate back on after drilling and tapping the old plug to take a smaller bolt. I should've done the latter before wrecking the engine. This involved turning the bike upside down after taking off the tank and battery. It was then revealed that the petrol was sharing space with a bucketful of rust and the underside of the tank had been filled with GRP! I was beginning to get really angry!
Bodger nonchalantly did the work, only afterwards mentioning that I'd better flush the engine out a couple of times as a few blobs of molten alloy might be inside the sump! Putting the bike back together I managed to drop the battery on the garage floor, the resulting explosion of acid taking out the cat who'd been regally reclining on the concrete. He screamed in agony and leapt into next door's garden.
One new battery and used petrol tank later, I was ready for the road. Having decided the machine was jinxed, I went out in a mood of maximum paranoia and great restrain. As mentioned, unless you use the throttle you don't get anywhere fast, so I was soon stringing the bike out at maximum revs.
Handling was an odd mix. The suspension was harsh with a modicum of damping but there was something wrong with the front forks as they tended to amplify rather than damp down minor imperfections in the road surface. White-lines had the front wheel going all squirmy and cat's eyes made the bars try to swing from lock to lock unless I inputted a wrist-snapping amount of muscle.
I looked on the front wheel with suspicion. A cast job. Sure enough, the tyre was too narrow. It was also way down on psi. Turned out it lost 5psi a day. The cause was an inner-tube with more patches than original rubber, just waiting for the opportunity to blow up. New inner-tube plus Michelin to match the rear, quietened down the front end, though I suspected that the real solution would only come from a set of flatter bars to get more weight over the wheel.
Handling was then determined by the smoothness of the road, a mildly bumpy surface turning up a 70mph plus weave. A really knackered road made the Suzuki unsafe above 50mph, as the wheels didn't seem to want to go in the same direction. On the other hand, stability was fine on 80mph stretches of motorway despite the unlikely prone position I had to assume.
Fuel was around 60mpg, which given the throttle twitching was okay. Tyre wear was minimal, as was front pad wear. The chain, alas, was a different matter. Don't know why, but it needed loads of adjustment and fettling - the sprockets looked fine. I kept taking links out but it never broke.
Which is more than can be said for the old camchain. Snapped when I tried to start it one cold morning. It had always rattled a bit but no more than you'd expect on a bike of this age. This era of Suzuki's had much tougher camchains than other makes, the only time they go down is when the camchain tensioner sticks.
I was lucky, the broken camchain hadn't ruined the engine. One new camchain was all that was needed to revive the bike's fortunes. And some emery cloth and grease on the tensioner slider. The rattles were gone, the engine strangely quiet, but the performance was just the same. Barely adequate once I'd become used to the bike. So much so, that I'd often end up caning the GS close to the redline, just to provide some kicks.
Apart from the aforementioned mishaps, the engine did 13000 miles without causing any serious hassles. Don't know anything about its history, wouldn't believe anything that woman said! Might've been rebuilt, it was certainly bodged in parts. The alloy welding held up, the sleeved plug allowing me to do the mandatory 1000 mile oil changes - neglect this and you'll end up with a crankcase full of valve bits!
So it served its purpose well. As something to do the commuting, ride around on for fun and even haul down the motorway at safe speeds, it was an adequate tool. Inspiring it wasn't, and it's easy to see how many of them ended up neglected and run into the ground.
This means that there are lots of overpriced dogs out there. The cheap and nasty alloy means something as simple as a ruined screw thread can leave the motor close to wrecked. And it takes a keen eye to pick up clever bodging. Not to mention some inbuilt engine flaws. The electrics can also turn nasty, but mine was okay.
I saw one £1500 GS that was close to a rolling wreck. Another for £500 wasn't half bad, but needed a bit of chassis work. I paid and sold mine for £700, which seems about right given the potential pitfalls and the less than inspiring power. I probably wouldn't bother with another, but for someone looking for cheap wheels or working their way up the motorcycling game, they ain't bad.
L.K.