so, aside from the 72, I also have a 71t500. tgis ones going to stay stock. was supposed to be relatively sorted.. it wasn't. lots of little things wrong.. mismatched carbs, a weird cutout on the lh sidecover, and worst, a blown crank seal on the rh cyl. could be inner or outer but it pukes oil like crazy (see video)
. so, I bought a parts bike that had previously unbeknownst to me, had bern on fire, but supposedly had a fresh engine. it also was pretty fucked up overall so not many spares. today, I got the motor to run on the spare, but here's pics of both, and a video of the parts bike being fired off, as minimally as possible. Pink ones the 71. the parts bike has a welded over vin ... so its going to dissappear
so on to the 71500. one of those the deeper ypu look the more you find.anyway,, I need to pull the motor and replace the crank with a rebuilt one i got a few days ago. resell motor, etc. that being said, these are some of the nice little surprises. whoever had it did a rattle can overhaul. and juat butchered some simple stuff but def saveable. and the usual found sae hardware.. here we go. ...
I'm glad the parts bike runs...
true. they both do and both need inner crank seals. :gentleman:
and the topend is... hacked. wow this was bad.
rh piston hitting head, .5 os, lh stock. check the almost blown out done. akso.. clear silicone under the head gaskets. stripped rear shock mount (fixed) and a myriad of fuckery. :whistle: :huh: :busey: :haw:
A scotch lock! :celebrate: Your favorite! :dawg:
20260227_185952_edit.jpg
Needs pink wirenuts. He likes them even better...
so the parts bike, whilst on stock bore also has issues. which is fine, these are off-to get bored and new pistons. check the lh piston. about half the intake skirt missing :eek: :huh: :boom:
did you find the missing piece of the skirt?
nope. not in the motor. Who knows.
either way , the bottom end of the original motor is coming apart, and all new stuff going in where needed. clutch, bearings, etc. I even have a spare transmission w a good 5th gear ready if need be. I was hoping I wouldn't have to get too deep into the motor on this but, alas... I was kidding myself. lol
ill pull the cases this week see what I find in there.
considering the parts motors cylinders are at least the same bore and stock size,,ill take those to my guy to measure and bore.
in the meantime ill just get down on the details
occasionally over the years when I find a broken/missing ring, pin clip, etc. It is just gone- not in the lower end or in squish area- gone. I can only assume it went out the exhaust port and feel lucky.
im sure its launched out the pipe at a previous date by the last guy that had this . there was no baffle in the pipe so maybe its lodged in some cars radiator somewhere :gentleman:
Whenever I have a broken or missing ring/pin clip they either imbed in the piston or get trapped halfway out the exhaust port.
the baffle was missing out of that pipe, looks like it was run that way for a while :busey: so who knows. im not saving much off this (parts) bike except the motor and some hardware, its roached pretty bad. the frame had the vin welded over ( SKETCHY AF) years ago. so thats going in a dumpster in peices, unless somebody wants a rolling chassis for free and come get it
got the tires put on the rims today. had new wheel bearings on hand, waiting for the fork seals. the wheels cleaned up well, and I had a backing plate with new shoes for the front wheel off my 72 from when I swapped it to a disc. all typical stuff but coming along well. the cyls off the parts bike is going to my cyl guy Saturday to get assessed and measured. in the meantime ill tear into the bottom end to find new horrors :lol: some pics from today.
whenever I do this type of fix up, I think k of the 'barn find' crowd and wonder how they can just get these running and just ride em. look at that wheel bearing and delaminatedbrake shoe :busey:
Oh that brake shoe is fine! Nothing a little duct tape can't fix! :cheerleader:
got the front end rebuilt and some wiring sorted.
holy cow tgis thing was fucked up on every level in small annoying ways. for example... cases had been split before. and were sealed with black rtv. but the oil dam mod (factory recall) on 72 and back models hadn't bern done. no idea what they were doing in there. found a banjo bolt sheared, lh cyl feed line. oil tank fitting stripped, needed a helicoil. either way. got the oil dam drawn up, and 3d printed it put of 95 tpu. got that in, had cleaned the cases, etc. was missing a bearing pin, but overall everything worked out. so, just waiting on the cylinders to get done. then everything's basically ready to go. rebuilt crank in, everything cleaned up.
Very nice!
I think you need a YouTube channel where you can share the Master performing his magic bringing these old relics back to life. :pop:
broken headlight switch, not sure of a reproduction available, so drew up and printed one out of polycarbonate. also got a few covers polished and cleared.
I have to say, making 3D printed replacement parts is impressive!
thanks. Steve Burgess used to sell these for rds, i don't think anyone made them for suzukis. I needed one figured it was worth doing. now I have like 10. lol. I do this at work a lot , not reverse engineering but for parts in the production machines. I design for a living, so imho being able to draw/model the part from scratch makes it worth it.
forgot to show this. I kept w the sv coils on this, but needed to make a mount since the original one obviously won't work. Drew this up and printed it. this has Been in there for at few weeks.
Over the past weekend was cleaning the tank. wasn't happy w the amount of pitting in the seams, so played it safe and gave it a coat of Caswell. incidentally.. those tub o towels hand cleaners do a great job of cleaning up non cured Caswell, even on painted surfaces. but you have to move quick
.
Excellent :patriot:
Nice coil mount. That 3d printing is very handy indeed. I really like the mean green in the background, adding a little something different to the garage. :olaf:
thanks. oh I've had a few kawi green kawasakis in the past... :)
:clap: 3D printed parts! impressive!!
Wow, I didn't expect to those mean green Kawi triples! Is the heavily modified one with the Kawi racing on the tank an H2? That one must've been a handful to ride,did you race it? I mean I don't see a headlight on it, looks like it was just for track.
it was a street bike. reeded 73 h1 ported to the moon. it was faster than most h2's, no joke. (have had a few of those as well... none green). there's a tiny headlight under the triple tree. you can see it on on the end part of this vid.
Wow, what a beast of a bike :taz: Now I have seen a few reeded Kawi triples but I believe that be a pretty rare mod. Did you do that yourself? I can't imagine the amount of skilled work it takes to modify the cylinders for reeds.
I did a good portion of it. I do have machining experience and at that time, had access to a full machine shop I could use. so, it was def fun. I plan on reeding a set of t500 cyls, to get back on topic sort of. I have a spare set to hack into. should be fun
That would be pretty awesome and fun just to see you document the process here for us to see.
Get practiced up. I have a Kawasaki Green H2 that needs reeds :olaf: :olaf:
mmm.. thats..ambitious :dawg:
from last night. still waiting on cyls...
Looking good!
aaand finally! got the barrels and heads back. got it all bolted together, had to tweak a few adjustments. petcock I had rebuild seeped a bit, so utilized a knockoff pingle I have and all good. replaced the points and verified timing etc. did a quick 5 mile ride, then a longer one after verifying everything I could. so, seems ok. def illustrates the differences between the modified 72 and this.
A lot of cooling fin area on that engine. Cylinder liner thickness looks overly generous too.
Built like a bank vault.
:olaf: :olaf:
that motor was designed in the mid-late 60s. an air-cooled 500 twin 2 stroke production bike.. they had doubts it would cool.
even nuttier is the 8 head bolts. the head design is just fkn dismal. total relic. however, reliabe and functional
:clint: :gentleman:
when you realize it was from THIS era, it makes a bit more sense. https://petrolicious.com/blogs/articles/stealing-speed-how-suzuki-captured-cold-war-secrets-to-go-faster?srsltid=AfmBOor426-gFZHg0eso3WfB-cwIaOvxE_vvgc1uZpdcGAWVdcKP9wNS