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Author Topic: Suzuki 550  (Read 5542 times)

Blackjack

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Suzuki 550
« on: January 01, 2009, 08:23:06 pm »

So. Not a chopper.

Yet....    ;D

A bit of a gap in my finances has meant that I don't have the moeny to buy the parts I need for my FJ Yam chop. It's no big deal as I'm just waiting on some money.

But in the mean time I need a project for one of the mags I write for, so I bought this. The idea is to build a low buck, simple chop out of it.

Since it's got all the mechanical bits like usuable wheels, forks, motor, and so on, the plan is to mod the frame, add an after market tank, rear fender, lights and a mini speedo (of the cheap variety!) and call it done.

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BJORI

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2009, 10:19:42 pm »

Looking forward seeing your progress....
Plz post pics as you go along
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2009, 10:33:26 am »

Sure.

But if you're that keen, it'll be in BSH. :)
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Dave

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2009, 11:57:42 am »

blackjack , anything you do will come out great.. always does.. do a custom frame job & keep the shocks on this one..
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2009, 12:20:33 pm »

« Last Edit: January 02, 2009, 12:23:56 pm by Blackjack »
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ta2ed

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2009, 12:43:11 pm »

I'm curious to see what this 1 will turn out to look like,I watched your video on fitting the pipe,ya made it look way too easy!!! Good job on that.
I'm working on a gs 750 & am not sure about how I'm gonna do the backbone yet,so I will be watchin this thread for good ideas to steal....lol
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Dave

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2009, 03:13:57 pm »

how about it black jack.. where you at on this one ??
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #7 on: January 19, 2009, 04:44:46 pm »

how about it black jack.. where you at on this one ??

I've done the "photochopping" bit, so I have an idea of what I'm doing to it.

Still need to scale of the pics and get some domensions.





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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #8 on: February 08, 2009, 01:04:19 am »

Soo...

I've made some calls, and I've sorted out the tube and the aftermarket parts I need,

I've got a "photochopped" picture of what I'm after (around here somewhere...) which I can scale off of to get the amount of rear stretch and so on that I need.

Stripped the bike to a roller today three boxes of stuff. E-Bay. Electrics. Other stuff.

Tube should be here next week, I can start cutting things then.

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BJORI

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #9 on: February 08, 2009, 12:46:03 pm »

Looking good dude.... keep up the good work and keep us posted  :)
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Dave

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #10 on: February 11, 2009, 10:12:16 am »

another ace project bro.. the way you recycle the old bikes is fantastic..
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #11 on: February 11, 2009, 08:29:02 pm »

Thanks Dave.

Still waiting for the tube to show up, my fault, I forgot to order it....

Did manage to find a foot or so of 1 1/8" OD left over from doing an XS650 though.

Which meant I could get on with stretching the downtubes. How much is irrelevant, the point was to get it to sit level with 5" of ground clearance.

Anyay, since it started with 10" of ground clearance and now has 5". it's kicked the front out some...

Bubble reads 37 degrees, but the floor has some slope on it so it's probably 35-36.

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BJORI

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #12 on: February 11, 2009, 09:56:47 pm »

nice, cant wait to see some more
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #13 on: March 14, 2009, 11:30:09 am »

Cut off most of the crap for the hardtail.

Waiting on the tube now...

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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #14 on: April 10, 2009, 09:57:29 am »

This is fucking unreal...

My GF rents her house, and the landlady decides that it needs a new front and back door.

So the landlady sends Tony the builder round and tells him that the back door will need a cat flap in it.

Tony turns up to measure up while I'm there, and asks me about the cat flap. I say that she'll want something specific so I give Tony her number to ring and find out.

I say this because her cats will just butt their way into other peoples cat flaps IF they can see through them, so, it ain't fucking rocket science to figure out if she wants to lock the cats in then she needs a cat flap that they can't see through.

So there's phone calls and shit, and the doors are ordered and fitted and I'm suprised to notice that the fucking cat flap is see through...

What I want to know is seeing as there was all this consultation and discussion, and I FUCKING SAID DO NOT GET A SEE THROUGH FUCKING CAT FLAP, how come that now the cats are battering their way to freedom at will is it desperately important that I make something to fix it, instead of getting on with this...



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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #15 on: April 11, 2009, 11:20:49 am »

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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #16 on: April 11, 2009, 11:22:05 am »

Tins are for effect only and just placed there so I can see that it's going where I thought I was sending it....

If you see what I mean.
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xylene61

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cat flap catastropy of '09
« Reply #17 on: April 11, 2009, 06:21:49 pm »

Dontchya hate it when LIFE gets in the way of yer build?  cat flaps!  LMAO!
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #18 on: April 11, 2009, 10:50:17 pm »

There's this thing where, for some reason, people don't seem to feel that building bikes and writing about it is a "proper" job.

And clearly cat flaps are more important. ::)

I mean just because I'm effectively getting my ass paid to build myself motorcycles doesn't make it fun you know? I mean it is, but that's not what makes it fun. Entirely.

Anyway, rolling chassis sort of a deal, swing arm out, things welded to the point where it at least isn't going to collapse in a heap....

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Dave

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #19 on: April 12, 2009, 09:11:37 am »

wow.. thats looking very nice.. i'm thinking a guy could make a living chopping & selling these type bikes..
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #20 on: April 12, 2009, 12:56:02 pm »

wow.. thats looking very nice.. i'm thinking a guy could make a living chopping & selling these type bikes..

You need to go careful with that. In my experience, people who say, "Why doesn't someone make an afforadable *****, because I'd buy one.", actually mean "Why doesn't someone make free *****'s, and give one to me, because I don't actually have any money so I couldn't buy one if they were priced at $5 and two ring pulls off one of these here beer cans."

Then the people that do buy them are like as not going to be complaining because what you got here is basically a 30 year old (ish) motorcycle and it ain't as reliable as it used to be.








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xylene61

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #21 on: April 12, 2009, 02:34:09 pm »

That's a clever way of framing it, leaving the swingarm in, and fitting up to it. It does look very kewl. Really kewl! You are the talented one, Blackjack.

We all understand the guy that wants a free bike. So many guys come & lung away what they wanna do, wasting our time, but then when it comes time for the cash to start trickling, they got other shit to do. It's why I keep it to "after five & on weekends" here. It keeps it fun, keeps it a hobby, deadlines are not what other people make you WORK for, and if that little bracket winds up taking three tries and all weekend to get made, fitted, and attached, that's not anyone's bill. That's me doin what I love, and not vegging in front of a TV.
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Outlaw1640

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #22 on: April 26, 2009, 01:26:19 pm »

wow.. thats looking very nice.. i'm thinking a guy could make a living chopping & selling these type bikes..

Dave I agree i have been really working on this by building these bikes and showing them around here. I am starting to get some good feedback from people and i am building my first customer  bike as we sepped XS 400 i have 4 of these i have built for myself one sold the other three i still have
The cool thing about these is you can do just about anything with them and you can build a bike from about $3500 on up and as you said actualy make money these bikes are a little more time consuming to build because you have to make almost everything unlike some "harley" style bikes where alot of nice parts are already avalible.. I'll keep you guys update on how it goes but im working hard at it (i hate doing srvice work) so if i get these bikes going i wont have to do any more of it

John
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BJORI

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #23 on: April 26, 2009, 09:22:20 pm »

I must say, i cant wait to see MORE !  8)  :o :o :o :o :o :o :o
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #24 on: May 21, 2009, 11:56:17 pm »

Ok, here's a little more...

The mess down at the bottom rear of the motor has been tidied up and I've made brace tube for the headstock.

Got to pull it all apart and finish weld it now.
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Dave

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #25 on: May 22, 2009, 09:34:00 am »

ask & you will recieve...  ;D
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #26 on: June 11, 2009, 12:53:49 pm »

OK, all fully welded and rolled out in the daylight.

Though it hasn't got the motor in, and that's making it run a little uphill, it's pretty close to the chopped up photo I did before I started on it...

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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #27 on: June 11, 2009, 12:55:28 pm »

And, to compare, the chopped photo...

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Dave

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #28 on: June 13, 2009, 01:44:43 am »

i really like the straight back bones.. most aftermarket frames today are all curved up in the back bone..
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #29 on: June 13, 2009, 08:47:45 am »

Yeah, there seems to be some confusion over the words "different" and "better" these days.  ;D
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #30 on: July 19, 2009, 10:36:24 pm »

Beat on it with a stick for a couple of days, Got the rear fender mounted, the rear light mounted, h/light, gas tank, and speedo hung on there.

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ta2ed

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #31 on: July 20, 2009, 10:57:37 am »

Lookin good blackjack.
I'm still workin on the gs 750 & am wondering are you going to do anything as far as foward controls or anything?
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Blackjack

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #32 on: July 20, 2009, 11:12:16 am »

No, I'm keeping the stock pegs.

I want to keep this as simple as possible, and out of four stock mounting points for the original pegs, I managed to keep three. Were I double gussetted the rear lower corner of the frame cradle, on the left side I cleaned up the mount I had to cut off (threaded boss) and used the peg as a guide to drill throught the gussets and welded the boss either side of those, On the right side I hole sawed the gussets to fit roud the brake pedal pivot.

Both (folding) pegs fitted, gear change works because the left pegs in the stock position, and on the right side the brake pedal and master cylinder are all mounted up already. :)

Got to drill through the gussets on the right side of the frame and provide something for the brake pedal position stop to ride against, and sort out a pedal return spring as the original hairpin won't wirk anymore, and find some where for the rear fliud reservoir to live.

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ta2ed

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #33 on: July 21, 2009, 12:33:53 pm »

i have been trying to attach a pic of the 1 I'm workin on havent been having much luck....lol
I have been tinkering & thew a set of tanks on it along with the rear fender I made for it.....maybe 1 day I'll figure this shit out.lol
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ta2ed

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Re: Suzuki 550
« Reply #34 on: July 21, 2009, 12:35:22 pm »

1 more time
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