GT550 Rebuild Continues

Following on from my previous post on my Suzuki GT550 rebuild, it seems that luck is in short supply as I am still waiting for a couple of seals to arrive.  For whatever reason, there seems to be an inordinate number of basic things just not available for this specific model – like an o-ring for the starter motor for example which Suzuki has rather unkindly discontinued ! I have one coming from an NOS parts supplier in Toronto, and while I likely could also have matched one up from an industrial parts catalogue if required, it all just adds time to the process.

While waiting for things to either be located, or if located for them to be shipped I have gone ahead and assembled most of the engine – while doing so, I noticed that in addition to revamping the clutch assembly Suzuki had also changed the gudgeon pin design. The piston failure in the centre cylinder seems to actually have started with the gudgeon pin cracking in half, and so I was pleased to see that the new pins had a much thicker wall, as can be seen in the photo to the right. Presumably then, the failure my engine had was not an isolated event !!

I realise I said this in my post of March 20th, but if everything goes according to plan, I may have the engine in the frame this coming week, possibly in time for April Fools Day !! 

Battlestar and the Golgafrinchan’s

OK – I have waited till the morning after the night before, to allow me to reflect on the finale of the Battlestar Galactica science fiction television series.  As television series go, for me this one was at the top of the heap and I enjoyed every episode of this dark, sometimes even bleak sci-fi show in which one would be hard pressed to describe any of the characters as being ‘nice’ people. The series had an almost true to life  moral ambiguity that made for very good drama allowing all the various textures of human behaviour to be explored, together with enough sci-fi content and action to be true to the genre. It was a ‘remake’ in that the story has been told before in the original BSG series of the late 1970’s, but it did so without being just a duplicate and while it certainly borrowed many of the elements of that original BSG series, it also honoured it with the little touches such as including  the old style Cylon centurians in scenes with the ‘current’ models.

Series finales for television shows in general I think have been a very hit and miss experience – the one for MASH I thought was great, whereas the one for Seinfeld I thought was a total flop. Of the science fiction ones, the series finale for Star Trek’s Voyager was ‘OK’, while the one for Star Trek Next Generation was embarrassing to watch, the one for Babylon 5 was satisfying and tidy, and the one for Star Trek Enterprise was a cheat. Star Trek Deep Space Nine, which is my preferred Star Trek series, ended respectably while Lost – well lets just say that Lost lost me long ago, and I honestly do not know or care if it even is still running. With this sort of background, I was fully prepared to be disappointed but, given the quality of the BSG series as a whole, I was at least hopeful.  

Any series like this has a huge task at hand when trying to wind up its affairs – deciding which loose ends to tie up, which characters and plot threads to possibly leave open for potential sequels, whether to stay true to the arc of the story being told (assuming there was in fact a story arc to follow), and if so, whether the final episode is an end or possibly some new beginning. I found this last BSG episode satisfying on many levels and so for me at least, I rate it as an 8 out of 10. As such, I consider it to be one of the very few that I think can be said to have made its exit on a high note, although I do have this one small, niggling complaint. I can’t help but wonder whether the writers included some fans of the BBC television series ‘Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’  as the ending seems to have borrowed a key element at the end, in that the survivors of the colonies and of BSG become our ancestors much as the Golgafrinchan’s did in THGTG. In some respects, I guess this is just another reinforcement of the tag line from BSG that ‘all this has happened before and will happen again’ !

At any rate, for the same reasons I bought the Babylon 5 series DVD’s, I know I will be buying the Battlestar Galactica ones – both series were largely consistent in their vision, their story arcs, and both managed to close off their production runs with grace. Now that BSG has finished, I find that I have a serious gap in my science fiction viewing schedule, that will be very difficult to fill.

GT550 Starter Clutch

The new style clutch basket and starter drive assembly has arrived for the 1974 GT550 I’m rebuilding, together with most of the seals, gaskets and other bits and pieces I need. I managed to track the starter clutch assembly down in the UK from Suzuki-Dave who is a member of the UK Kettle Club, and from whom I’ve bought other items previously. Tracking down all the other seals I needed has taken some time, as some have not been available from Suzuki for quite a while – for example the oil seal that goes behind the drive sprocket ( 09283-25050 ) I finally sourced from a dealer in New Zealand. Most of the crankshaft bearings and the connecting rods are no longer available from Suzuki either, so I’m hoping that the crankshaft I have will be OK. 

I spent a very pleasant day up at Fred’s earlier this week washing the engine cases in his parts washer, and they are now look much better. I also rinsed out the crankshaft assembly just to try and flush any remaining small bits of aluminium off the big end bearing etc., and that all looks pretty good as well. As my wife is out of town this week, I very seriously thought about washing the crankcase halves in our dishwasher – this has been done by a number of folks and supposedly works well, however my guess is that they are all single (or divorced) so in the end I decided that I’d better not push my luck with SWMBO’d.

As per Suzuki Service Bulletin #GT-26 of August 15, 1975, the new starter drive assembly ( 21200-34820 ) was introduced with engine number GT550-63692 and is quite different from the older style, as can be seen from the photo to the right – the new style is on the left side of the photo with the new starter clutch gear above it. These assemblies come as matched sets and per the bulletin must be replaced as a unit. Of course none of these parts are still available from Suzuki, so anyone restoring these engines will likely have to take their chances.

With a bit of luck, I should have the engine back in the frame by mid week,

Reynolds-Alberta Museum (or Wetaskiwin Revisited)

This past week was a real treat as I spent it at the Reynolds-Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin, Alberta which is a little less than three hours north of Calgary. Folks may recall I last visited the Reynolds Museum last summer when we took my Father-in-law there to see the replica of the Avro Arrow. He has since passed away, but that day brought a lot of joy to him.

The occassion this time was the ‘Learn from the Experts’ series they offer on museum quality restoration techniques, as applied to the cars, trucks, motorcycles and farm implements that they have on display. These are typically restored prior to being put on display by the on-site restoration staff in the shop attached to the museum, and which is visible from the display areas as shown to the right.

The course itself covered five topic areas: the museum’s vehicle restoration process, restoration of wooden automobile bodies, metal finish repair, surface preparation, painting and types of finishes and finally automotive detailing, repair of small imperfections etc. Other than the fact I was suffering from a bad cold, the week was great and I learned a lot that will be direct benefit to me in what I am doing with the motorcycles I work on, as well as other projects I may try my hand at – much of the wood finishing, repair and refurbishment techniques are as applicable to furniture as they are to old cars. 

What I’d call ‘old style’ vehicle repairs is becoming a lost art, so being able to be stepped through the thinking behind, as an example, which wood works best for a door post (ash as it happens) or for the roof bow of a car roof (often red oak) was for me at least fascinating. Likewise watching a flat 20 gauge metal panel take on the form of a rolled fender after a few minutes of metal bashing by someone who knows how to do this,  or seeing someone make a huge dent on a fender, and then how to hammer it to the point it was ready for paint by using just hand tools, or the right way to use lead body filler rather than using plastic filler  was great ! In many respects this style of body repair is closer to black smithing than modern auto body repair, as it uses many of the same tools and techniques – snips, hammers, dollies, heat and a good pair of safety glasses. 

Needless to say, I learned a lot and I’m looking forward to trying a few of the techniques out on my next project – if there was a downside, it is that I learned that from a metal finishing perspective, I’d probably done the fuel tank on my GT750 project incorrectly and will want to do it over at some point. Of course, this just makes a good project for the future when I’ve run out of other things to do !