Oily Purple - Tin, Frame and Wheels

Starting Point
Engine
Tin, Frame and Wheels
Other Things
End Game

I had several sets of 'J' wheels to choose from - some were in far better shape than others. One thing I've seen a few times now is the brake shoe lining separating from the shoes. Something worth taking a very close look at, and better still just replacing as a matter of course rather than taking a chance. In this case the rear drum was ruined also (left below) as the shoe had rusted into the drum, so I used a good rear drum from my spares. The front drum of one wheel was also ruined as water had clearly entered through the brake cooling ducts, and the resulting corrosion had also caused the linings to just fall off the shoes (seen below in the centre). Given the scarcity of these front drums, I have put this drum to one side and will see what it looks like after vapour blasting. With a bit of luck it may be salvageable.

Luckily one of the other front drums I had was OK and so with a bit of cleaning, some new spokes and a bit of time I had a set of wheels. Front shoes were not available here in Canada from Suzuki, but were stocked in other countries, so I had Suzuki Canada reactivate the part number. One thing to note - the on-line parts fiches show you needing 4, but as they are now packaged 2 to a card with a new part number, you only actually need 2 cards. A photo of the new part number and shoes is below to the right.

Although the old rubber had loads of tread, I replaced both front and rear with new tubes, rim tapes and new IRC GS-11 tires. I like these as they are 'inch' sized rather than being metric and so have the correct profile, and the GS-11's also somewhat look like the tires originally fitted when new.

Note: I noticed that on both hubs, at least one of the wheel bearings was not actually tight, and had spun. When re-installing the new bearings I used a dab of Locktite 609 bearing sealer to fix them in position. This is like thread lock, but more viscous and intended for this sort of application specifically.

I didn't paint the frame, although I did weld in a new steering lock tab as the original one on the left side had been damaged at some point. Note that there are many differences in the GT750 frames over the course of production, but the major change in for the 1974 model year was the exhaust. While I suppose you can hang a later exhaust on an early frame it takes a bit of fiddling as the rear hanger mount differs. In the photo below, the early J/K style is on the left, and the later L/M/A/B style is in the middle. You can see that the bolt location moved back an inch, as measured from the rider left side foot peg. Digging through my stores exposed a set of usable pipes, needing only some minor welding to repair a few issues. Hopefully they will buff up !

Rather than change to tapered bearings, I installed new ball bearings in the original bearing cups of the triple tree. Ball bearings work fine for the most part and I have loads of them. Something to remember is that the triple tree and top bracket on the 'J' are 1 cm wider than those used on the disc braked versions (photo below). As the aluminium top brackets are often cracked at the pinch bolts, you will need to take special care when trying to locate a replacement should you need one.

The swing arm bushings on the early 'J' all appear to be steel which were replaced by fibre ones during the 'K' production. After market bronze ones are available, but I used the fibre ones for this build as I think they are 'good enough' for the usage this bike will see.

After a bit of searching, I found a set of usable purple tin to complete the job, re-united the engine with the frame and moved onto the next part.

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