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Project Popup

I've acquired a 1985 GSX750SE3 Katana Popup for the princely sum of $1.

I'm going to try and do it up the old fashioned way - without opening up the wallet as much as I can.

Restoring this bike is going to be done through hard work in the gargre with as much work as possible done by me.

  1. Another in a shed pop-up found.

    Hmmm. This one's in better nick. Just have to negotiate a price for it and drag it back from the Wairarapa.

    What would I do with TWO katanas though?

    And this one's owned by an old workmate so there's a possibility it could be a ridiculously cheap price too...

    I'm feeling a bit like a right jammy bastard at the moment.

    Successfully negotiated a good price with Bryce for some replacement forks - the stanchions on the bike really are rubbish ...
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  2. Soda blasting

    I've been thinking about how to clean up some of these parts and the whole sandblasting thing seems to be a bit rough for a few of the bits.

    Which lead me to searching for alternatives - whereupon I discovered NZ Soda Blasting Ltd.

    They're local (in Montgomery Crescent natch) and I've left them a message to see how suitable their work is for my bike parts.

    Here's a video which shows what they do:




  3. And on to the back wheel...

    I reckon some scrubbing and cleaning will work wonders on this bike. After all the main problem is it's sat in a shed for the better part of 12 1/2 years...

    Kerosine and a rag for an hour produces the following result...

    it's not perfect but when I spend some more time on it it will look just great.
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  4. Had a bit of a crack at the back end today...

    Decided to pull off the rear caliper and torque arm to see what I could do about it. The rear caliper was really oxidised and the torque arm very rusty. Damn I should have taken some photos before I started.

    Anyway, the pistons came out of the calipers easily enough with the air compressor - after the RF900 with 4 piston calipers it's a joy to work on a caliper with 2 pistons.

    One of the pistons was a bit pitted but the other one was perfect. To be honest, I reckon if I ...
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  5. Had a nice chat on the phone today

    with a man called Gerry Foon at VTNZ Adelaide Road.

    As I have the previous rego number, and the frame number and engine numbers all check out nicely, and we can establish that the bike was deregistered February 1997, it's going to be a piece of piss to get it reregistered.

    I need to do four things:

    1. Restore the bike to wof standard (d'oh!);
    2. Get a receipt of sale from the previous owner who deregistered it, or failing that, confirmation from the police ...
  6. New forks found... brakes should clean up okay.

    Buckets and Bits have some forks for a pop-up there. Sounds a better plan than trying to regrind and rechrome the stanchions in these ones.

    Pulled the brakes apart and good news - there's heaps of meat on the pads so they should be good. All the bolts came undone nicely - which never happens on my RF and with a bit of work I managed to get all the rust and crap out of one of the calipers, so with a bit of work I reckon they'll be looking good.

    I figure I'll go for the sandpaper ...
  7. The bike seems to be legal.

    I found an old WOF under the seat which had the old rego number on it.

    Did the check on carjam.co.nz and got the following back:


    • Make: SUZUKI
    • Model: GSX 750S3
    • Year: 1987
    • Main colour: White
    • Vehicle type: Motorcycle
    • Body style: Motorcycle
    • CC rating: 750
    • Fuel type: Petrol
    • Country of origin: Japan



    • Plate: XXXXX
    • Plate type: Standard
    • Engine no: xxxxx
    • Chassis: xxxxxx


    Licence ...
  8. Stripping the bike continued...

    There's a lot of oxidisation of the aluminium on this bike but I reckon that should clean up easy enough.

    So far on my list of things I definitely need to do:

    1. Sand back and paint fairing brackets.
    2. Plastic weld the back of the fairing so it sits nicer and create brackets to hold the fairing together better (hidden of course).
    3. Strip the forks, find some new stanchions or get the incumbents re-ground and re-chromed (expensive), redo seals.
    4. Replace ...
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