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RichardB

GN250 bobber with a twisted lean

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Through fate/good fortune/karma I have managed to acquire two GN's - one with a reasonable engine, average body. The other seized (well actually...more later) motor but pretty good body at a total of $300 plus a trip to Napier from Palmy.

Looking at the poor wee things, and reminiscing about the modest fun I've had on a GN in the past started the cranial cogs churning (pardon the random alliteration). Driving home from Napier with luke warm thoughts about a GN bobber...but that's almost passe/done to death. But really, who cares? It will be just a fun project on a near zero budget. Until the evil black force stuck a wedge in my thoughts.

Amongst my other (unfinished) projects is a '76 XL250 restoration. A while back I followed some discussion about Flexit sidecars (but tired quickly of their wank), but had this yearning to play with the idea. But not keen on compromising the originality of the old XL as it really is a bit of a rarity.

OGM! (No chance of a blonde moment - that stuff on the top went west a while ago now). A GN bobber (zzz). A GN bobber with a sidecar hack (hmmm, now that's unusual). A GN bobber with a bare bones LEANER hack (oh fuck yeah! Now we're talking). Side car is upright but bike still leans - isn't that the essence of what we do on two wheels?

Rest of the trip was uneventful due to the pre-occupation with thoughts of how to's.

So this is the start point.

The seized GN had digested an exhaust valve - punched through the piston, pretty much mangled the head, but surprisingly the bore was pretty good. The other GN had a pretty good condition engine but suffered from amateur dis-assembly and re-build. Mismatched bolts, few missing pieces, half assed attempt at case polishing etc. Nothing major though. So, straight into a strip of both engines. Measure, compare, eyeball every single component selecting the best for the bobber as the other GN will become a parted out wrecker (ask me for parts if you need).

All engine internals/bearings cleaned washed/polished - amazing difference with the smoothness of operation with the trial assembled engine and gearbox! The good head mildly polished of casting tags and extraneous lumps, especially in the exhaust ports. Not a mirror job, but it certainly won't harm performance. Next job assemble engine minus all internals for a sand/bead/soda blast. Probably go with black cases and bare metal look barrel and head. Anyone have good experiences with a high temp clear coat?

Frame! What a huge amount of extraneous shit Suzuki has welded on this sucker! Main stand gone. Passenger pegs sub frame gone. Battery, rectifier, CDI mounts gone. Turn signals, tail light, license plate mount gone. Front mudguard gone. Instrument cluster gone. Rear brake pedal gone. Yeah yeah some of this has to be re-incarnated but in insect, not elephant form (cheers Buddha!)

Rear mudguard to be re-located - actually not too bad looking as a bobbed look. Seat base shortened to solo. Base cut through reinforcing humps to allow the base to be bent upwards at the back. Re-use some of the cut off base to make plates riveted in place to hold it in new shape. Quite liked the look of the hump right at the back of the original seat, so cut that off and attached to the back of the shortened seat. Final foam shape and covering waiting to see if any further mods are going to happen. Haven't cut off the seat frame rails behind rear suspension mounts as yet. Can anyone advise as to whether this will require a modification certification? Going to have to get one later for the chair anyway, but only want to do this certification thing once.

Hacked off just the speedo - normally pretty clear when a bike runs out of revs. The sewing machine sounds start to get asthmatic, all those little Thomas the Tank Engine voices start to say "my balls are feeling quite squeezed now thank you". Its never gonna be a race machine, so rev counter - meet the scrap bin. Ditto idiot lights, brackets blah blah. That nice little bit of 3mm aluminum will do nicely for a solo speedo, with the intention of LED idiot lights directly mounted in epoxy resin on the underside.

Enough for now - you judge the progress so far. More to come as things happen.

Just to short track the haters - its a low budget fun hack. This is my 14th bike to date, starting with a Francis Barnett and a Triumph Tiger Cub - over 40 years ago. I refuse to grow up so don't tell me to.

Motorcycle projects and sex is like a game of bridge. You'd better have a good partner or a damn good hand.
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  1. globe's Avatar
    Hey mate, did you ever finish this project? Would love to see how it turned out, cheers