Suzuki 2 Strokes

68 cobra on Ebay
title all screwed up in ad, owner no clue what it was, perfect parts bike.
was at $106. I bid $1018. Ended at $1030
had every single part I needed.
and so T500-00203 sets probably another year.

I'm sorry to hear that bit of bad luck but it happens, hopefully next time you might be lucky.

That is one rusty Cobra:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1968-196 ... 414ef46f3e

What are you still missing for yours?

tank, seat, carbs, lh cover, better fenders.
i had planned on titling the frame, and selling the frame and cases, as well as the leftovers to get what i needed off that one.
Not a chance of buying the parts off ebay, no matter whatI bid its never enough, someone always wants it more. I think people bid $10,000 just to get the stuff.
figure a seat, carbs, tank, Lh cover, probably cost $1500-$2000
easy off ebay.
I just cant play that high stakes game. I want to keep this bike forever.
my 69 H1, 69 BSA, 72 CB750, and this 67 T500/5 are not for sale. they can stand around till i get the missing peices.

Trust me on this you are NOT alone on this, there are plenty of other people out there having the same problems as you do.
Some just have more luck than others at being at the right place at the right time to get an item.
One of my longest acquisitions still outstanding is to find a set of mint OEM J/K model tank badges for a GT750 or an OEM set of mint tank badges for an A/B model GT750.
This has been nearly four years in searching on Ebay and still nothing shows up.
However as luck would have it, all sorts of probably harder to find items many others cant seem to obtain, i already have.

Juggie has a seat and we are looking into getting it reproduced in metal or fiber…
Maybe he can chime In?

I have an excellent Cobra front fender, willing to exchange a vGood 69 T500-I + change.

I sadly sold my extra tank and carbs to somebody on the old board… and don't remember who?

same bike in peices on ebay right now sans seat.

My seat turned out to be beyond getting anything useful to make a copy of the foam or anything.

Howdy spikey and Diamond J.

Hey juggie,

is it still good enough so we could reproduce the seat pan?
The foam shouldn't be too much of a problem if you have a repop seat cover, just alter foam until cover fits…

If Ok, I'll Pm the guy's addy in CA. They would be reproduced in metal.

Jughead wrote:Howdy spikey and Diamond J.

Howdy Jughead!

I hope life is treating you good? Glad to hear you weren't flooded out recently. My sister lives in Nashville and while they were okay (their house is on top of a hill) they had a few neighbors that had flooding.

Jim

spike wrote:Hey juggie,

is it still good enough so we could reproduce the seat pan?
The foam shouldn't be too much of a problem if you have a repop seat cover, just alter foam until cover fits…

If Ok, I'll Pm the guy's addy in CA. They would be reproduced in metal.

I have a 68 seat I had Sirious Consolidated reupholster many years ago. They got a similar vinyl but couldn't do the pattern in the top and there is no Suzuki logo on the back. The foam is original '68 material but is hard as a rock. I figured I would have it redone sometime in the future if I ever seriously restore the '68. So if Jug's Cobra pan is no good, I can supply one as a pattern.

But here's the thing - looking at the Cobra tank versus a later T500 tank and looking at the Cobra seat versus a later T500 seat - I think the pans are close enough where you could use a later T500 seat for a Cobra. You might have to tweak the mounts with a hammer to get it just right. And I know the foam was a different color and I think a different shape.

So it's my *opinion* the seat pans are relatively similar however every time I offer this up I'm told by others that they are different because the Cobra tank is a different length than the later tanks. I have a 68 tank hanging side by side on my shop wall with a 69, a 70, a 71, etc.... They are all hung at the same height and *LOOK* to be the same length.

I'll take a tape measure to seat pans, tanks, and frames this weekend so I can either find out I am wrong or confirm my opinion as fact and post some pictures of what I find.

So, my seat pan could be used as a pattern if Juggie's is not available but there may not be a need to reproduce the pans.

Fresh, supportive, preshaped seat foam however would be nice to replace the rock hard foam that's on my seat now.

Sirious preserved my aged but intact seat cover when they reupholstered my seat and returned it to me but with reproductions available, it seems silly to reinvent the wheel:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SUZUKI-T ... ccessories

Jim

Jim,

Pit'S seat covers are very good… and a fraction of other repro's price.

What me, Cycle buster and probably a few others miss is the seat itself.

I've got no pan and no foam.

A Cobra Pan is a totally different affair in shape and length from the later T500 ones, even the 69ers.

Here's mine with a later seat, it is far worse in reality, there's a 1" nad-catcher between the tank and seat!



The gent in CA could redo repro pans in metal and Pit (or the same CA guy) do the foam. Game?

Well they say you only stop learning when you die and serious study of a Cobra pan versus a '75 pan was somewhat educational! Here's what I found:

the 75 pan is on the left and the Cobra pan on the right in these first two pictures





The 68 pan has a different ribbing structure and rises up towards the rider in the front and kicks down away from the rider in the back. The later pan kicks up less towards the rider in the front and is flat in the back.

The mounts ARE almost the same distance apart but the bent rear on the later pan alters how the mounts meet the frame.

You can see the seats look about the same length although the foam is shaped differently due to the pan shapes



I have the original seat cover in pieces back from Sirious but better repros means I probably won't need to ship it off to anybody







I also noticed there are a couple of rust through holes in my seat pan towards the front. Nothing that would render it unusable but I don't know the requirements of your repro maker. If it would help folks out, I'm up for sending it to someone to repro.

Jim

And as for tanks, here's a Cobra tank next to a '69 next to a '75 tank:



The Cobra tank is the orange/gold (and rust!) color, the 69 is purple, and the '75 tank is chromed.



Again, I was surprised to see how different the 68 inner structure was from the 69 and later tanks. I didn't realize how big the tunnel is in the '68 tank. I wonder why Suzuki made it so large?



Notice the tanks are all about the same length and the mounting points look close to the same. The '68 tank IS narrower but I imagine the chrome side panels and rubber knee pads make it a bit wider.







Jim