Suzuki 2 Strokes

I see we have Frank Tarpley's 69 T500 up. This pic is in front of my house. I had done some requested work on this bike for Frank to include the upgrade of a GT500 frontend to look close to and similar to the original front end.

Funny, I hadn't even noticed the GT500 front end despite looking at that pic dozens of times in the past weeks. The early styling and color scheme sits well with the more modern stopper.

I like that approach of subtle modification by mixing & matching from the manufacturer's parts bin, it's what people did with their bikes back in the day, and I suppose still do today. Some purists prefer factory-correct originality, I just like to see classics on the road and being used

Such updates are nice to the T500 even though its not original for that year of bike, especially when the brakes and forks work better than the original pathetic ones.
For my 69 MKII I decided to leave it stock in the front end simply to have the bike resemble a stock restored model.
Since the stock front end isn't the best, having it on there will keep me from pushing the bike too hard and regretting I did so.

Suzsmokeyallan wrote:Since the stock front end isn't the best, having it on there will keep me from pushing the bike too hard and regretting I did so.

Amen to that. I'm about 25 years too old for that kind of thing, these days ....

Craig380 wrote:Amen to that. I'm about 25 years too old for that kind of thing, these days ....

Not Me!!! Was draggin' the center stand on the Buff yesterday.

Eric, the Buffalo is a tad better than the early T500 front end, pogo stick fork dampening and shoes that work well for a few good stops, then quickly go away when warmed to beyond their designed limits is the reasoning behind that statement.

I always drag my Buffalo centre stand too, its got some hefty scrapes on the mid bend portions to prove it,

Suzsmokeyallan wrote:Eric, the Buffalo is a tad better than the early T500 front end, pogo stick fork dampening and shoes that work well for a few good stops, then quickly go away when warmed to beyond their designed limits is the reasoning behind that statement.

That's why I make subtle changes in non-descript kind of way. Wouldn't push a stock T500 front end to those limits though I raced a guy that did. Boy was he fast. Figured if he couldn't slow down he would just go faster.