Were T500 Cylinders ever black?

[smokin_blue]

Last winter I purchased a "1973" T500 that I am now starting to work on. Well it is a '73 by frame. The engine seems to be a 1972 based on number and carbs. My question is did Suzuki ever put out a T500 with black cylinders? - by that I mean the cooling fins. Or would this one have to have been painted.

[ConnerVT]

Painted. By 1972-3, Suzuki wasn't making any changes to the T500.

[netbikes]

I have seen (in my hands) NOS T350 cylinders painted black.

[GT750Battleship]

Hi,Suzuki never painted the motors black back in the day..if you have one painted black,it's down to a previous owner
Cheers,
Roger

[old racer]

What Roger said.

[netbikes]

sorry guys, it was def factory, out of sealed box, but you don't have to believe me, I am just saying what I know, I bought it form a Suzuki dealer here about 10 years ago.

[GT750Battleship]

The only Suzuki bikes with black painted engines back in the day were full on trail/dirt bikes !!
please see the old "My Suzuki Pages" on the Web,as a reference
Cheers,
Roger

[diamondj]

I wonder if the T350 cylinders Chris had were really TC350 or TC305 cylinders?

Or perhaps Australian market versus US market differences?

Jim

[netbikes]

We got a hi pipe T250 here but it had alloy colour barrels, we never got any bikes that had black barrels to my knowledge. It may have been a foreign market like Russia or similar, or special for the army or something like that. It had 315 on the barrel, I blasted the paint off it and used it on one of my builds. I thought about painting the other barrel but the NOS one had that really nice baked on factory look and I didn't think I could replicate it at the time, still probably not

I also bought once from a swap meet a set of heads for T250 that had angled fins like the T350, they came from a Euro market GT250 which looks identical to the 71 T350, I didn't know they existed at the time I bought the heads. A few foreign market parts sneek in sometimes I guess.

[old racer]

There's a possibility that they painted some spares stock,
But i have never seen a new showroom bike with black cylinders,
That's why my answer was no.