MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Photos and progress of your restorations, even bikes you had but no longer own.

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akendall1966
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MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by akendall1966 »

Hi folks just joined the forum as I have aquired a 1970 MkIII Titan project. Last Suzuki / Jap smoker I owned was a GP100 at 17! Current near complete project is a 58 Greeves, so not expecting to much other than research and collect any bits I stumble accross until the Autunm.

The T500 is a US import from Colorado and the headstock plate dates it as a July 1970 build showing 10K miles. Externally is reasonably solid, and complete. Engine turns over freeley with compression, gears select. So hopefully a reasonable starting point. The bad bits forks are bent (but front wheel aqppear undamged), all the cable outers and most rubber is perished. Wiring is a bit hacked about too.

Anyway its back to school for the old girl next as she needs to pass the 3R's ............ Running; Ridable; Registered. After that lets see where to take her...

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Re: MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by titan performance »

Good looking starting point. Is it going back to standard?
Keeping old 2 strokes alive !
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akendall1966
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Re: MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by akendall1966 »

titan performance wrote:Good looking starting point. Is it going back to standard?
Mostly yes - if it were a later year I would be tempted to go for a Cafe Racer akin to your great looking machines. But I like lines of the tank on the MKIII so I am thinking, more stock with GT550/750 front end and modern electrics so it is a reliable and usable bike for current traffic conditions. I have recently sold my modern bikes (Triumph tiger and Daytona), and have convinced myself until the kids are older touring / days out on the bike isn't going to happen so why have a modern bike deprecating mostly sat in the garage. When hopefully I can have this one holding its value and the few hours a weeks I get to ride will be all the more pleasurable for being on something different.
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Re: MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by diamondj »

Looks like a nice starting point. If it's missing the single year tank rack, Johnakay here on the board can supply you with a nicely made copy:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=4055

oh and there is a page by page scan of the factory service manual here:

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Jim
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akendall1966
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Re: MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by akendall1966 »

Well curiosity took over so I dived into the engine to see what I have got to work with.
On the plus side transmission side is quite clean and despite being an unmodified 1200cc oil capacity, the gears look to be in good order.

One of the upper crankcase screws has rusted and sheared with next to no torque. Theres a bit of it left proud of the surface so hopefuly I can weld a nut on it and extract it withou too much bother.

With only 10K miles showing I had hoped I might get away with only freshening up the seals on the crank.

Mkae you're own mind up but I think this is the sound of money leaving my wallet in large denominations. :(

http://youtu.be/3od7MYQHt5c

Reminds me of the FS1E I had at 16, mains were so shot in that thing my old mum could hear me comming home from work and boil the kettle have a cup of tea waiting by the time I got in the house.

As TR500.co.uk are only 30 mins away, I guess I'll be paying them a vist shortly!!
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akendall1966
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small job = progress

Post by akendall1966 »

The shifter shaft was damaged on the LH side so much so, I had to saw it off to get the transmission cover off. NOS replacement sourced, but was the later type with the RH side splines deleted. No worries had some good splines on the RH side off the dmaged one.

Drilled; tapped and counter bored the end of the new shaft. Truing it up in the 4 jaw for concentricity. Choped off the splines from the old shaft a turn down a stepped spiggot threading it M6 to match the shaft, and a light interferance on the 8mm portion.
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Assembled with some high-strength threadlock, and a polish with some wet and dry....

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Witness line should be out board of the seal lip, but flush to the seal face so not too visable. Eventually will pick up the cover for it so it will be a mute point then.

Typically having done this I look on ebay and someone has listed a used early shaft here in the UK. Still at least and hour spent in the garage this evening has turned what had been a uninspiring day at work into the warm glow of self satisfaction of having achived something pleasing :up:

PS: Credit to oldjapanesebikes whose idea I pinched for this :clap:
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Re: small job = progress

Post by oldjapanesebikes »

akendall1966 wrote:PS: Credit to oldjapanesebikes whose idea I pinched for this :clap:
Thank you ! Nice bit of work you did there ! :up: :up:
Ian

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akendall1966
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Re: MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by akendall1966 »

Got the fork tubes back from hard chroming and grinding yesterday, after what seemed like forever. But it means a small milestone reached the old girl is back on her 2 wheels for the first time since about last November.

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Lets see if I can get to rider her before the summers passes by.



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Re: MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by rngdng »

It's obvious that you have the required skills to make it a stunner. Keep us posted.


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akendall1966
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Re: MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by akendall1966 »

More progress.... 2nd batch of chrome is back and mostly fitted. Been busy rewiring and modernising the electrics. Picked up a nice original side pannel having sold on the incorrect Cobra one that it arrived with. Under the blue of the tank was evidence of having been green, so I have a colour pattern now.
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Headlight rim had a nasty dent did a repair but not worth investing in chroming it, so I pwder coated it black, can be swapped out for a better one in the future.
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Fabricated a tray to hold the electrics, added relays to switch main power; lights; dip & main taking the strain off 40 year old switches. Neat little 4 fuse block converts it over to modern balde fuses. Electronic flasher realy so I can go LED lamps if I wish. You can't see it but underneath is a nice new single phase rec/reg. Attached to the battery tray is the electronic ignition box.

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Here are the pick-ups mounted on some plates that reuse the points mountings features. Need to fabricate the rotor once the motor is back togather and I can figure out how it should fit.
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Re: MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by titan performance »

Coming together nicely. It's going to be a beauty !
Keeping old 2 strokes alive !
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akendall1966
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Switch fix

Post by akendall1966 »

Had a crack at fixing my knackered LH handle bar switch mechinism. One of the switch levers was broken. So I dissasembled it to see what could be done.

The switch uses a steel ball bearing and spring as a dentent to hold position, these were rusted and siezed in both the broken and complete switch. Also the switch contacts were cracked in two.

1st Job, the levers, luckly working in engineering I have access to CAD so made a 3D model of the switch, leaving out the fine detail as intent was to give 3D printing a shot.
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Next was to fabricate a contact board from some double sided copper clad board.
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After etching and tinning the contacts (with a bit of dremel work as I had some residual copper where i didint want it)
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Levers arrived, slightly disapoint the 'black' material is only white dyed black from shapeways, we'll see how it wears. 5/32" Delrin balls and stainless springs replace the rusty steel one. The lolipop stick is an improvised assembly tool 8) . Pic shows the brass contacts that sit on the springs, opposite end to the balls
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I had made up new pins in brass as I had some 4mm rod already. Steel would haved rivited better I think and I left a little too much material proud to the board as well. So not as neat as I would have liked to will do the job.
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Result is an electrically functioning switch with a nice positive click. Hope by the end of the weekend it will be wired in as that means the electrics are all done and ready to test.
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akendall1966
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Re: MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by akendall1966 »

Switch finished and wired in.

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Powered up on a bench power supply and all seems good, hooked up the electronic ignition to the laptop and fired off a few sparks just for the fun of it. and could trigger off the pick up coil pass a screwdriver past the pole piece.
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akendall1966
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Re: MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by akendall1966 »

It's a miserable cold wet day, so good excuse to stay in the warm and post an update:

Engine is back in the frame, and the electronic ignition is fitted and working.
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Looking more and more like a motorcycle again...
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Needs paint and indicators back from chroming, otherwise I have everything on hand now to finish the job.
I had 2 good, and 2 leaky check valves, so I though I'd have a go at refurbing before buying replacements. Made a lapping jig to reface the seats.
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Still leaked so made some new seats, along with new SS316 balls. Here is my test jig.
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I run 2 tests, a vacuum test to measure the cracking point, and then leave them with the feed side connected to a tube of oil at a static head of about 2x the height of the oil tank if full. They all leak some, but by the drop in level in the tube, I am around 0.4cc in 24 hours, but rate seems to slow or stop after this amount is lost. They all hold -120~140 mm/Hg vacuum, about -2.5~2.7 psi. I use a brake bleeder to pull the vacuum and measure.
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Been playing around with the idea of making up new replacement oil lines as mine are quite hard and I fear brittle. Here some pics of a rough prototype, tubes are too long at the moment. I am trying 6mm tube between the pump and splitter as I can get banjos that fit 6mm tube so saves making a fitting for the old suzuki pump banjos. Early days but promising so far, going to soak this one in oil to test the bonding out a bit more. Currently if I pull test the bond, the tube yeilds before the joint, so if it holds up after soaking we're good. I'll add the radius to the splitter so they fit the cover in the final version, as I said just rough prototype for now :D
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I have posted elsewhere, but have been converting my headlamp to a more modern buld too.
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Hope to be making smoke (good smoke not fires :shock: ) before Jan is done.

AK
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akendall1966
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Re: MkIII T500 restore & Intro.

Post by akendall1966 »

It lives!

Got to make some smoke today as I go the the bike running, not well but running at least

Short video of the moment https://youtu.be/kjp5vlPWw9M

Before this got my home made oil lines done, pretty pleased with the result and with having refurbed the check valves leak free too.
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Jigged them up on a spare crankcase, and used a hot air gun to soften the tube to set the shape in.
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Made a few spares too, while I was about it :D
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