Suzuki 2 Strokes

some of you may remember my T500 café build. I have less than 100 miles on the bike. It had a brand-new Higgspeed stainless chambers. after this short amount of time, the right mount has cracked and pulled away from the chamber. There is also a split in the chamber as well on that side. I contacted David Higgs from Higgspeed, and he has offered to repair and brace it, but that involves shipping it back to England which will cost a small Fortune. There is a local guy who does pretty good at work that I found for $70 per hour shop rate, I could probably have it fixed here cheaper.

My questions are, should I simply bite the bullet and return to Higgspeed to have him fix it? should I devise some sort of soft mount for the rear chamber mounting spots to alleviate some of the stress? pictures and/or descriptions of ideas would be suggested. Seems like only 100 miles on the bike is way too soon for a crack to occur.

Thank you

Don’t know if this is an issue on your T500, but the Higgspeed bracket for the GT250 has a compatability issue with the T500 rearset. Because of the bends in the Higgspeed bracket you have to put a few washers between the bracket & the rearset mounting plate. If you don’t the mounting plate creates a twisting force on the Higgspeed bracket.

I used the same oil tank on the GT250 cafe project. We are just finishing it up & have a question. How did you connect the oil line to the oil tank?

My oil tank had a fitting on the bottom with barbs on it. See first pic below. I simply pushed the tubing into the fitting.
The other end pushed right into the stock fitting in the oil pump. I basically had an extra banjo fitting laying around from some cracked oil lines that I had. See second pic


IMG_3654 by sbaugz, on Flickr

IMG_3655 by sbaugz, on Flickr

A mate of mine had his T500 (non Higgy) expansion chamber weld detach on the Isle of Man a couple of years ago and we worked out that it could have been;
Poor weld
Poor material
Welder been on the liquor
T500 vibration
All the above
Something else entirely.

Hope this helps.

He now has the broken weld rewelded (brazed) properly, and both sides rubber mounted - hasn't had any further problems.
There could be a clue in the sentence immediately above this one!

Poster been on the liquor again?

sbaugz wrote:My oil tank had a fitting on the bottom with barbs on it. See first pic below. I simply pushed the tubing into the fitting.
The other end pushed right into the stock fitting in the oil pump. I basically had an extra banjo fitting laying around from some cracked oil lines that I had. See second pic


IMG_3654 by sbaugz, on Flickr

IMG_3655 by sbaugz, on Flickr

Thanks. What tubing did you use that’s stretchy enough for the barb and seal on the banjo fitting?

cannot recall which size tubing. It was silicone. Maybe 1/4" or 5/16" I think.

ConnerVT wrote:Poster been on the liquor again?

Not on a thursday.

Just got back from one potential contractor who looked at my chambers. He wanted 5 hours of labor (at least) at $70 per hour to fix my cracked chambers. He wanted to re-fabricate beefier mounts and patch the cracked area. I have no doubt he would do good work, but I am not spending $350 minimum to fix a set of $600 pipes. I probably will shop around for more quotes although my experience thus far has been that nobody wants to mess with stainless. As a last resort, David Higgs has offered to fix them for free, but I have to pay to ship them from the USA to the UK and back, which likely won't be cheap.

I think it is a good policy to always soft mount the rear chamber mounts to allow for vibration .

I'd shop around for a good local TIG welder. Stainless requires an argon purge. Look to a private guy, maybe working out of his garage. $100 and an hour later you are golden. Like others said, rubber mount and no stress on the hangers.

Jimroid wrote:I'd shop around for a good local TIG welder. Stainless requires an argon purge. Look to a private guy, maybe working out of his garage. $100 and an hour later you are golden. Like others said, rubber mount and no stress on the hangers.

Any tips on how specifically you all are rubber mounting?

I have the same question. The rearsets on the T500/GT250 use the same mounting bolt as the chambers. How to you “loosely” mount the exhaust but solidly mount the rearsets?

I copied the way that they are rubber mounted on a TZ, but with cheaper lighter rubber mounts from a CR125. This
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/3226532596 ... dispItem=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
looks like the parts we use. I am about to use my last pair, so I had better check the part number and get some more.


http://www.partzilla.com/parts/detail/h ... 6-000.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

tz375 wrote:I copied the way that they are rubber mounted on a TZ, but with cheaper lighter rubber mounts from a CR125. This
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/3226532596 ... dispItem=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
looks like the parts we use. I am about to use my last pair, so I had better check the part number and get some more.


http://www.partzilla.com/parts/detail/h ... 6-000.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'll have to see if something like that would work. Unfortunately I am somewhat limited as to where I can mount the chambers because of the rearsets so I doubt those parts you link will work