Suzuki 2 Strokes

I am currently in the process of taking my ‘70 T350 apart and cleaning EVERYTHING, then reassemble it. It’s in fair shape with no rust at all. I figured a total clean up on it would be much, much cheaper than restoring it. I also have a parts bike to use to my advantage.

First off, the seat cushioning is halfway gone, and I planned to use some foam and vinyl laying around to make a cheap but comfortable seat. It will only be temporary, as I will eventually get it done professionally.

I also picked up a new old stock gasket set at a swap meet not too long ago, already got the engine torn apart. The cylinders look good as well as the piston and piston rings, and wrist pin bearings are in acceptable shape. I’m going to take the heads and flatten the mating surfaces on a glass pane and varying grits of wet sandpaper. The mating surface on the bottom of the cylinders may need it as well.

For a little bit of backstory, this was my dads bike that he’s had since the mid 80’s and at some point he or the previous owner(s) removed the fuse holders and straight wired it. What a knucklehead thing to do. Anyways, i’m going to fix that and use what materials I have to make it functional. While I’m at it i’ll probably coat the battery box in spray-on bed liner for truck beds to prevent any further rotting of the thin metal. It won’t be seen anyway, so why not?

So, now that you’ve got a small hint of my plans for it, I’d love to have some advice from the more experienced in 2 strokers. I have a various parts for it and I want to use the best parts I have in reassembly. My bike ran before I started to clean it, but i’m still curious if I could make it even better. I’d really like to know if I could test the points and condenser to see if my parts bike’s PaC is in better condition. It produces an okay spark but is not as good as i’ve seen on similar bikes, so that could be caused from worn PaC or the patched together wiring. Could be both, who knows?

I want to keep this detailed clean up job relatively cheap, since I don’t have many greenies in my wallet. Keep that in mind if you send any advice. For those who took a minute out of their day to read and/or respond, thanks. I’m very grateful that this helpful forum exists and i’m a part of it.

hi mate, if there's no lip at the top of the barrels, then fit new rings, but remember they will need running in. if there is a lip there then it probably needs a rebore. you could of course keep using the old rings until they are totally worn out, but don't mix them up if you remove them. i would certainly replace the little end bearings, wrist pins - as you lot call them - and the piston circlips as a matter of course. they are cheap enough though
cheers, dd.
p.s. when you fit the base gaskets put a smear of grease either side of them. the same goes for the paper carb gaskets.

Sounds like a good project, best of luck with the clean up!

The wiring on my '69 T350 was also a bit of a mess from the previous owner(s), spliced together, wrong ignition swtich, etc. I found most of the original connectors that I needed from a nice business in Oregon called Vintage Connections (http://vintageconnections.com/). They sell new bullet-style crimp-on terminals, plus the old plastic connector housings used on our bikes if you need to refurbish your existing harness.

However, if you don't want the hassle, or you need a total gut-job like I did eventually, I can recommend an eBay seller SuzukiSimon (https://www.ebay.com/usr/suzukisimon) that sold me a newly manufactured main harness for my bike that worked perfectly. At the time, he was selling harnesses for the Mk-II bikes as well, very reasonable price of around $100 if I remember right.

@dollydog thanks much. You can barely see a ring ridge in the cylinder walls but you can’t tell there’s one if you run a fingernail across them. Good enough for me. The service manual states it should have 8.5 kg/m² of compression pressure, in Imperial terms around 120.9 PSI, and both cylinders are reading 119-121. As for wrist pins, just ordered a pair that comes with bearings and snap rings for 30 bucks. Not bad.

Great idea about the grease for the gaskets. On another note, since it’s SO imperative that 2 stroke crankcase gaskets must be flawless, I’m going to put a coat of rtv on both sides of the case gaskets as a extra help.

@jsjays1, thanks as well. The wiring on mine is fixable with a little patience. The black harness sheath was badly dry rotted and split in several places when I took it off of the the frame. First off, I heated the bent sections of the harness up with the trusty ole’ propane torch and bend it straight but I still managed to split the dry rotted harness sheath. It’s not a necessary part, but it’s best for the bike to be as close to factory as possible. I’m going replace the sheath with one that looks very similar, and even put the piece of paper with the model number back on for obvious reasons.

I’d say the wiring that was on yours was much, much worse than mine. The only visible issues with mine is the fuse is gone, a few poorly spliced wires (comedic examples, positive battery terminal is 5% red and 95% black and negative terminal has 4 splices in it), a spark plug wire has a lawn mower terminal on it, headlight wires are soldered right to the lamp. None of those would take long to fix. I’ll keep you guys updated on how it’s going.

Here’s a before and after I got it running after sitting for 30 years and did a little bit of cleanup.

(edited) It won’t let me upload pictures from anywhere I try. Oh well.