Suzuki 2 Strokes

Greetings all
First of all, I would like to thank all of the gurus here for all of their excellent posts. I am continually impressed by the knowledge and helpfulness of everyone here.
My question is this - has anyone here rebuilt a GT550 without the starter & starter drive/clutch? I will be rebuilding my 1974 GT550 (L, I believe) with the early type starter this spring. For my application I don't see the need for the electric starter, and would like to leave the starter drive, etc off, and plug the remaining hole with an aluminum, o-ringed plug. Does anyone here have any experience with this, or see any problems? Especially in relation to the clutch basket? Thanks in advance, Paul

i am putting a 72 together right now without the starter. i am using an expandable rubber freeze plug to plug the hole. i have done this on other motors and it holds up reliably for a long time. i removed the reduction gear that just bolts to the cases under the clutch cover. as far as the large gear on the clutch, the gear can be machined off. the center of it needs to be there as a spacer for the clutch basket to ride against. the whole gear can also can just stay there as is and will not harm anything.

Thanks for the info. I guess that looking at it on the bike I didn't realize that the "clutch" portion of the electric starter drive gear actually supported the clutch basket. When you do yours do you leave the one way "drive" mechanism on the clutch basket, or do you remove it? Thanks, Paul

I rode my 76 550 for an entire summer with a faulty starter, it had a dead short in it.. I just left everything in place and used the kick start.

Kevin

Good to know, Kevin. I thought since I'd have it apart I'd pull everything that wasn't needed for regular operation & the kick start. I looked at Ian's webpage & blog, and was trying to figure out what the impact would be of removing the drive rollers & starter clutch, and also leaving out the starter drive gear. I will probably leave the sleeve in - I guess I'll know more in a couple of weeks, once it's apart. Thanks again, Paul