Just bought a 1969 t500 project bike

[titan performance]

Frank....that's a beauty !

[Coyote]

Not saying this is so, but it's possible that somebody replaced the stock pistons and rings with Wiseco pistons with dykes style rings. They were the hot ticket in the day. Dykes rings have very little compression till the bike fires.

[1969suzi500]

Coyote, thanks for the heads up.. i"ll have to open her up and find out. A little update of the work i was doing on it last night. I'm taking Pedros advice and cutting the forks myself. Here are some pictures. I am also including a picture of the front drum. It seems to me to be in good shape. What do you guys think?

[titan performance]

Steve, your brake hub looks all good. But to be honest, if there is a problem, it is more often than not in the hub. They have been known to wear off centre, which gives a horrible jerky action when the brake is applied. You may not be able to detect the fault until you ride the bike down the road. Hopefully yours will be fine, but if not, the machine shops we have approached, need the hub stripped from the wheel in order to true it.
Fingers crossed yours is ok !

[1969suzi500]

Titan thanks for the heads up. I want to restore the wheels completely, maybe now is the time to get it machined and take care of all of that. Yes its an a65... Thats my brothers. its actually been hardtailed. He bought it that way.

[1969suzi500]

I remembered a few more questions. 1. What do you guys recomend for rust removal? for the tanks and miscellaneous parts? 2.
Does anyone have an extra bolt (the one that goes at the top of the forks) that they want to sell? 3. how do i know on this particular bike when i need to get new seals on the forks?

[1969suzi500]

Check out this article i found in "the horse" magazine

[1969suzi500]

I bet you thought I forgot about the project, well no. I just ran out of money and time, but I'm back at it. I've come across new problems (expected from a bike that had been standing for over 20 years). One of the forks was completely rusted inside. So that means I need new forks, but my attention has shifted to getting the bike running.I cleaned out both tanks with muriatic acid and unfortunately the oil tank had to much rust to salvage. As I was figuring out what tank to buy or make, it dawned on me that I could make it per mix and save some weight that way. The only problem is that I don't know exactly what I have to do to the crankcase to do so. The article on ozebook.com doesn't go into details on how to do it and I can't find much else online so I was hoping someone can give me an idea of how to do this and if it is even recommended.

Thanks and greetings from sunny California!

[desmocat]

And here is my inspiration.

That photo was the inspiration for my race T500.