Only there’s a bloke with 2 very old moss covered one’s in his drive. I’m looking for something to tinker on to practise all me class learnt skills from 'lectrics, to suspension and even some welding if I can. I was gonna offer him £100 to take them off his hands, and rebuild them but I wanted to see if there was any “opinion before I did”
I’m guessing the owner liked them enough to have two…but he could just be an utter knobber with no taste…
Aye solid old basic courier machines aren’t they? Must be fairly reliable as loads about! Would imagine perfect for practicing mechanical stuff on, not that I know anything about them. :-S
Read somewhere that they were drive shaft powered like those hunk o’junk off-roaders the MacGregor and Boorman posse played with… never been around a drive shaft… have to learn a bit about that first…
Anyone ever own one of these ?
Whay’s to watch out for?
Which bits are hard to find if replacements are necessary? Believe me, on these two bikes, there’s more moss than leather where the seats should be so some replacements WILL be called for…
Yeap they are shafties alright, well used by the couriers because of that, fairly bullet proof, but if they have been sitting around a while, you might get frustrated… Maybe a few bits here and there, but I reckon nearly all of them will be old and knackered by now.
they go on for miles…cam chains and rings if too many miles only big issues…will look for a report I saw recently about them and provide more info if i can but they are very very long lived machines…excellent engines…go for it and have a tinker great fun anyway…you could have anice street bike or two
Excellent winter bikes, but utterly worthless now. They are normally bullet proof, and pretty crash proof as well… shaft drive and very simple to work on. Mate of mine just sold a GT750 with 35k on the clock for £400. If I’d had the space I would have bought it…
It is basically a GPZ550 with shaft drive. Launched in 1983 there were loads of them in the mid to late 80’s often as courier bikes. They had a reputation for being completely bullet proof, I knew of ones that had gone to over 50,000 with no problems and some couriers got over 250,000 miles out of them.
I have owned two , many years ago and generaly agree with the previous statements , but to ‘rebuild’ from that condition will incure more exspence
than the bike is worth so buy them for the practice in tinkering or for spares but not as a project .
Done it again!!! have to stop coming in from the pub and going on the 'family ’ pc… [ zeph11 ]
See boys, THAT’s the kind of useful feedback I was lookin for…
Cheers all. Haven’t found the bloke yet, but like I said they are utterly chunked… and the idea was for practising the “reconstruction” skills I’m learning. Sounds like there’s plenty of them out htere toscavange for parts… might check out eBay next and see if the obvious bits I KNOW I’ll need are around and what I’ll be paying for them if I do…
Keep youse all informed of my amazingly “fast lane” life-style!
Hehe yeah we had a guy at the uni bike club that could, he fitted stronger clutch springs on it, and lifted it most of the way on the rideouts!! until he wheelied it into the back of a van…ooops
