When I bought the Suzuki it was actually a relatively well cared for, running, custom bike already. Not being a big fan of the Bobber look it was going to need some modification, but the overall condition was a good place to start and some of the customization had been done well.
WATCH IT ALL UNFOLD / UNRAVEL ON YOU TUBE
While this was essentially a conversion project from Bobber to Café Racer, it was still quite involved. Not least of all the paint work and preparation for it. The tank had a custom hand painted motif which took some work to remove and other elements proved more difficult than anticipated.
The exhaust was in good condition except the rear custom pieces which were rusty and badly wrapped. Working off the nicely powder coated red wheels as a highlight colour, I went for red exhaust wrap while painting the heat shield plates the same colour as the fuel tank which gave some nice contrast to the chrome.
I followed those colours through several items on the motor and frame, accessories etc. with the cam covers painted the metallic blue, red anodized aluminium foot pegs fitted with a 10-8mm adapter bolt, red anodized rear shock absorbers, handle bar grips and finally the red alcantara like custom café racer seat.
Removing the air box turned out to be an enormously complicated job. Not wanting to drop the whole motor out the frame I ended up hacking it out with a hack saw and found some really nice individual aluminum air pods/trumpets to fit in its place. The internals of the air original filter included a really nice metal mesh container which I cut in half to use as the back light. Of course this included my now "trademark" LED and perspex combo lights.
The tank itself was finally finished and I developed a graphic for the GS 500 which took a while to get created.
All new drop handlebars, grips and levers finished off the front end with a neat little anodized red brake fluid reservoir sat off the speedometer mount just above the brake cylinder. A new throttle twist proved easy to fit.
