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The bike had been slung to the back of the garage many years ago. The guy hadn't even bothered to clean the mud off when it'd seized up. He wanted a hundred notes but I bargained him down to sixty quid. No point throwing money away, was there?
The SP was a tall, thin and light bike that fitted neatly in the back of my mate's pick-up. The kids were set to work with a couple of wire-brushes and tin of Gunk. Child exploitation? You've got to be kidding, they're motorcycle maniacs, impossible to keep them off the old wreck! I promised them some lessons when they were older.
All the cycle parts and frame were taken down to the bare metal. The engine was stripped down, a piston ring gummed up in its groove; the bore revived with a honing tool attached to my Black & Decker. The only new part I had to buy was the piston ring! The crankshaft was in perfect nick, the cam-lobes only mildly scruffed.
New cables were made up with my kit, secondhand tyres fitted to the large and narrow rims and the small drum brakes cleaned out (the shoes still had plenty of meat). New oil, a complete tune-up and a used battery I had to hand, plus the obligatory respray from my electric spray gun - you can get a good finish if you work at it but the nozzle can become all gunged up.
And the final touch, the rusted out exhaust patched up with the welding gun - easy to melt the whole thing if the metal's gone too thin. If you can do most of the work yourself, the cost of a complete rebuild need not be great. And it's a good lesson for the kids to see that an old wreck can be revived rather than merely chucked in the nearest canal or skip. A dose of harsh reality never did me any harm, anyway.
The great day dawned. The Suzuki didn't want to come to life until I'd heated up the spark plug and nearly wore out my knee on the kickstart. With the almost straight through exhaust, she came to life with a lovely blare that set off my neighbour's house alarm and had his Dobberman in a veritable frenzy. As I'd had to build an eight foot wall to keep the beast out of my garden, I smiled in revenge. The top end rattled heavily and there was a little bit of blue smoke out of the silencer, but the motor soon settled down to a gentle tickover.
The first ride was pretty weird. The frame felt a bit bent, or something, but in the end I figured it was just the trail geometry and sheer lightness of the bike - I was putting too much input into the bars, causing it to career off too heavily. The engine needed a bit of revving to shift, seemed about equal to the milder four stroke 250 twins up to 75mph. Thereafter, it gasped rather than ran strongly but then it was an old, tired motor that had seen better days. Almost like its rider, sad to say!
After becoming used to its ways, I decided the bike was ideal for throwing through the heavy Brum traffic. The front brake wasn't really up to the job, but it had cost so little that even if I hit something it wouldn't be a major disaster. It turned in a reasonable 70mpg and didn't seem to wear out any of its consumables over the next 9000 miles. Starting was often frustrating and it'd sometimes stall when waiting at junctions and refuse to go bang-bang for a good ten minutes! Luckily, there were never any big hammers to hand or I would've done for it.
Then, in the summer of 1996, I decided a bit of off-road work would be fun. My mate had a DR350, knew the score. So it happened that I found myself charging down a dirt track at about 40mph, trying to keep the bastard in sight. I was thinking that the rough stuff wasn't that hard to master when the track swerved - lumbering out of the bend with the back wheel trying to come around to the front, I spied a rather large fallen tree in my path.
Snapping the SP upright, I saw that there was a thick branch I could whiz up and then launch myself off the top of the trunk. Piece of piss, thought I. The next thing I knew I had the SP in my lap, embedded as I was deep in the tree's foliage. The branch was so slippery that the SP had just flipped off the side of it! My mate found the whole thing absolutely hilarious but he stopped the laughter long enough to pull the suddenly heavy Suzuki off me. As I'd broken its fall, the bitch was without injury. After that I gave up on the rough adventures, not wanting to break either my bones or the SP's chassis.
A little while after that near disaster, the SP began to smoke heavily. The exhaust valve's rocker was a funny shape. I couldn't find a cheap replacement, so had it built up with weld and machined. As an OHC thumper it's pretty easy to work on and service, but all the components appeared heavily stressed, not helped by quite a lot of vibration that was directly proportional to the revs. One reason the fuel was so good was that there wasn't an engine balancer - my mate's DR350 was doing 45mpg at similar kinds of speeds!
The trail side of the bike was a bit of a pain on the road. The guards didn't keep the crud off the rider, the seat height left me splattered in the cold and wet, and the knobbly tyres squirmed on slippery road surfaces, but as it was a cheap hack I wasn't too keen on actually spending any money on it. My spray job, by then, was showing signs of peeling paint and emerging rust, whilst all the original alloy was well gone with the grey rot. I didn't have that much faith in the longevity of the motor, the clock reading 41,500 miles. Run it into the ground, thought I.
Some three months later it seized up solid, just over 45000 miles under its wheels. Not bad going. I pulled the motor out to have a look at the damage, but this time the main bearings were loose as well as large grooves in the bore. The once slick gearbox had also gone as bad as a new Honda's, which turned out to be slightly bent selectors. All in all, there wasn't much left in the engine that could be salvaged.
The brake shoes were finally down to the rivets, the final drive chain had about a two-thirds of the intended links and the knobblies were showing their carcass! I hadn't replaced any of them, was quite surprised by their survival. The rust on the cycle parts wasn't that deep
At this point, one of the kids bought a banana shaped GS125. He hinted that with a bit of work, someone with my renown talents for bodging, could combine the two! I demurred until I worked out that it was a lot cheaper than buying the lad a bike to learn on, and then it could be passed down the family as they came of an age.
The SP's long stroke engine takes up a lot more space than the compact GS125's but it wasn't too much work to fit the latter into the trailster's frame. Patched up the paint, another set of used tyres, new brake shoes and chain/sprocket set had the bugger all set for the road.
It just showed how worn the old SP's engine had become, up to 60mph I couldn't find much difference in the performance of the new 125cc engined hack, though I'd tweaked it a little bit by jetting up to suit its straight thru silencer and open carb...it's so useful I'm not sure I want to hand it over to my son when he's 17.
Tony Bell
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This affair with an SP400 began when I required a cheap way of commuting to work. A Honda C50 might've been the sensible way to go but a reasonable SP came up in the local paper before I had a chance to buy one. A few cosmetic bits were missing off the 1980 model (this being 1989) but it sounded good and nearly looped the loop when I gave it a bit of throttle on an enthusiastic take-off. The deal was done.
I should say that my only previous big bike was a Honda CB250 Superdream, so just about any motorcycle would've been an improvement. The SP400 has a pretty basic engine with only a kickstart for starting. There's an automatic decompressor built into the head, but it didn't help much, it still needed a hefty kick. The kickstart was perfectly placed for a seven foot giant but I often came close to falling over in a heap. Starting was an acquired art that I eventually mastered after about two months.
The other unexpected nastiness was the gearchange which became reluctant to engage any gears beyond third. Adjusting the chain helped slightly but it still needed an ultra slow action with a fifty-fifty chance of ending up in a false neutral. Power wasn't the seamless lunge of energy that old codgers raved about (on British singles) but almost up to the level of blandness attained by the Superdream. It needed much throttle and gearbox action to move reasonably, but the gearbox wasn't up to that. I began to suspect that the 19,400 miles on the mileometer was a blatant falsehood.
It wasn't all bad. The SP was ideally set up for hacking through Manchester traffic. Long travel suspension dealt with the road ruts whilst the trail biased steering geometry meant that virtually no effort was needed to twirl the SP through the cars. The initial feeling of low speed top heaviness soon dissipated, it was really just the lightness of the steering making it appear mildly twitchy. The 75mpg fuel economy brought a smile to my face, although the small petrol tank meant that the range was poor.
Two things spoilt town riding for me. The first was the tiny SLS front drum that refused to work with any efficiency. I know proponents of drum brakes proclaim improved efficiency in the wet due to superior feel, but this didn't work for the SP as both drums filled up with water! They became completely naff then. Engine braking was useful but I often had to career around obstacles rather than chance my life to the brakes. The shoes still had plenty of life so I just had to suffer them.
The other bit of piggery was the way the engine would stall dead at low revs for no apparent reason. With the awkwardly placed kickstart this left me in some very precarious situations. A new spark plug every 500 miles solved it but only after I'd tried a couple of other remedies to no effect. I thought I'd stumbled on the cure when I found the carb full of crud but it just made starting slightly easier after I'd cleaned it out.
I'd also found that the exhaust valve was miles out but, again, the engine just carried on running as before. Good for about 90mph flat out, it would cruise at 70 to 80mph if I didn't mind getting into a contorted riding position. The whole thing waltzed on suspension that lacked damping above 60mph, so I was happy enough to keep to town riding.
Just as well, as the front headlamp was fickle and only had enough light to indicate that I was coming. Blown bulbs from the vibes that the thumper gave out were sadly not a rarity. The engine had not a balancer in sight but the vibration was no worse than a knackered Superdream (which had two chain driven balancers). At least I didn't have to bother with the monthly Superdream chore of adjusting the balance chain tensioner.
I became quite enamoured of the SP despite its many faults. The bike still looked quite butch, sounded lovely with its thumper burble and ran rings around most other traffic in town. This easy manoeuvrability often made me forget myself, slogging along through the traffic gaps like some young hoodlum. It responded much quicker to inputs than the Superdream.
It took about three months and 1500 miles before something went wrong. The kickstart ratchet broke, the only way the SP would start was with a back breaking bump. The local back street merchant found the bits in a breaker and fitted them for 25 quid, so it wasn't an expensive proposition. During the four weeks when all I could do was run and leap on the SP I realised how unfit I had become. Too much beer in the evenings had done for me. I soon got back to the beer when the bike was fixed.
The next little hurdle was the MOT test. I thought it might fail on the brakes but instead some tiny holes in the exhaust system were its downfall. It was the original system, albeit in matt black and rust. I know how finicky Japanese bikes can be about exhausts, so didn't really want to experiment by shoving on a different silencer. The MOT tester offered to weld it up for £15, which was either kind of him or a bit of a rip-off, but I gave in. I couldn't think of a cheaper way of fixing it. Within a month more holes appeared but I didn't replace it until nearly ten months later.
Another four months of playful abuse went by with nothing more than normal maintenance. Then I noticed that the exhaust valve was going wildly out of adjustment. Soon, if it was tightening up every day, a terrible hammering noise was given off. The hardening on the rocker had worn through. By the time I replaced it one half of the rocker had almost disappeared and there were deep score marks in the camshaft lobe. I got lucky with a whole cylinder head from breaker for £15. Yep, parts up here are a hell of a lot cheaper than down south. I had a peak at the bore whilst I was at it, but it looked like new.
About a week after the engine was rebuilt, I was throwing the bike through the traffic in my normal, exuberant manner, when there was a large explosion and the back wheel locked up solid. The drive chain had snapped. I knew I shouldn't have kept taking links out of it, but the SP was very heavy on chains and I was too mean to keep buying it a new one every 6000 miles. After pushing the bike five miles I had learnt my lesson the hard way.
The chain apart, it was very cheap to run. Frugal on fuel, the brake shoes, perhaps because they didn't work well, never seemed to wear and the cheap trail tyres I threw on lasted 15 to 18000 miles. Even the oil level stayed constant between 1500 mile changes. The bike spent most of its life in town, out of town work might've been harder on consumables but it is basically a light, low powered motorcycle so there's no real excuse for conspicuous consumption.
For the next year and half, about 18000 miles (the speedo cables snap quite frequently so exact mileages are not possible), the SP ran like it manufacturer had intended with only a few minor bits replaced. That put more than 40,000 miles on the clock, which the engine took as a sign to demand a new camchain and tensioner. The Suzuki dealer was suitably amused that such an old bike was still running, but the bits were in my grimy hands within the week. Don't know who was more surprised, myself or the dealer.
I celebrated by giving the frame and tank a respray, rust having become their predominant feature. Bright red on both looked the business but showed up the rest of the bike, especially the rusted wheel spokes. Matt black paint helped; a little and only for a while. The addition of a big handlebar fairing, courtesy of the breaker, did wonders for my circulation in deepest, darkest winter. I even rode the bike on snow and ice covered roads!
Time and mileage finally caught up with the Suzuki at around 50,000 miles. The engine knocked like a pile-driver, the exhaust smoked like a stroker in its death-throes and almost every bearing in the chassis suddenly realised they were into serious overtime without pay.
I didn't begrudge the bike its symptoms of old age. Far from it, the SP had given splendid service for longer than I'd expected. It had, after all, only cost a few hundred quid and saved me a bundle compared with using a car or public transport. I was so impressed, I bought a low mileage example of its successor - a DR350. The SP isn't dead yet, it's in a hundred bits awaiting its resurrection.
H.L.J.
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Wheelies! That's what the DR seemed to be all about. With 16000 miles done when I bought it, the clutch was rather vicious. Every time I took off from a standstill the bike bolted forward, the front wheel waggling in the air, a couple of feet off the ground. A much modified exhaust and open Amal carb, large enough for a thumper of twice the capacity, made a wicked noise.
It also made the engine sulk below 3000rpm, roar from then on to about 4500rpm when the real power punched in. The grunt of a big single on cam has to be experienced, a large dollop of torque that hit me in the pit of the stomach, especially when the chassis had been worked over to the extent that the DR400S weighed less than 300lbs.
It was still in trail form as I live out in the country and enjoy the odd blast across fields or through forests. The DR was wearing Avon Gripsters, which were a bit more road oriented than I would have liked, but they were relatively cheap and lasted for ages. They didn’t like mud very much, clogging up and slithering all over the place, but on dry tracks they were tolerable. The faster I rode the better they became, which was just as well as the motor all but refused to run below 3000rpm.
The big Amal carb had come off some old British single, been refurbished, but only rarely ran cleanly at low revs, despite much fiddling with jets and slides. Once some serious revs were up, though, power flowed freely and in abundance. As might be imagined, starting a cold engine could be traumatic - I often had to heat a spark plug up and jiggle it in melting hands until it was put home. The decompressor valve helped with the amount of effort needed on the kickstart lever, but it took half a dozen kicks to fire up.
Starting a hot engine was a bit easier; just as well, as the motor would often stall in traffic, the cause of maximum embarrassment. I often ended up doing a bump start, as it was quicker than pissing around with the kickstart. It was so light, and lacked any dragging disc brakes, that a bump start was really no great inconvenience.
Running turned interesting in the dark when the ever so minimal lights gave the electrical system severe convulsions. It was often necessary to blip the throttle to 5000rpm to stop the engine stalling, which in turn solved the paucity of electricity hitting the ignition circuit by blowing the light bulbs. I didn't quite see it in that benevolent way, cursing the machine for hours afterwards. The electrics were a mere six volts and the tiny battery lasted hardly any longer than my patience.
Further amusement was added when the DR did the usual Suzuki trick of burning out its rectifier. The first hint was obscured by the aforementioned trait, I thought it was just the vibration that was blowing the bulbs....I eventually sussed the cause when the bike went completely dead in the middle of a particularly mad farmer's field. Pushing the DR back out was hard work, but the adrenalin rush of sighting a couple of wolf-sized dogs rushing across the field helped. I made it with moments to spare, slamming the gate on the foaming at the mouth monsters. To see me on my way, the farmer let loose both barrels of his shotgun over my head.
I had my revenge, once the electrics were revived, by riding past his farm house at two o'clock in the morning. I could almost see his windows rattling as I revved to 7000rpm and the front door seemed to be buckling as the dogs tried to head-butt their way out. I left there on the back wheel with the dogs yapping around my head until I hit second gear and left them eating my exhaust fumes. After that little adventure I stayed away for a couple of months because I was damn sure he was going to ambush me.
Such antics were always a bit fraught with terrible possibilities. As well as the lights blowing the throttle cable could snap, however well it was routed and greased, leaving me with a dead motor, easy fodder for whoever I was annoying. To match the carb with the twistgrip I had to make up the cables myself - I was obviously missing some important point in the art of soldering. They rarely lasted for more than a 1000 miles.
Recently, the carb has taken to flooding in town, covering the engine in petrol. One imbecile threw a fag out of his window as I was trying to stem the flow. Whoosh! Almost took my eyebrows off! I ran away from the bike, not wanting to go up in flames as well, caught up with the cager who was stalled in traffic, and gave his tin box a good kicking. The fire had quickly gone out, it just caught the surface petrol, even the HT lead was still okay. Much fiddling with the float height and cleaning stopped it from happening more than once a month.
By the time I'd started the bike the cager had found a cop. They were walking towards me, requiring a swift U-turn through a very narrow gap in traffic, something that the DR managed with stunning ease. It was also good at hopping up on to pavements and the long travel suspension was able to soak up the deepest of pot-holes, even if at speed the handlebars would twitch a few times. Overall, the DR was an immensely comfortable town bike.
Another quirk of the DR, and I guess most big singles, is that when riding along at a decent clip the engine will go completely dead when the fuel runs out. No warning cough, by the time reserve is found the chances are that some cagers will have flattened the stalled machine. When that happened to me, I usually hit the horn and headed for the side of the road rather than pissing about with the reserve tap.
I usually kept an eagle eye on the mileometer, the bike averaging 70mpg. This was fine until the speedo cable broke, the connection at the wheel breaking off when I tried to pull it off; it was beyond reclamation. Thereafter I had to keep filling up the tank at every opportunity to avoid the stalled motor horrors when on the open road. In town, there was a bit of misfiring just before the engine went dead, so there was a reasonable chance of getting to the reserve tap in time.
The chassis was mildly modded, about the only weak spot the swinging arm, whose bearings lasted little more than 4000 miles. The DR was never entirely stable, down to its long travel suspension bouncing about but when the bearings went the back wheel slewed back and forth like a rat trying to shake off a hungry cat. So frequent were the bearing changes that the swinging arm spindle always popped out with just the slightest of blows from my hammer.
The DR's age was shown in its tiny drum brakes, which looked no bigger than those I had on my old FS1E moped (remember them?) and proved just as prone to fade. They were nicely sensitive off-road, when a locked up front wheel would've hurt, but riding through a minimal stream filled the drums full of water. A design fault that turned up on wet roads, when the braking disappeared altogether. I had to rely on engine braking, which was so fierce that clumsy downchanges would lock the back wheel up much more solidly than the back drum ever managed. I became so pissed off with the front brake that I ended up fitting a whole front end off an XT600 that had blown up its engine. God, that front disc was incredible, I nearly cartwheeled down the road the first time I used it in anger.
With some proper braking I was able to explore the engine's power to the full. 95mph turned out to be the maximum speed. Not that it was much fun, the whole bike shaking like some ancient washing machine filled full of ball bearings. With the trail bars not much more than 75mph was comfortable for more than a few minutes, even at that velocity there was quite a bit of vibration getting through.
At 28000 miles the valves started tightening up causing the performance to do a runner. I'd always given them a cursory look over every 5000 miles but they hadn't needed any attention until then. I set them up and it was back to business. A slight top end rattle is perfectly normal, the best way to check that the piston and valves are okay is to look for smoke in the exhaust and the engine breather.
I found out that the chassis was pretty tough when the rear drum seized on solid. A combination of worn out shoes and spindles. As it happened on a patch of gravel, the back wheel spun around throwing the whole bike completely out of control. We bounced off the road sideways, wedged our way through an innocent hedge and flipped over after hitting a ditch. My soft landing on the grass proved rather traumatic moments later when the bike landed on me. Country yokels came over to see what all the screaming was about, found my bruised body and third degree burns hilarious.
The DR was just a bit dented and scratched, after the back drum had been dismembered was back on the road. Not for long, the cheapo chain snapped, well, it was short of three links, the only way to make them last for more than 5000 miles. Down as much to the tiny engine sprocket as the thumper power strokes.
That wasn't the end of my woes, a few thousand miles later loads of pollution out of the exhaust indicated engine strip time. The OHC engine was easy enough to pull apart, needed a valve regrind, new valve seals and an oil ring. The bore and piston were only mildly worn. I went wild by buying a new gasket set as oil had already started weeping out of the cylinder. Rebuilt, the motor seems ready for another couple of years abuse. So am I.
Kevin Forster
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Bright green was the colour someone had painted the GN400. This was supposed to be an unlucky hue but it just made me want to throw up. I stuck with it for a whole week after buying the bike. Dulux's finest matt black was brushed on which helped hide the mundane overall appearance.
The GN looks and feels tiny for a 400cc OHC single. An impression submerged when I'd kicked the engine into life. A roar out of the degutted silenced and a bustle of vibration. The engine has no balancer and shook in the frame like a Norton Commando!
This was because the front engine mount was loose. Some chisel and hammer work revealed that the bolt had stripped its thread. One nut and bolt later saw a much more stable engine. The vibes always gave an edge to the machine. After three or four months I no longer noticed the trembling. One pillion reckoned that the engine was about to blow up. He wasn't too amused to have his feet buzzed off the pillion pegs and received a burn on his ankle on the right-hand side. The exhaust like the engine ran very hot!
I was quite pleased with the lack of pillion comfort. It discouraged people from asking for lifts - the marginal acceleration was greatly diminished by the presence of too much mass. Performance was never wild even when solo. The ton could occasionally be put on the clock but 90mph was more normal.
Shortly after purchase the swinging arm bearings went. With 31000 miles done. The rear shocks were also mushy. Quite likely to have the rear tyre hitting the rear mudguard. It may have been this that caused it to rot or just poor chrome. The swinging arm looked like it was sourced from a 125 and had a spindle that was corroded in solidly.
By the time the spindle was extracted the whole lot was ruined. An interesting afternoon was spent sorting through the local breaker's boxes of bit. I even found some reasonable swinging arm bearings. A pair of Koni shocks and newish mudguard were also acquired. The whole lot cost £40.
The rear end felt much more solid but the front felt even looser. Weeping seals and pitted forks were revealed when I peeled back the gaiters. I was thankful that there was only 325lbs to control. The bike was narrow and the seat height low. Bumpy bends tried to throw the GN way off line but the wide, high handlebars gave easy control.
I left the front forks alone for about 6000 miles. Then they were stripped and rebuilt with new bushes and seals. The pits in the forks were filled with Araldite and smoothed down once it'd had a day to set. A well know bodge that works for many thousands of miles!
I couldn't in all honesty say that the stability was transformed but it was never dangerous enough to throw me off the road. After this repair there followed six months of reasonable summer weather and 9000 miles of trouble free riding. The GN was as simple and easy to service as a CG125, although it gave about half the economy. 60 to 65mpg was the best I could achieve.
Then the horrors started. I came out to the bike one autumn morning to find all systems dead. A flat battery! The GN reluctantly started on the kickstart so it wasn't the end of the world. Halfway to work the fuse blew. I narrowly avoided being run down by the rest of the traffic. The GN was always easy to swing around cars. Thank God!
There followed the usual Suzuki electrical scenario! Ever bigger fuses were fitted until only a nail would suffice. By the time I stripped all the rotted wiring out both the alternator and regulator had to be replaced. Used items from a breaker were bought mail order. I didn't have much choice as GN400s are rather rare.
The winter was closing in by the time the Suzuki was back on the road. Cold weather made starting a six to ten kick affair. A newish coil reduced that by half. There was also a tendency to cut out at low revs. It'd happened a few times in the summer but occurred several times every day during the winter. I ended up with the tickover above 2000 revs. The spark plug was replaced every month to keep the engine clean running during the worst of the weather.
The finish became terrible because it was too cold to spend time cleaning the bike. Rust on the guards, spokes, exhaust and forks became half an inch deep! The whole engine went white with the corrosion. Paint fell off the frame and petrol tank. Even the rack rusted through. The top box and half the rack were thrown off the back. A car mangled its front end over the debris. I stopped to see what I could salvage (riding these kind of bikes as commuters makes you mean to the point of stupidity) - the car driver decided to take a few right hooks at me. He stopped when he cracked his knuckles on my helmet! I was groggy for half an hour but it inspired me to pull the bike into the house for a thorough cleaning session. The way it was going I'd end up with the frame corroding all the way through.
As winter turned into spring and I began to thaw out, the back drum seized on solid. The shoes were worn down to the rivets causing the brake to over-cam and lock on permanently. I tried to kick it free but no hope of such an easy escape. I had to pull the whole wheel out and then prise the brake apart.
No sooner had I fixed that than the clutch began to slip. The side casing's screws were all permanently corroded into the crankcases. Most broke off. I had to drill the remaining studs out and redo the threads. What should've been an half hour job took a whole weekend. The pattern plates also needed some filing to make them fit.
Still, the bike ran with nothing more than 1500 mile service sessions and consumable replacements - tyres about 15000 miles, chain about 10,000 miles and the front pads (in an indifferent disc) about 15000 miles. Not an expensive bike to keep on the road.
With 55000 miles on the clock oil started spewing out of the cylinder gasket and it'd only sniff at 80mph on very long roads. I feared the worst but a valve regrind and new gaskets did the trick. The camchain looked good and the engine was as easy to work on as a CG125!
A summer tour around England followed. Pushed the bike to its limits on the odd section of motorway. The primary vibes could work up to a furious pitch at 95mph! I'd joined the AA just in case there was a breakdown but didn't have to call on their services. With a restrained right hand touring was well within the GN's capabilities.
The day after coming home from the tour the bike refused to start. I checked everything I could think of. The spark was vivid and the smell of petrol strong. The engine made grumbling noises but refused to start. I tried a new spark plug but no good. It was only when I took the carb off that the cause was revealed. A cracked manifold - either age or vibration. I patched it up and was back to three or four kick starting.
With 65000 miles under its wheels the end seemed nigh. I found it hard to believe that it would keep going for much longer. The major quibble at that time was the gearbox. It'd started out very precise only to end up as ornery as an ancient Honda. I could still wend my way through it with an excess of concentration and luck. Worn selectors were the cause but no chance of finding decent used bits before the motor started churning out smoke. Judging by the knocks and rattles there wasn't much life left. The clock read 65,840 miles.
I ended up fitting a GN250 motor. Performance's very similar, economy much better and vibes less. There's only 4000 miles on this motor so I'm set for the next few years riding. The GN400's quite a reasonable motorcycle and I can think of no reason not to buy a good example.
Martin Smith
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The biggest hassle I had with the Suzuki SP400 was starting. There's only a kickstart, and although there's a sight-glass and automatic decompressor valve, the technique requires a strong right leg and lots of practice. As with many thumpers, the engine cutting out at low revs adds to the starting chores. I've been known to cause long queues of cars whilst I forced the wee beastie back into life.
The SP's the kind of bike the British industry might've ended up building if they had the means, a sort of modern BSA Victor. There's very little to it, really, a simple OHC thumper without an engine balancer system, housed in a tubular frame that will have any Victor owner filled with nostalgia. Not powerful in the conventional sense (only 30 horses) but nippy on the back of its torque and low mass of 300lbs.
Ideal in town, fine on country roads, the 70mph cruising speed was pushed on the motorway - it'd do 95mph but the vibration was vile. Off-road depended on which tyres I'd fitted. On proper trail tyres it'd growl over most things, pull wheelies at the drop of the clutch and slither through the mud like a rabid dog. It's all a question of balance, once the slight top heavy feel's absorbed then it's a dead easy bike to ride slowly, feet up.
The only thing it really objected to was being immersed in water, when the ignition would play up, causing the engine to cough and me to go mad on the throttle to save it. A waste of time, all that happened was that the back wheel slid away and, regardless, I ended up with a drenching. I always carried a spare spark plug and can of WD40.
Such accessories were also useful on the road when the spray from passing artics could swamp the bike and cause it to cut out. Potentially lethal if the following driver was half asleep. I went over the electrics but could find no obvious fault, it may just be that the 6V system's so basic, so lacking in power, that it's susceptible to passing winds.
A gang of us head for the Welsh hills of a weekend. A weird mixture of screaming strokers, plodding thumpers and the occasional poser on a Paris Dakar replica. The latter have no advantages off road, their weight and power being more of a liability than a blessing. I always take a delight in racing with such chaps, leading them a merry dance that ends with an obstacle course that takes some skill and a lot of cunning to survive.
One poor guy ended up floating 15 feet through the air on his new XT660, landing in a fast flowing river. When the bedraggled rider and ruined bike were finally rescued, the one looked about ready for six months in hospital and the other as if it had really done the Paris Dakar a couple of times. He shook the water off his Barbours and got the XT running again.
Another chap launched himself, and his DR650, into a yard deep hole filled with some kind of foul slurry instead of throwing himself off the top of mound. The monster from the swamp had nothing on this guy and, as far as I know, the DR never ran again. In a race the SP felt fleet of foot and completely controllable, I was master of my own little universe.
The chassis was a tough number, hard to break or bend. All the minor components were well tucked in and even major spills did little damage. In the early days there were quite a lot of them, until I acquired a feel for the machine. Mostly to do with landing on the front rather than on the back wheel. One monster cock-up sent me spiralling over the handlebars, doing a tango with the earth a number of times before I tried to mate with a tree. The SP broke its mirror. I soon learnt the art of trail riding before I broke my spine.
Night riding's always fun, with a poor front light and a lot of dark country roads to arrive at my isolated cottage, often in a drunken haze. Like an old pony I usually find my way home by sheer instinct. Not always. One reason I like this kind of dual purpose bike is that the chances are much improved of surviving running off the tarmac in the dark. Just hang on and scream.
The one time this didn't work was because I hit a wild animal. It was dog sized, lay on its side bleeding where I'd hit it but growling like it wanted to bite my head off. I hobbled back on to the road with the bike and got out of there fast. Back home I found my leg was slashed, my ankle strained and my knee bleeding. Until then my fear of the animal (I think it was a wolf) was so great that I hadn't noticed my injuries.
The SP has many good points that outnumber the bad. Maintenance's minimal and easy to do. Oil and two valves! Fuel's exceptional, 70 to 90mpg. Handling's varies from brilliant in town and off-road, to adequate on fast A-roads. I'm sure all it needs is decent tyres to stop the slight weaves. Its sheer versatility overwhelms all its other virtues.
Engine faults are limited to valvegear that can wear quickly and a weak kickstarter mechanism. The valves go because the oil supply's not brilliant, especially after some gunge has built up in the feed. Changing the oil every 500 miles helps limit the damage to every 15000 miles - it's a simple engine to work on but some threads will strip on the slightest excuse. Bolts that've corroded in will also break off rather than come undone. The Suzuki's much worse than old Hondas in this respect.
Rust hasn't been much of a problem because the previous owner had done a complete chassis renovation, right down to a black coating inside the tank and under the front guard. Very nice of him, too. It was almost a shame to take it off road but in the monsoon season the track to my cottage was a quagmire that would've killed off most rat bikes.
The SP lasted from 8000 to 33000 miles before going knock-knock. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't too serious but my mate who claims to have been a mechanic before the magic mushrooms got to him reckoned it was the good old main bearings. He was right and I ended up doing a full engine strip, new crank bearings, piston and gearbox selectors plus used valve bits. Only took me a week to do a strip and £125, against 600 notes for the original purchase. I knew I'd done a good job because the engine was so quiet compared to all the rattles and knocks of old. I smiled widely at my own cleverness.
That motor has now allowed the bike to do 54000 miles, with the chassis remaining pretty stock. The one thing that really needs changing is the front brake, some pathetic half width drum that I wouldn't like on a moped let alone at 90mph. It was great off-road when I had to lose speed very gradually but the lack of power and fade on the road had me mumbling incantations to myself and hoping that the course in white magic would pay off.
One time, I ended on the wrong side of the road, the suspension all locked up on the brakes, with Joe-Cager open mouthed with fright cowering rather than braking behind the wheel of his Jag. I had mercy on him and the SP, gave the throttle a nudge and rode off the road, straight through a hedge into a muddy field where I fell off. The soft landing stopped any serious injury.
The modern equivalent must be the DR350, with its neat disc brake and even lower mass, although it makes the same power and is less frugal. I'll wait a year or two until the used prices come down to a more reasonable level. The SP still has plenty of life left.
Arnie Glover
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I like Suzuki's. Simple as that. The main reason's because they must have the toughest engines in the world. At least in the case of their four strokes. My all time favourite was a GS750 four that I took around the clock. Brilliant, never let me down, etc. The past few years have been hard going financially, I've had to go down market. The previous mount, a much modded GS400 twin. I sold that for twice what I paid for it, after 30,000 miles of fun.
I knew some of the history of the GN400 that I acquired next. Basically, a couple of mature owners, only used on dry days. Left the bike in exceptionally good nick for a ten year old, 17000 miler. At £300 it was too good a deal to miss. Even if its 27hp thumper engine wasn't the thing of legends. It'd originally appeared in the SP370 and 400, so any faults were hopefully sorted by the time the GN hit the road.
When it was launched, its appearance had been treated as something of a joke and its 90mph top speed treated with derision. More than anything else, the need to kick it into life, limited its appeal to the mature owner. Time could turns its electrics nasty, making starting a hundred kick affair. One good thing about the bike I was buying, the generator had been rewound and the electrics upgraded to a much more useful 12V than the standard 6V rubbish.
Thus starting was a first kick affair, though it needed a fair old boot to get the thing fired up. Carburation was very lean running but then again neither the filter nor exhaust, or indeed the carb's jetting, were standard. The pipe was nicely loud without quite shattering windows, just enough of a roar to wake up erring cagers and stop ped's walking out in front of us.
The engine didn't exactly have a power band, but from tickover up developed plenty of steam and would quite happily rattle off in third gear from a standstill, despite running taller gearing than stock. These mod's added up to the ton on the clock and quite pleasant 80mph cruising. If the engine lacked any balancers, it was at least well matched to the chassis, only really thrumming at the extreme end of the rev range.
I wouldn't admit that the engine was gutless, as it would hold 75 to 85mph against both steep hills and heavy winds. Urge was limited beyond 80mph, and trying to take a car that was meandering along at that kind of speed was fraught with danger. Acceleration could be so slow that a bout of chicken with oncoming cars, or being back-ended by an impatient cager, were always possibilities.
That meant that it wasn't an ideal motorway cruiser, though it was significantly better than, say, an MZ250. Being compact, short, and light in mass, also meant it could be knocked about by the windstream from passing artics or buses. And taking the Severn Bridge on a windy day, it felt like the bike was going to be lifted off the road and thrown straight over the side into the channel.
Weighing little more than 300lbs (320lbs stock, but some of that lost by lighter non-standard bits) allowed it to make the most of its power output. I had no problems swinging it through the bends (stronger springing and cut down stands, mind) until it squirmed right on the edge of the rubber. The narrowness of its motor meant a nice low centre of gravity, that gave an easy going, relaxed feel to the chassis. Better than an old BMW boxer!
The only weak areas are naff steering head and swinging arm bearings, showing where it was built down to a price...the build quality was so lacking that one of previous owners had been forced to strip it down, blast and powder coat all the metalwork. Even then the guards still rusted through, had to be replaced by plastic items. Luckily, I had no cosmetic problems but I've seen some real rats. Talk about ecologically sound - ie corroding back to dust!
Again, a previous owner had fixed the bearings, so all I had to do was the odd bit of engine maintenance, oil, grease, and chain adjustment. The latter could be short-lived if not kept oiled and perfectly tensioned; at best, 11000 miles for a chain and twice that for the sprockets (the larger gearbox sprocket helped longevity). I had one chain snap when the bike was overloaded and I tried to pull off in third - but it had got to the state where two links had been taken out and it needed to be soaked in Linklyfe every other week.
That happened on one of my many outings to Scotland - the back roads being ideally suited to the GN's capabilities. That time some local farmer took me into the nearest town on the back of a trailer attached to an ancient tractor. It was slow but better than walking. Typically, the spare length of chain I always take with me, these days, has never been needed.
With its modified exhaust and carburation, mild back road riding resulted in 75 to 80mpg, which squeezed over 150 miles out of the tank before I started thinking about buying some more fuel. If I wanted to play silly buggers, by riding really slowly - the mildest of revs and not more than 50mph on the clock - I could achieve better than 90mpg! Overall average was around 70mpg, making the bike exceptionally cheap to run.
As well as frugality, I also found the machine full of character. Down mostly to the beat of its thumper stroke and the genteel ease with which it would travel across the country (bars, pegs and saddle weren't stock, altered to suit my own body and riding needs). Once I'd adjusted to the lack of power, it was all too easy to decide that there was just enough motorcycle to suit any sane needs.
The paucity of power, together with superior Suzuki engineering (what, biased? - not me, it's just my experience of the breed) meant the mill was exceptionally tough. In four years I did over 50,000 miles, the clock now reading 71000 miles. And the engine hasn't been stripped down, although it has had kind owners, myself included, who think that 500 mile oil changes are akin to religion. A little bit of preventative effort with a huge pay-back in reliability and longevity.
The engine's very simplicity and fundamental correctness, add up to superior design. Weak areas, when maintenance's neglected, include the valve's rockers, kickstart mechanism and gearbox, but all of these should be self-evident on cursory examination. Chassis and bearing rot much more likely to kill off the machine. Basically, if you find one in good cosmetic shape, chances are the motor's fine.
I was so impressed that I've got two spare motors plus heaps of rotted chassis spares, enough stuff to keep her going for another 15 years!
Larry Borroughs
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Grey imports are spreading like some wild virus right through the UK. Shops popping up out of nowhere full of all kinds of strange and wonderful machinery. No wonder the official importers are screaming their heads off in despair. Take the 650 Savage, for instance, priced at nearly four grand new. In the dealers there was a 400 version going for £1400 - two years and 4000 miles old. My rat C90 was looking distinctly like dead meat...
A 400cc thumper with mild custom style will not be to certain tastes but after a step-thru even an MZ looked promising. The Suzuki was bright orange, contrasted with lots of chrome and alloy. With a 25.5 inch seat height it felt more like a skateboard than a motorcycle. Being short of arm rather than leg, my thighs were all crunched up whilst my hands were held aloft on the high and wide bars as if in prayer to some particularly perverse god. This took a few weeks of adaptation, before the pains went away in my thighs, but it took narrower, flatter bars to stop me feeling like I was on the rack.
The bars helped performance. God knows it needed all the help it could get. The four valve OHC thumper mill made all of 24 horses at 7000 revs, although it seemed happiest at around 5000rpm. Higher revs resulted in some thrumming and below 3000 revs it seemed like it was gasping for breath. This might be explained by the engine still running carb settings suited to Japan rather than the UK or it might merely be a compromise in the engine sharing many parts between 400 and 650cc versions, the bigger engine obviously needing more hefty components with resultant frictional losses when employed in the 400. Perhaps the strangest aspect was the lack of an oil-cooler, given Suzuki's expertise in using oil as an engine coolant and the possibility of thus tweaking the motor for extra performance.
With the flatter bars the Savage was happy enough cruising along at 70 to 75mph but there was sod all power in hand to take cars on the motorway. A particular difficulty as most of the cages wanted to zoom along at 80 to 90mph. Often, I ended up stuck behind some prick towing a wobbling caravan. Rather frustrating.
Stability was surprisingly good. The 350lbs wasn't easily chucked around by howling gales or large pot-holes and its suspension had an almost magical ability to soak up minor bumps whilst not turning the bike into a big blancmange. A fidelity unusual in a custom, a lot of it down to the way the narrow single cylinder engine is mounted lowly in the frame.
Ground clearance ain't prodigious and the Savage has a disinclination to turn into curves - much preferring to ride straight on into oblivion. This, I guess, is the reason why Suzuki fitted such wide bars. I soon became used to the muscle needed to throw it around, though, often had the exhaust digging into the tarmac on right-handers.
The bike was inflicted with damn silly forward mounted pegs that practically had my feet on the front wheel spindle. This looked fine when paddling down the High Street but when trying to get my elbow down I found I couldn't really keep a firm grip on the machine. The further it went over, the more I felt like I was going to fall off the bike!
I know, if I wanted something that could be flung around like a race replica I shouldn't have bought a custom but the cheapness and simplicity of the Suzuki had got to me. The pillion pegs are carried on the swinging arm but too close to the seat to be of use to a rider, such as myself, with long legs.
Because the pillion seat is raised you have to make sure that anyone carried out back is a lot shorter than the rider, otherwise they end up towering over the pilot, making them look damn silly. Which is stupid on a pose mobile. Comfort, with regards to the sumptuous seat, is good, but, as mentioned, you need to adapt your body around the odd pegs and bars.
After a couple of months, bike and I became fine friends. Starting was reliable and easy, the bike plodding around with total fidelity. Fuel was around 70mpg - 140 miles before I had to worry about filling up. The Jap tyres didn't seem to wear but had reasonable grip on wet roads. The belt drive needed little adjustment and turned the usually slick Suzuki gearbox quite sublime!
The combination of a lack of performance and odd riding position, after about four months, began to get at me. No doubt, if I hadn't been shooting around on a step-thru I would've been pissed off a lot sooner, but the Suzuki had a relative sophistication and ease of use that the little Honda couldn't hope to match.
There followed a period of abuse and neglect, which included not changing the oil for about 5000 miles over a six month period. Did the thumper complain? Nope, it just kept thrumming away happily as if it didn't have a care in the world. The vast majority of modern Japanese engines are bullet-proof, their technology and production engineering finesse so far ahead of the game that it's almost impossible to compete with them.
By the end of the first year the machine was looking a little ratty. White fur on the engine alloy, rust on the paint and chrome, and an engine with a disturbing top end rattle despite the clock reading a mere 14,500 miles. The rattle was a couple of loose rockers that were soon sussed. The alloy was reluctant to clean up but I got there in the end. The rust wiped off, revealing a pristine finish underneath. It just seemed to seep out of the chrome and paint without lifting it off. More like a dread disease than anything else.
The bike thumped up to 18000 miles when performance became even more reluctant than normal. Fuel was down to an expensive 45mpg and a smog of oil followed us everywhere as if the engine was trying to imitate a stroker. Engine out, head and barrel off - the oil ring was gummed up. Sprayed it with WD40, let it soak in for a couple of hours, and managed to prise the ring off. Cleaned it all up and put it back together. Economy and performance returned.
Took that as a hint to trade in for something newer. Got £1250 off the £2500 cost of a very nice Honda CB-1. In retrospect, perhaps the 650 version is the better buy. If you can get one at a decent price.
Malcolm Bright
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