1979 GS 425 Suzuki

by Mookie
(Athens Alabama USA)

To me a bike that doesn't need to be worked on or"fixed up" is of no use.
I bought this one from a guy whose house burned and the bike was kinda sitting out in the drive for a long time. I was visiting my friends shop, Monster M4 Suzuki one day and I stopped and left a card with my name on it for the owner to call if it was for sale.
Sixty dollars later it was sittin in the garage. Now what I thought. It was a total junk yard dog. There was decent compression so it HAD to run, right?
The points had been clubbed to death with a dull hatchet but what the heck. Thanks to my cost+10 deal I have at a friends shop/salvage yard it was sparken. About 40 dollars worth of cleaning supplies and a LARGE hand full of quarters fed into the car wash it was clean enough to actually start screwin with. Tapered steering stem bearings, a donor battery, a seat unit and an OLD pair of clubmans I had been saving for 20 years, this and that I scrounged from my goodies and a few pieces from the salvage yard...
I stripped the tank and sealed it with the very effective Caswell tank sealer, fixed a leaky petcock, re-jetted the cleaned carbs to suit the pod filters, new tires/chain cog, a little front brake mod to get in the vicinity of actually slowing down, tilted the pipe up to my liking and cut the end of the cannister to reveal the"reverse megaphone" hidden inside and a bit of elbow grease...it actually rides quite nice.
If I didn't need the money I'd wanna keep it. I get attached to bikes that need love....

Mookie, I'm jealous. I never come across deals like that. You turned a burnt turd into that for peanuts? Jeeze!