Happy day it is when, after weeks of tedious tear-downs and cataloging the needed parts to facilitate a classic bike rebuild, the bits all start coming together. Our Main Homey, Paul Rudolf, of West Hills Honda, has hooked us up with a skilled powdercoater at Dylan’s Coatings who were able to offer several shades of white for the Suzuki GS750’s frame, wheels and swingarm. Knowing from previous experience that bright white, or the sort seen on hospital walls and KKK robes, is a poor match for the grit and grease encountered by streetbikes, Dylan’s suggested an eggshell white that’s capable of looking clean after a day’s ride.

The Suzuki’s fork triple clamps were coated in a bright green which we hoped would match our Kawasaki racing green body-work: as it turned out, the clamps were just a shade off, but it was close enough for our team who were more interested in getting our 1978 Suzook assembled and on the road than playing Martha Stewart and debating paint colors.

Dylan’s had done up the fork sliders in a soft, metallic silver finish and out tech Bill Giles got busy installing the new fork tubes and fluid. The 36-year-old forks were in fairly good shape, not surprising as the odometer showed only 10,000-odd miles. Nevertheless, we installed new fork springs from Hagon and we’d called Forking By Frank, a long-standing aftermarket forks emporium that can build and ship tubes for just about an motorcycle ever manufactured. We wanted a classic nose-down/bum-in-the-air café racer stance from our GS750, so the tubes we ordered were 2” shorter than the stock tubes they’d replace. Sure, we’d be sacrificing roughly 30 percent of the overall fork suspension travel, but we countered any changes by adding denser fork fluid which would slow down compression over bumps and road undulations while also making for a stiffer, more positive front end.

The front brakes were next on our list as they’re a component that caused much debate at CRM’s workshop. One of the primary reasons for swapping out original front ends on modern café customs is to avail one’s self of the massive improvements in braking technology. In addition to the advent of the radial motorcycle tire, braking has made one of the most significant differences in riding streetbikes since the days when this Japanese four graced a showroom. Unfortunately, we hadn’t the budget for a set of late-mode sportbike forks, so we decided to upgrade our Suzuki’s stoppers on the cheap. First off, we removed the two front twin-piston calipers and the smaller rear unit, cleaning them thoroughly and installing rebuild kits to help improve function. Next having blown most of our budget on a fancy Roland Sands chrome headlight, we took the very low-buck option of spray-bombing the calipers matt black, a color that, as the fashionistas say, matches everything.

New sintered pads from Sweden’s SBS Brakes would provide improved grip on a set of OEM, slotted rotors from a later model GS750 which we’d found on Flea Bay for just $140. Still wrapped in their factory packing paper, these, along with a set of custom Kevlar brake lines—color matched of course—from Spiegler USA, should make grabbing the lever less frightful affair.

All new bearings from All Balls were hammered into the front and rear wheels, the former maintaining its stock sprocket which was, like much of the original bike, still in useable condition. New, needle-roller bearings were also installed at the frame’s neck, a set of fully-adjustable Gazi, Sport Lite nitrogen charged shocks bringing up the rear. We were eager to mount a set of Continental’s new, Classic Attack radials to our GS, but as there was already a perfectly fine set of Bridgestone Spitfire bias ply rear/Dunlop 404 front, we figured we’d stick with what we had. Like most piles of disparate parts meant to be turned into a functioning motorcycle, ours was not without its problems.

The Roland Sands headlight that we’d coveted so, was actually designed to fit a chopper or cruiser bike, not a café racer, which explains why the only mounting aperture was situated on the light’s top curve and without any means of using traditional headlight ears for mounts. Bill, rolling his eyes and shaking his head in disgust at our frequent oversights, said I’ll fabricate a mount that attaches to the digital speedometer which you also neglected to design a mount for.” Ah, that’s why we call I experts like you, Unca Bill. The cheapie, Chinese-made master cylinder we’d imagined as a bargain at $59.95 turned out, at this stage, to be anything but. Once bolted to our Lossa clubman handlebars and filled with DOT 4-hydraulic brake fluid, we returned to the workbench the next morning to find most of the liquid had seeped out. Brake fluid tends to be more corrosive than a talk radio host and we were fortunate that the leak hadn’t found its way onto any painted or freshly powdercoated surfaces. A solution lay in simple rebuilding the stock master cylinder which looked better than we’d imagined.

Forks in place, brake lines sorted and wheels affixed, our GS750 was starting to look like a real motorcycle. Well one without an engine. Keep posted for that tutorial.—Mike Seate