Kid...you broke the cardnal rule about beginners and motor bikes...you bought a bike (turd...whatever) in the worst condition for a beginner possible. I hope you don't have any delusions about riding the thing this year. There is so much important stuff missing too that I can only guess you bought someone else's parts bike (seriously: the carbs, the heads, parts of the wiring harness - you need these things!!!) The only consolation is I hope it was free or close too. If you are new to this, always buy the best bike possible for the money. These are old bikes anyway so there will always be stuff to fix. Get us some pics of any spare parts you got with it - but my best advice is to part it out on ebay, take the money you make from it, and buy something that is at the very least complete. This is the wrong project for a beginner.
That being said GT550s are awsome bikes, I really like them. I have seen some nice running GT550s sell for a couple o' hundred bucks (ratty looking but running) so if you want to stick with this kind of bike then it should not be hard to find a running one cheap. Of all the two stroke bikes out there suzuiks are the better ones for beginners.
Check out the suzuki two stroke message board, if anybody can answer the multitude of newbie questions you are going to have about this specific bike it is going to be these guys:
http://vancouver.globat.com/~sundialmotosport.com/phpBB2/
Paul Miller Motorcycles will have all the parts you can get for this bike (suzuki surprising still has a lot of stuff for it).
Also Bill Bune (www.billbune.com) is awsome at crank rebuilding which by the looks of things you are going to need. He also does awsome work in boring. I just got my T500 pistons and crank back from him a couple of months back and I am super happy.
Ok so where to start? Here is my suggested game plan:
It is a two stroke so start with the motor. Does the one in the frame turn over? (do the pistons move when you kick start it?) Does the spare motor? The first thing to go on these and the most expensive is the crank seals, but before you worry about them see if you even have a good bottom end. Either way you are going to need the crank rebuilt but the difference is whether you need bottom end bearings also. If you have a motor that turns over you are going to need to seal it up (I don't see this happening on the one in the bike, but maybe the spare engine) and leak down test the crank seals (move the piston to the bottom of the travel and pump 5 psi into the engine through the spark plug hole and see how slow or fast it leaks out - fast and the seals are shot). If you need a crank it will probably cost in the neighborhood of $300 to rebuild not counting shipping and parts. Send that off an turn your attention to the frame.
If there are mods you want to do (custom seat, low bars), now is the time to figure those out because the bike is grungy and you don't want to be ruining a freshly painted frame with any welding. If you are wanting to run bars any lower than drag bars now is the time to figure out rearsets.
Japanese bikes are built in sub assemblies and I like to focus on rebuilding the sub assemblies first because when it comes time to paint and reassemble the frame you can get it back up on wheels quick so as not to scar the paint.
Take the swingarm off the bike at the pivot and restore the swingarm, wheels, etc. Do the same with the front by removing the whole front end at the neck.
Clean everything, repaint as you go.
That being said GT550s are awsome bikes, I really like them. I have seen some nice running GT550s sell for a couple o' hundred bucks (ratty looking but running) so if you want to stick with this kind of bike then it should not be hard to find a running one cheap. Of all the two stroke bikes out there suzuiks are the better ones for beginners.
Check out the suzuki two stroke message board, if anybody can answer the multitude of newbie questions you are going to have about this specific bike it is going to be these guys:
http://vancouver.globat.com/~sundialmotosport.com/phpBB2/
Paul Miller Motorcycles will have all the parts you can get for this bike (suzuki surprising still has a lot of stuff for it).
Also Bill Bune (www.billbune.com) is awsome at crank rebuilding which by the looks of things you are going to need. He also does awsome work in boring. I just got my T500 pistons and crank back from him a couple of months back and I am super happy.
Ok so where to start? Here is my suggested game plan:
It is a two stroke so start with the motor. Does the one in the frame turn over? (do the pistons move when you kick start it?) Does the spare motor? The first thing to go on these and the most expensive is the crank seals, but before you worry about them see if you even have a good bottom end. Either way you are going to need the crank rebuilt but the difference is whether you need bottom end bearings also. If you have a motor that turns over you are going to need to seal it up (I don't see this happening on the one in the bike, but maybe the spare engine) and leak down test the crank seals (move the piston to the bottom of the travel and pump 5 psi into the engine through the spark plug hole and see how slow or fast it leaks out - fast and the seals are shot). If you need a crank it will probably cost in the neighborhood of $300 to rebuild not counting shipping and parts. Send that off an turn your attention to the frame.
If there are mods you want to do (custom seat, low bars), now is the time to figure those out because the bike is grungy and you don't want to be ruining a freshly painted frame with any welding. If you are wanting to run bars any lower than drag bars now is the time to figure out rearsets.
Japanese bikes are built in sub assemblies and I like to focus on rebuilding the sub assemblies first because when it comes time to paint and reassemble the frame you can get it back up on wheels quick so as not to scar the paint.
Take the swingarm off the bike at the pivot and restore the swingarm, wheels, etc. Do the same with the front by removing the whole front end at the neck.
Clean everything, repaint as you go.
