On the Road Again!

At last. The Kettle gets ridden! https://projectkettlerenaissance.blogspot.com/2021/03/first-ride.html 

A long weekend. Luckily it was the weekend at the end of the May half-term school holiday and so I was able to load up the bike and set off in good time to get across to Moosham. The route via the Mikulov/Drasenhofen border crossing and around Vienna and then west past the Red Bull Ring, although then it was called Zeltweg, would be about 250 miles.  Czech fuel was cheaper and I topped up before the border. With a range of only 130 miles to a tank fuel management is important. On arrival at Schloss Moosham I had nowhere to stay. I met up with Thomas Wahle who I had "known" for a few years exchanging letters about Kettles.  I had never met him before.  I was going to look at nearby Mauterndorf for a room or even a bed. Thomas and the Stuttgart area Büffel Herde had a large room and parking in the barn across the road. They also had a spare bed. As I was a poor "Czech" they wouldn't let me pay. The weekend was a great success. A couple of the Austrian members got ...

Who knows how long this blog will exist for! I don't have the foggiest idea. The Kettle in question is a Suzuki GT750A. First registered in April 1977.  Some background. Sit down. This might ramble on. I bought it in 1984 from the bike shop in Hanwell near Brentford in West London. It came with some paperwork that showed it had had some engine work done. Allegedly the crankshaft oil seals had been replaced etc. I had other bikes as well. For a while  around this time I had a "Plain Jane" GL1000, and a  GSX1000SZ Katana. So it was a complete surprise when riding home from work a couple of years later that the crankshaft oil seals went phut By then we were moving from Weybridge in Surrey to Newington in Kent. I obtained an exchange crank from Robinson's then in Broadstairs. A local guy in Gillingham was recommended to handle the engine rebuild.  At this stage the cylinder barrel to use in the rebuild was one that I had bought off a fellow member of the SOC committ...

The code name for the mission to finally extract the GT from the garage and back on the road. It won't be cheap and although most of the jobs will be achievable by a part way qualified home mechanic, some will need an expert hand.  And that's where my old friend John Storrie comes into the project. John is renowned as Mr Kettle in England. A SOC life member, like me, and also he was a founder member of the Kettle Club. In fact it was at a SOC camping weekend in Oxfordshire that it was born. One that caused some problems back in the day!   19 years ago  For a variety of reasons the project won't happen until the summer as my commitments at weekends don't leave much time. The plan is to get a van with a tail-lift and take the bike and bits across to Oxfordshire. Early start and back the same day. Doable. Now I need to speak to John and discuss what needs to be done to start the project running. I also need to get all the parts I ha...

Statutory Off Road Notification. Since the Kettle went off the road (not ridden), not to be confused with off road (on the dirt), the magnanimous UK Government allows us not to pay the road tax in the vehicle. This year this it will save me donating a further £76 to the Government's coffers. Less dosh for them to allocate to a range of ideals rather than the original "road fund". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_excise_duty

Had an invitiation to go on the Suzuki Triples Club de France Treffen next year. Sadly, I have let my old girl get in such a terrible state that it will need to some long days working to get her ready.

Every time I see the posts on the FB group for the GT750 owners I feel guilty that my old girl is lying at the back of the garage in need of some TLC. I guess I lost enthusiasm once I moved house and there was no light and no power available.  Until then, in the winter months I would sit with a polishing cloth and some metal polish and keep the bike pretty clean. Okay, not as clean as those that are trailered to shows and that have mirrors under them so you can see the original grey of the ally under belly, but clean enough.  Now she languishes, forgotten, well almost forgotten, not exactly unloved, but not really appreciated.  The older lover, replaced by a younger, better built and more modern model. Slowly losing her looks, shut away from the world. What to do?  As a below average mechanic with tools more suited to trucks rather than delicate Japanese bikes, I have been guilty of letting her fade away.  Now I need to do something.  I had ideas o...

Originally posted on the first ever Suzuki Owners Club website hosted by Yahoo! Geocities. First posted in 1998. When Geocities announced they were closing I saved the source. Running with the Kettles - August 1998 On the face of it, a group of over fifty GT750's, drawn from all the different models from the entire six year reign, might seem a particularly insignificant and sobering thought to the non-believer. But. I BELIEVE! Thanks to some jiggery-pokery by Dave Pitcher, Chairman of the Kettle Club UK and Suzuki Owners Club member, we had a half hour. No. A wonderful half hour of track time to ourselves at the VMCC's "Festival of a 1000 Bikes" on the Sunday of the weekend event. Having a special Kettle-only session meant that we didn't have to put up with the myriad of slow blokes on Z900's and old British rubbish as we had done in Sunday's first session, the 1972-77 Over-500cc 'parade'. Waiting in pit lane I listened into a couple of ot...

Handsome bloke and two Suzuki Motorcycles , originally uploaded by stevehh@yahoo.com . Not my title but Steve's!! In the mountains before the Moosham Rally. Me with my GT750 and Steve's Bandit 1200 on the left.

img080 , originally uploaded by stevehh@yahoo.com . Steve took a couple of pics on our day trip! It was so hot I had to undo the steel toe capped boots to let a bit of air in. img081 , originally uploaded by stevehh@yahoo.com .