Sure, it's a Suzuki, I'll take it...
"OK, but you have to take those hulks over there." (the remains of another three newer T500s).
Ok.
I get the junk home, sort it out, a couple of 1977 GT500 hulks (the ones with the disc brake and GT750 tank), another early 70s frame, boxes of partial engines, sundry parts...etc., etc. I don't see an engine number that matches the '68 frame number so I built the bike with a GT500 engine (bonus, electronic ignition!). The other bikes are discarded, left outside, loose parts are dumped in the storage vans.
Over the next few decades most of the junk disappears, and every once in a while the remains of the partial engines surface in the vans. I've moved on, T500 was ridden for a summer, it's parked and off the radar but out of habit, I take note of the engine numbers to see if anything matches with anything else. All this is done in a unorganized way...
And then about 5 years ago, in the junk I find an bottom engine case with the right serial for my '68? What the...? Then a matching upper case? I have no explanation for the appearance of these parts.
Eventually it occurs to me that I should save those cases and if the bike ever gets sold, they should accompany the bike.
So over the past week I've cleaned them up, assembled them loosely and built a fancy little plywood box for them and marked the contents. I also have a set of the unique 34mm carbs for that bike in there.
A nice package for any future purchaser/restorer but most importantly, one more little thing cleared out of my endless to-do list.
3 comments:
1. How I wish I still had a barn + equipment shed.
1a. ... and that I hadn't moved house about 25 times in the past 35 years.
I tell myself it's good to be junk-free. That the gaping cavity, the lonesome nothingness in my existence is purely coincidental to not happening to possess any junk. Then, once again, I turn my face to the wall and wish for blessed surcease to o'ertake me.
I like the comfort of clutter, the family farm is still in the family so bikes from high school times (or parts thereof) can still be found in corners. I've gotten to the point of realizing there are way too many projects that I'll never get to, and too many boxes of "spares accumulation" and most of it is junk. Complicating that thought is the realization that the worse condition the part is, the longer you have to keep it to make it desirable!
To Rats...Richard Pryor said "Don't be in any hurry to die because once you're dead you're going to be dead a long time."
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