Do you remember the JT brothers, Johan and Joris from Belgium? A few years ago we published their first bike, a honda CB chopper. Last year we showed you their XS chopper and triumph bonneville 750t140 – now they’re back with a “Bad ***” attitude Suzuki GS750 racer.
The bike left the Suzuki factory as a GS 750 L model with the first Suzuki GSX 750 16 valve engine.
This time Joris build the bike alone without his brother Johan due to some back problems.
The story started a few years ago when a work colleague of the brothers came to watch their Honda chopper and told them he had a Suzuki 4 cylinder in his shed for several years.
According to him the bike ran on 3 out of 4 cylinders when he got him. They couldn’t find out what the problem with the Suzuki was so the bike ended up in the shed. He asked if the brothers could use the bike but they couldn’t agree on the price.
In the meanwhile Joris found a nice Honda fairing on the internet and went out to get it without having any plans for it.
After almost 2 years Joris made his colleague an offer on the Suzuki. When his colleague’s wife heard about it the deal was quickly settled.
When Joris got the GS 750 home the first thing to do was to get it running. After the carburetors were cleaned and the bike got a new battery, the testing could begin. Soon it seemed that the ignition unit failed. After a new ignition box the bike fired up immediately, and so began the build.
The first thing for modification was the stance. Joris lowered the front end with external springs and made struts to replace the rear shocks. He fabricated some clip-ons and the bike’s low stance was born. After that Joris made some brackets for the speedometer and odometer and made knee dents into the original gsl gas tank.
Next it was time to make the rear section out of sheet metal and an old king size Sportster gas tank.
The seat springs were mounted lower so the gap between the seat and fairing would be at a minimum and just enough distance for the travel of the spring.
The next step was the exhaust with internal silencers, and fabricating the brackets for the fairing and mounting it. Joris’ eyes told him that the fairing was too high so he cut 4 cm of the polyester and 3cm of the Plexiglas window.
The air filters are made from floor sifters. The rear sets were also made in the JT brothers’s kitchen.
The bike should have been ready for test riding but it the battery wasn’t charging and the clutch was slipping. A new stator and clutch were installed. After that the bike ran great.
I’ve ran the motorcycle unfinished for 2 weeks and went to the chopper town nation meeting in Kalderkirchen with the bike. It collected a lot of People’s Choice votes. We were a little surprised by that. After that I took it apart and started painting.
The idea was to build a very low budget and totally different looking bike with no big interventions. The main thing was that it needed to be low, loud, fast as **** and cool as ice…
– Joris Theybers
Pictures and text by Noortje Bruyninckx
JTbrothers are hoping to finish work on a 1946 Triumph Speed Twin within 4 weeks and then they’ll start fabricating a frame for a 1977 Triumph T140. While you wait you can check out the JTbrothers blog or read about their their XS chopper and triumph bonneville 750 builds.
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