Of course there’s no such thing as a free lunch, so two-stroke power comes at a cost. Although they fire every time the piston rises, compared with every second time for under-achieving four-strokes, it’s hard to get them to produce twice as much power because they don’t breathe as well.

Simple piston-port two-strokes like the T500 aren’t that flash at scavenging all the exhaust gas from the cylinder before the fresh charge arrives nor at preventing fresh charge escaping into the exhaust. So you pay a penalty in high fuel use because of these problems.

Then there’s the oil matter. A two-stroke relies on a proportion of oil in the incoming fuel/air charge to lubricate the engine’s highly stressed internals. Some, like the Suzuki, also pump oil directly to the crankshaft, but like the oil in the incoming charge it’s a total-loss arrangement. All of the oil gets burned.

It’s no surprise then that traditional two-strokes, whose exhaust gas includes a range of unburnt hydrocarbons, not to mention smoke, aren’t able to meet modern emission standards. But let’s not dwell on the negatives. It’s time to don the rose-coloured glasses.

To my shame I must admit that I neglected the T500, leaving it languishing in the shed until recently because of other demands on my time. I know – I’ve just got to get those priorities right.

Finally about four weeks ago with the Honda Broadford Bike Bonanza rushing at me like a runaway Kenworth, I got stuck into it so the Suzie could have its first outing at the event.

The seat was pretty much the worse for wear with the cover torn and the foam deteriorating on the left side. It was a bonus that the box of spares that came with the bike included a new repro seat cover. Also good was that the seat base hadn’t rusted. So that all went off to Mick at Langford Motor Trimmers at Bulleen (Vic). He’s done a few seats for me over the years.

I got on with a general clean up – nothing too flash, just enough in the limited time available before its first outing to show that I cared.

All of the castings needed quite a bit of TLC, especially the fins on the barrels and the heads; they’d gone a bit furry. ‘Gumption’, a bathroom cleaning product that costs less than $5 for a decent-sized tub, is great for removing the heavy stuff before you finish off with Autosol.

Sometimes when you reckon you know what you’re doing, you can be in for a nasty surprise. With a new battery in place, I started checking the electricals and was disappointed to notice for the first time that not only was there no engine kill-switch, there was no light switch either, just a high/low-beam switch. Clearly I needed to track down a replacement for the missing switchblock. Wrong!

I was put right thanks to a phone call from reader Dean Giuliani, who rang me to ask how the bike was progressing. It turned out that he had recognised the bike when he saw it in MT #252. He had checked it out a couple of years ago when Ron Brand had it for sale at Pakenham Motorcycle Wreckers.

Not only was Dean able to reassure me that the bike was in good mechanical nick, having tried it out at the time, he was able to deal with my ignorance about the switchgear. He explained that the early T500s like this 1971 R model had no kill-switch, and that what I thought was only a dip-switch, was actually the full monty – ‘Off"/Low beam/High beam’.

Thanks, Dean.

As Spannerman has revealed elsewhere in this issue, both of us had to finish preparing our bikes at Broadford on the Saturday, while Editor ‘Snag’ was happily circulating on his lovely Norton Commando.

Working on the bikes in the pit garages in the company of fellow enthusiasts was actually heaps better than doing the solo shift in the shed at home. There was a bit of lending, a bit of borrowing and much banter about the job in hand. It was all good.

A couple of dodgy connections in the wiring were located and sorted and all the electricals then got the big tick with the exception of the turn indicators. But who needs those on the track?

With the plugs removed, I squirted a bit of oil into both bores before kicking it over a few times to make sure it wasn’t going to be started dry.

With the plugs cleaned and refitted and fuel in the tank it was time to ask the question of the lovely old bike. After two or three prods on the kick-starter on full choke she answered clearly and convincingly, firing up easily and sounding strong – and immediately starting to fill the shed with clouds of blue smoke.

Out of consideration I completed the warm-up outside.

The really reassuring thing was the lack of piston noise. The top-end is in really good shape. And it turned out that the indicators work perfectly. They’re wired to operate only when the engine is running.

A couple of sessions on the track confirmed that there are no mechanical gremlins. The clutch, gearbox and brakes are fine. The engine will respond well to some finessing of the ignition and carbs. There’s not a lot of damping in either the front or rear suspension, though. I’ll be working on that in the coming weeks.

At the end of the day I was a happy Suzuki T500 owner. The bike had proved to be in better shape overall than I expected. Keep an eye out for further progress in coming issues.