Twinpot Brake upgrade on 78 Skunk

[salty_monk]

Entering comments in quote below with a ****

I know 10.9 steel hardware is recommended for the calipers and brackets. I need to source the bolts that hold the rotor to the wheel hub. Should I use 10.9 steel or stainless for these?

**** I have used Stainless before but made sure it was a decent A2-70 grade. 8.8 or 10.9 regular steel would be better.

Edit: my bike has a thin plastic spacer between the hub and rotor (#16 in the diagram). I assume I ditch this and just use the metal spacer from the kit since the dual disc bikes don't have the plastic spacer. Correct?

**** CORRECT

Do you guys use the "washers" (#15) on the rotor bolts as well?

**** YES

[salty_monk]

G
The aftermarket now has cost effective alternatives for new rotors. Are there brand new (Asashi?) rotor, rotor carrier, and buttons that can be recommended that don't require drilling modifications? Part numbers would be helpful. Ebay is such a crap shoot.
Thank you for your time

Nope. All of them need drilling to some degree.

[johnod]

Re #15, I do , it locks the bolts in place.

[hannibal]

I know 10.9 steel hardware is recommended for the calipers and brackets. I need to source the bolts that hold the rotor to the wheel hub. Should I use 10.9 steel or stainless for these?

Edit: my bike has a thin plastic spacer between the hub and rotor (#16 in the diagram). I assume I ditch this and just use the metal spacer from the kit since the dual disc bikes don't have the plastic spacer. Correct?

Do you guys use the "washers" (#15) on the rotor bolts as well?

Greeting's. Salty's original inspiration 10 years ago to upgrade the caliper's and rotors for the GS series motorcycles used CBR rotors and Kaw Concour calipers were the best cost effective options.
The aftermarket now has cost effective alternatives for new rotors. Are there brand new (Asashi?) rotor, rotor carrier, and buttons that can be recommended that don't require drilling modifications? Part numbers would be helpful. Ebay is such a crap shoot.
Thank you for your time

[salty_monk]

The last of the breed for the calipers than work are the 2001-2006 Kawasaki Concourse & the up to 2006 Kawasaki Ninja 250 (except it has one side only).

I usually go for the Concourse ones when I can get them. In general they seem to be in better condition, maybe because of the age.

Those calipers are silver. Most of the calipers out there are black.

[willie]

Thanks again Chuck. Excellent info!

[Chuck78]

They are all the same calipers if they use the universal Left/Right bracket with the holes drilled in it, but the calipers themselves are specific left vs right. And we are talking about the calipers that use one large leading and one small trailing piston (some very similar tokico calipers used 2 pistons of equal diameter, I believe they have a slightly different bracket that is not universal left and right. This may also work with these bracket kits, but I am not certain).

Just look up front brake calipers from those three Suzuki models or any of the Kawasaki models listed, and look at the photos of the calipers for sale. The calipers you want have an unmistakable appearance.

Also you can use the alpha sports or Partzilla websites which have cross reference information on the individual part pages. Find a caliper in the parts fiche schematics/diagrams that looks like the one that we are using here, then click on each caliper, left and right, and it will show you every year and model that exact caliper in that exact color came on. The Kawasaki's get complicated because they had different paint color variations that make the cross-referencing not as straightforward (identical brake calipers but in a different color will have a different part number). In that case, you can use the piston seal part numbers for the pistons themselves actually, and get a better idea of exactly what years to look for.

[willie]

Thanks for responding Chuck. Does anyone know if one particular bike model caliper would be better than another?

[Chuck78]

Earlier GS500's, 1989 through roughly 2001/2003 use this exact Tokico caliper. I believe the later AJP versions will also work with this mod as they use the exact same fork mount positions as far as I can tell.

EDIT - EXCEPT that all GS500 calipers will only work as the right side caliper of a dual disc 77-88 Suzuki GS, because as far as I know, all the 77-88 GS's run a left caliper only, on all single disc setups, and the GS500's are all right side only, single discs.

Any year GS500 master cylinder will work for this mod on a single disc bike, but on the calipers, i dont know what models you would look at ti find a matching left side AJP caliper to match the right side later GS500 AJP style.

[willie]

On the page that Hannibal posted a link to you it states, "Suzuki also used this caliper on the VX800, GS500 and the GSX1100G". Can someone tell me if there is a specific yr model I should be looking for?
Thanks,
Willie

[salty_monk]

Thanks - I posted that post linky into the first post of the thread. PM back to you today.

[hannibal]

So this thread is very large and I haven't read the whole thing. Is there a parts list for this install for a 78 GS1000 factory twin disc bike? Is there a kit anyone knows of? Love my Skunk, stops like ****.

https://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?140253-Twinpot-Brake-upgrade-on-78-Skunk&p=2236887#post2236887

[johnod]

Saltymonk makes a mount kit.

[ChrisM]

So this thread is very large and I haven't read the whole thing. Is there a parts list for this install for a 78 GS1000 factory twin disc bike? Is there a kit anyone knows of? Love my Skunk, stops like ****.