1978 GS1000 Upgrades

[russr33]

Russ,
I think cutting it off right behind the rear peg mount is your best option of the two, it will give the fabricator the room to make the necessary bends. I would envision the new upswept muffler will be bent more like the bassani pipe to make use of the footpeg bracket. I would instruct the fabricator to weld the mounting bracket on the bottom of the muffler so the megaphone section covers everything up. That's how the old supertrapp mounts. Curious are those scrapes in the Yosh from kissing the pavement?

Also can I get your opinion on the Morris wheels? Since you have ridden the GS1000S back to back with Big Red here is there any discernable difference in the handling between the two bikes?

Good eye 'trap. Yes those scrapes are unfortunately from a low speed low side when I hit gravel in a blind decreasing radius right hander coming out of bastrop state park outside of Austin. Important lesson learned that day: GO SLOW in areas that you are unfamiliar with.

That accident actually got the ball rolling on this project. When I went down I bent the rear footpeg bracket into the swingarm, resulting in a cracked in half Raask rear-set and:



No worries though, the Metmatchex swinger went in today:




As you can see we did cut right behind the rear foot peg mount. Still have some cleaning up to do in that area. Looking forward to seeing what the fabricator comes up with on the exhaust.

As far as differences in the 2 bikes I would say the cooley handles better, but I think that had to do mostly with the telefix fork brace on the S and the lack of fork brace on the '78. That will be rectified with a Tarozzi fork brace which is on the way. I was actually thinking of keeping that old school fork brace that is on there and adding the Tarozzi to it. I like the look of it (was it ever even intended to be functional or just for looks?) but it is worthless as far as handling. Sometimes when I would hit a seam in the road a mild heart attack would follow. Very inbterested to get it back together and see the difference in the two.

[russr33]

Besides the swinger going in today got alot of other things accomplished as well:

-rear brake caliper painted
-new rear stainless line installed
-progressive fork springs installed
-new all-balls steering head bearing installed
-rear wheel bearing installed
-fork legs painted
-lower triple painted

On the agenda tomorrow:

Get rotors drilled for Salty Dan brake mod. These are 296mm CBR900rr rotors (or so I thought) and I thought everything I had read said that these would line up straight with the hub you just had to widen to 8mm. Should line up perfectly with spacer. These however need to be drilled like the F3 rotors. So either I was mistaken in my reading or I have F3 rotors instead of CBR900RR's. Right?

[salty_monk]

Those are the F3 rotors same as I have.

Dan

[russr33]

Making progress....

So the Salty Monk brake mod is done and I got the exhaust back. Jemco is the name of the place that did the exhaust here in Houston and they did an outstanding job. They had previously done the custom baffle for the Yosh pipe a year or so ago. They have been around for over 30 years and are big with the 2 stroke dirt bike crowd. He went ahead and painted the can with Krylon 1200 degree bbq paint which actually looked really good. After these pics I went ahead and disassembled the exhaust and took it to a guy to sandblast the ceramic coated header and he is going to powdercoat for a very reasonable price so I am having him do the whole thing, the old Yosh can included. Dan btw if you ever wanted a upswept pipe like that for your old Yosh let me know; I'm sure he could do one for you.

[russr33]

Also got the tarozzi fork brace on. I went ahead and kept the old fork brace on as well. I like the look of the old one but functionally it was useless.

Waiting on the new Ikons and the carbs back from Bruce as well as a few odds and ends and should be good to go!

[Nessism]

Looks good Russ. Me thinks you put the hot rod head on the wrong bike.

BTW, what's up with the brake line routing?

[russr33]

Looks good Russ. Me thinks you put the hot rod head on the wrong bike.

BTW, what's up with the brake line routing?

Right? It was a better fit though Ed with the 1085 kit and all. Too funny with the rear brake line; I guess the guys doing the exhaaust had run it up like that to get it out of the way. I didn't even notice that .

[Smokinapankake]

Looking good Russ;

Interested to see how you route that rear brake line as I too have a Metmachex swinger (on my Katana) and have not come up with a good way to secure the line to the swingarm.

I think you and I may be the only ones with this swingarm. Yours looks to be newer than mine with the I section tubing; mine is just rectangular.

[russr33]

Yeah Smokin' the GS1100 swinger I had on there had tabs welded on to secure the brake line but the metmachex does not. Not really sure what to do there.

[Nessism]

Hey Russ,

Not sure where you can find them but an anchor can be stuck down on the swingarm using high quality double stick tape as long as the mounting pad size is reasonably large.

[russr33]

scrub, scrub, scrub

So spent most of the day doing a deep cleaning on the bike following the "Clean your Motorcycle" series on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HREqf4wIukA

A word of advice if you a folow these procedures: WHere eye protection. My eyes are still burning from getting WD40 in them! Afew before and after shots. Still need to go back and do a little more cleaning and to day I will try and polish the covers a bit. Still have the clear coat on them so not expecting much. Here's a few before and after shots. Ikon shocks still haven't made it here btw after 2 weeks....

Still obviously is pretty rough. She really is in need of a full frame off.

[russr33]

So back together now. Really happy with the way the exhaust turned out. Still have a charging problem to figure out.

[KitKat]

looks amazing i want it

[steve murdoch]

Looks great, Russ.
The angle/upsweep of the muffler suits the bike. Very racy.

[Octain]

Looks awesome!!