1980 GS550 rebuild

[Guest]

Hiya,
After a 5 year or so absence from GS's, I have started rebuilding this 550. I found it out in NV, stored on a guys ranch back in '06. It had a nasty airleak, but otherwise untouched, low mileage (never even registered!), so I bit. Many moves and moto-related projects later I am getting back into it.

I did put wheels from a '77 550, a tiny tach/speedo, dyna ignition, but then my interest kinda took a nose dive. As she stood seven years ago.

[computronic2040]

I stripped it down, sold off the plastics, ground off the tabs and replaced the seat. The seat is for a small Kriedler motorcycle that I purchased from my local moped superstore treatland.tv a good place if you are looking for something cheap & out of the ordinary (seats, controls, lights, etc.).

Trying to stay away from the cafe/rear cowl thing - I really like the integrated seat/fender look, so cut the front fender and mounted it in the seat.

[computronic2040]

I then shortened the frame by a few inches, I really wanted to keep the indicator mounts but didn't want to put a rear hoop on there. I lathed some slugs and welded the rear section up.





I made a battery/electrics/contraband tray out of some sheet metal to keep the triangle clean.







…. and scrubbed my dirty old lump!

[computronic2040]

Now the exhaust. Gotta have a 4-1! I put the dynojet kit in the carbs, k&n 2-1 filters and found a NOS MCM exhaust. It was still packed with the original '77 newspaper, yep those are bellbottoms.



I powdercoated the frame, put gaiters on the forks and slapped it back together. I also put a better brake master (older Ducati coffin style) and SS lines on there in order to do what I can for the stock GS braking.





I stripped the tank for powdercoating and disassembled the seat in order to weld some mounting tabs on it.

[computronic2040]

Here it is, a little closer, and a few months worth of weekends spent from when I first started. Let me add that I don't have a car, so I will have to give props to my other favorite GS: my BMW R1150GS, which can accommodate a motorcycle frame (in case you were wondering).

[Krogare]

Wow, thats coming together real nice!

Just out of curiousity, do you have any experience from individual pods vs the 2-1 k&n's? If so, is there any difference?

[computronic2040]

No experience as of yet, in the process of building an electrical harness and then I will tune it. I have found almost no info on how these perform as opposed to individual pods, besides the "don't ever run pods on a CV" dogma you see everywhere.

[Krogare]

Yeah, have I heard that before? (re pods) ok, well I got the same filters ready for my gs750e. Interesed to see how it works out