G
GSCafe
Guest
I'm a GS550 owner in northern California. I've had my GS for about a decade. I bought it as a commute warrior when I was down and out. It has its quirks, some of which I have overcome, some of which I still struggle with. It was basically a barn find. It came with an original Kerker Supertrapp 4 into 1 as well as the original mufflers. The Kerker, though loud, sounds absolutely fantastic. I've had people offer me money on the spot for just the pipes. So after I had some time with it, I replaced the hoopty bars with flatter ones and bar-end mirrors. The bike always seemed to need a more than idle rpm to stay lit. After playing with the points, I decided I'd had enough of that. I'm no purist, I just want to ride. I yanked out the ignition points and wiring and wired up an electro-optical solution. (Dyna, I think) This was a great choice and still works great. However, my bike was still prone to kill the battery. So, out came the rectifier and stator for modern aftermarket components. At first, I tried to use a stator that fit but had the wrong number of poles. Gah, the 1979 GS550 is so transitional. Number of poles much match the rotor. I install pods, 100 mains and, raise the needles a little. Idle still sucks. Then, I'm still going cafe. On goes the upside-down clubman bars. On goes the bubble fairing. Off comes the signal stalks. I wire in a 12V plug and install a Ram mount for my GPS. This is great. My speedo wont stop breaking the line anyway. Next up is the cafe seat. I get the seat base installed with hole to get into the airbox. (Where my tools now live) Seat pan goes on with industrial strength Velcro. More recently, I take a run at getting the bike to run better. I get some new pilot and main jets for the VM29 carburetors. But wait, there appear to be jets screwed in below below the pilot jets. This does not match the diagram for VM29. I try several combinations with no luck. Seems too lean. I'm going to have to go back to what I was using. Going back to 100 main. 87.5 main plus 52.5 pilot seems too lean. The original pilot as I got it says 15 (?) bleed pilot on top of a jet that says 50. I don't understand what is going on here but I suppose I will post in the requisite forum where a guru can help me. Things electrical I've got a handle on. Things mechanical, maybe not so much. Looking forward to being a part of this forum though.
