1983 gs1100e need help with wheel and tire situation

[bwringer]

The situation in the '70s and '80s is murky... the tragedy of disco meant that many more important matters were poorly undocumented.

Anyway, a point remains: here in 2022, if your old bike originally came with tubes in the wheels, then it is your inalienable right to use tubes, even if someone has already converted your wheels to tubeless. Just remove the valve stem and proceed as if you still have a Saturday Night Fever 8-track tape in your car.

In other words, if it bugs you, then use tubes. You can still get all the tubes you want.

It's psychological: one fundamental principle of motorcycling safety is that all unneeded distractions should be removed to the extent possible. If you're going to worry about it, then install tubes so you don't worry. Don't run tubeless unless you're very certain it's what you want to do.

The regulations and practices around marking wheels "TUBELESS" are a little murky as well. For the final word, just look at the front and rear wheel parts fiches for your motorcycle to see if there's a tube.

 

[Gorminrider]

The situation in the '70s and '80s is murky... the tragedy of disco meant that many more important matters were poorly undocumented.

Too funny! but also, I think Suzuki had to get their new! improved! tubeless rims DOT approved and somehow didn't...ie: 80-81 cast alloy "star" look are not properly tubeless but the next year's '82+ "y" look was approved and tubeless...you can see the early alloy rim changes at All Suzuki Motorcycles Ever Built

 

[rphillips]

My "80" GS1000G had a tubeless "star" wheel on it when I bought it off the showroom floor in "80". Surely Suzuki didn't stamp Tubeless on it if it weren't DOT approved. Also my "83" 1100 E with the newer style wheels are not stamped Tubeless... Really confusing system they have here.

 

[Gorminrider]

My "80" GS1000G had a tubeless "star" wheel on it when I bought it off the showroom floor in "80". Surely Suzuki didn't stamp Tubeless on it if it weren't DOT approved. Also my "83" 1100 E with the newer style wheels are not stamped Tubeless... Really confusing system they have here.

huh!well I stand corrected! My 81 gsx 400 star wheels are not tubeless ... My 82's 650's "y" wheels were tubeless and said so with DOT stamped on the rims too, I recall.of course tires have had "DOT" stamped on them for a long time. I expect they still "approve" rims too but I'd have to go look to see if they're stamped somehwere or somehow.

 

[rphillips]

I'll ad this, on my "80" GS1100G only the front was stamped Tubeless, and had no tube, the rear had a tube.

 

[adam83]

Very interesting stuff in these posts. Thanks for all the info and opinions!

Well, I got side tracked, noticed there was oil drips under the bike so i ended up replacing the pan gasket, o ring, oil filter and filter plate gasket, drain plug, washer and exhaust gaskets, and then taking care of another project, but I'm back to tires now.

what size tires are stock? From everything ive read, the front was 3.50-19, and the rear was 4.50-17.

My current front tire is 3.25-19, and rear 140/80R17. Why would the previous owner use these sizes? Some sort of performance advantage I'm unaware of?

 

[bwringer]

Very interesting stuff in these posts. Thanks for all the info and opinions!

Well, I got side tracked, noticed there was oil drips under the bike so i ended up replacing the pan gasket, o ring, oil filter and filter plate gasket, drain plug, washer and exhaust gaskets, and then taking care of another project, but I'm back to tires now.

what size tires are stock? From everything ive read, the front was 3.50-19, and the rear was 4.50-17.

My current front tire is 3.25-19, and rear 140/80R17. Why would the previous owner use these sizes? Some sort of performance advantage I'm unaware of?

Quite the opposite; it's a significant performance disadvantage.

The correct "modern" tires sizes for your bike (assuming the wheels are stock) are 100/90-19 front, 130/90-17 rear. 120/90-17 is closer to the original rear size, but they're very hard to find, and 130/90-17 is very well proven to work fantastically well on the 82-83 1100E.

As to why someone would have installed a 140/80 rear... the mind of the PO (Previous Owner) is an unfathomable, fetid swamp of misguided mystery. Maybe that's what some shop slapped on there because that's all they had lying around, maybe it was some misguided attempt to get that "phat meats" look or something. In this case, it might also have been because they wanted to install a radial tire, never mind that it's a totally incorrect size. (The "R" in 140/80R-17 means "radial")

As you might have noticed, motorcycles are not cars, so wider is NOT automatically better. On your stock wheels, a wider, lower-profile rear tire can be spooned on and made to hold air, but it will assume a very handling-unfriendly hamburger shape cross-section, and not the proper round cross-section needed for consistent handling.

For example, it's common to find that some numpty in the past has installed a 110/90-19 front on a GS model that called for a 100/90-19, and turned the bike into a pig. The handling absolutely transforms when the proper 100/90-19 is installed.

As someone noted above, a wheel from a later model 1150 is a little wider and will fit, but the proper tire size is still 130/90-17.

 

[salty_monk]

I would definitely be interested in a wheel swap, if I could even locate 1150 wheels, but it seems going from a 19" front wheel to a 16" front wheel would require other changes up front

If you can live with a different spoke pattern the 82 GS850G 1100G 2.15" wide wheel is the way to go up front. I have one if you want to try it... somewhere I have a picture of the skunk running it. You don't really notice unless told....

 

[chris]

Just to make things even more confusing my 831100e has tubeless written on the rims. It is a Canadian bike. I doubt the rims are different from the US bikes.

 

[rphillips]

Now that would be very interesting to find out for sure. Are the wheels the same except for the "Tubeless" written on it. It could be a big possibly as U.S. rules and regulations are usually way more strict and controlling than other places.

 

[bwringer]

Just to make things even more confusing my 831100e has tubeless written on the rims. It is a Canadian bike. I doubt the rims are different from the US bikes.

That is mighty interesting. Well, interesting to a certain sort of person, anyway.

Do you have some photos of the wheels, and the markings on them?

 

[chris]

Hi, I went to the shop to check my wheels and realized there were no markings on them indicating tube or tubeless rating, my bad. I owned this bike since 1986 and just assumed it was tubeless from the factory. Maybe was thinking of another bike, must be getting old. I checked the oem service manual and could find no reference as to what type of tires to use tube or tubeless, just the size and mention of spoke wheels. Manual is for all gs1100ed from 1980-1983. Drawing from manual clearly shows tubeless setup. oi

 

[chris]

Sorry , intention was to post 1 photo. Post showed photo " from upload from URL" but when I pressed the post button .I got the" please post at least one photo" message. I am using a old Samsung phone.

 

[Rob S.]

There is only one GS1100ED. The d indicates 1983. (There is also a GS1100ESD. The s indicates the 'bikini' fairing, which enabled the bike to be Cycle World's first bike to break into the tens. Just barely - 10.99.)

 

[bwringer]

Look at the parts diagrams -- if the wheel fiches include tubes, then it originally came with tubes.

The 1983 GS1100E in the US absolutely came with tubes:
https://www.onlinecycleparts.com/oem...-wheel-model-d

The Canadian fiche is identical, and also depicts tubes:
https://www.suzukipartsmonster.com/o...l-gs1100ed-esd

The diagram in the manual is discussing tread depth, not valves or tubes, so they must have just used a generic image.