78 GS 550E On going Project

[ITim]

In the fall I bought a 78 GS 550E, this is the first Bike I have ever owned. I spent all winter tinkering and fixing it to get it to this point. The PO had it in pieces, which basically came to me in a box of parts. Unfortunately he had passed away (I bought the bike from his wife) so I am not sure exactly what his intentions were for the bike, but it looks like he was converting it into a Caf?.

Anyways I Just wanted to send out a HUGE thank you to this site and the members who have posted, I have learned a TONE of good info for sure. This is one of the first posts I have done, but to be honest I never really felt the need to post. Majority of my question have been answered through research of the GSR, BassCliff's site or the Manual.

Luckily the bike came with a pretty decent parts bike, so I never had to order many parts for it.

A quick list of the things I have done to the bike:

• Stripped, Painted, and clear coated most parts on the bike. Previous paint job was peeling and flaking off.
• Tore down, dipped and cleaned the carbs. Got new Boot O-Rings, full Carb Kit from Cycleorings.com, and a new air filter.
• New signal lights and re-did the wiring for them, the horn and head light.
• Added Bar end mirrors (New Bars came with the bike)
• Tore down the top to replace Valve gaskets and top end gaskets. (Was burning oil)
• Replaced the Piston rings
• Replaced the idiot lights and wiring for them
• Re-shaped and Re-upholstered the seat.

I just have one more thing to do before it?s ready to ride, I am waiting on a sprocket and clutch Oil seals for the engine. The engine spits out oil after about a 20 minute ride.

I apologies I don't have many progress photos, I just got too carried away with tinkering and by the time I finished it was too late. I do have a few more issues I will be posting later though, that will have images with them.

 

[ITim]

I also wanted to add I am slowly converting it into a Caf?, but for now I have made it slightly interchangeable. Based on the existing frame I created a rear fender, that I can swap out for the original if I feel the urge to switch between the two.
Here are a few images of the process I did to create the rear fender.

Welded Steel Bar Frame

Wire Mesh Covering

Fiber glassed and bondo body filler

Paint and clear coat
Rear Light from a 94 Suzuki Intruder

 

[ITim]

Also I found a photo of the bike just after I got it and had it running.

I might put that front fender back on, kinda looks better that way.

Image with the original rear fender that I fixed up so I can change with the new one

Just for comparison

 

[cowboyup3371]

Now that is a very nice looking bike.

 

[Guest]

Indeed it is!

Love the paint job, the seat, the custom tail... quality work for sure!

 

[tkent02]

Very nice, I like the painted front fender.

 

[Tim Tom]

Great looking bike! I really like it. Keep the painted fender. It looks nice

 

[DCrippa]

Sweet! good job - I like how you made the seat.

 

[ITim]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the input. Looks like I will be keeping the painted fender. I got to say without this site, I would have been lost on this. I'm defiantly donating just as soon as I get some extra cash. Now I can't wait to ride it more then 20km without oil spinning all over the place... Very soon I hope.

A little feature I was not expecting. That back fender is just bolted to the seat and has enough clearance with the wires to lift up with the seat, originally I was just going to bolt it all down, but this works too.

 

[Guest]

Well, you've inspired me ITim!

I've been racking my brains over what to do about my seat for a long time now and I think if I take the idea of what you did for your rear duck tail there and apply it to the original duck tail frame work on my 450, it should solve my problems.

The latest idea I had was to chop the very end of my stock seat pan off and weld or rivet an extension on to extend it all the way to the rear of my frame, but I must confess to not being 100% pleased with that idea.

If I copy what you've done with yours, I can mould some fibre glass around the stock duck tail frame work in a similar form to the shape of the rear of my tank, meaning I don't need to do anything with the seat pan and I can use the original key lock mechanism to still allow the seat to be removable.

So thanks for sharing your work, seems to have solved my dilemma, and I hope you don't mind me copying

 

[Guest]

Completely forgot to ask...

The round bar and mesh you used for the rear duck tail, are they anything special? I imagine the mesh would have to be stiff enough to hold its shape while moulding the fibreglass over it.

 

[ITim]

Hey Pete,

Nope nothing really special, I picked both of them up at the local hardware store (Home Depot). I think your local Mitre10 will carry them (I lived in Australia for a little while).
The Rod is a 1/4in steel rod, that was pretty straight forward to bend, cut and weld. I'm not really sure what the metal mesh is really used for, but its a "Aluminium Expanded Mesh Sheet".http://shenghuajx.en.made-in-china.com/product/BoOJeyVHkIhu/China-Aluminum-Expanded-Mesh-Sheet.html
It holds its shape really well and I just epoxied it to the frame before applying the fibreglass.

 

[Guest]

Hey Pete,

Nope nothing really special, I picked both of them up at the local hardware store (Home Depot). I think your local Mitre10 will carry them (I lived in Australia for a little while).
The Rod is a 1/4in steel rod, that was pretty straight forward to bend, cut and weld. I'm not really sure what the metal mesh is really used for, but its a "Aluminium Expanded Mesh Sheet".http://shenghuajx.en.made-in-china.com/product/BoOJeyVHkIhu/China-Aluminum-Expanded-Mesh-Sheet.html
It holds its shape really well and I just epoxied it to the frame before applying the fibreglass.

Cool, thanks for that.

Mitre 10 is still around, but we now have a big chain called Bunnings that has a lot more stock, although they can be a pain to shop at because they're usually very busy and not enough staff.

I'll have to pay them a visit and see what I can find, and I'm pretty sure they have fibreglassing stuff too.

Oh, that was the other one... how many layers of mat did you go with? I would think 3 would be plenty strong enough with the wire mesh...

 

[mike-s]

Another thing that sucks about bunnings is that although they stock a lot of stuff, they pretty much drop anything that isn't going to sell semi-regularly, so the .1 oversized whirlitzer you so desperately need is likely not going to be carried by them, forcing you to go to a specialist shop and pay more (but at least you'll get something made to last)

 

[Guest]

'Tis very true Mike!

I went in today to get some rod and mesh and managed to get something that should be suitable, but I had to buy a huge length of rod because the short lengths were out of stock (surprise surprise) and I had to buy 10 metres of gutter guard because it was the only thing that looked like it would work... fingers crossed!

ITim, a stupid question for you... how did you go about bending the rods? I was looking at that tonight and the only thing I can think of doing is finding something solid that has a suitable curve on it and using brute force to bend the rod around it.

Is that all you did or is there some trick I'm missing here? Sorry for the silly question, just never attempted anything like this before...

 

[mike-s]

Tubing bender perhaps? link

 

[Guest]

Makes sense, but I was hoping to avoid extra tools... maybe I'm just too naive

 

[mike-s]

You could always figure out the design and finalise your requirements and then go down to a place like steelpro, bendpro or look up a directory. link, radius. They should be able to do it for a reasonable cost. Or you could just call by a muffler shop that are accustomed to making up custom exhausts. Often they won't mind an odd job, though their mandrel benders may not be able to go down to a small enough size for your needs.

 

[Guest]

True... but waiting to get time to get somewhere like that will have me eating my week off and not getting the fibreglassing done unfortunately.

If a bender is best, then there's a few on eBay that should be ok for around the $20 - 30 mark...

But I think I'd best stop threadjacking ITims' thread now

 

[mike-s]

hehe, oops. that's what i get for attempting to be helpful!