Another Aussie GS rebuild - GS1100G

[JimmyR]

Engine is out! I got a 1.8m length of 10mm rod, cut it in half and slotted it into the engine bolt holes and with the help of my gracious neighbour got it out fairly painlessly. The steel rod made it soooo much easier than it could have been. Bent the front rod quite a bit! I'll take pics after a bit.

My current neighbour is a really top bloke who also rides a bit. He has a Honda 400 V-something sportsbike. He's also pretty handy himself - builds a lot of furniture from found timber, that sort of thing. So cool to have people like that living next door. I'm very lucky.

 

[JimmyR]

Pics - frame ready for powdercoat and all the other bits I will take as well tomorrow:

Here you can see the steel rods which acted as handles to get the engine out. They bent a bit!

 

[JimmyR]

And here you can just make out the amount of crap I have had to deal with - that crud was all over the engine:

 

[Guest]

Awesome Jimmy, can't wait to see how they turn out! How long til you get 'em back?

What's the plan for the engine? Just a good clean or will you be doing any paint/polish?

 

[Good Times]

You will love the transformation after powder coat!

My Allthread rods looked the same way after putting the motor in.

Time to get scrubbin' on that motor. Fun stuff!

One more step toward perfection.

 

[JimmyR]

Hey thanks guys! Pete I dunno how long they will have my frame but I will be asking them to make it quick that's for sure! Good Times I think you are right. The frame looks awful at the moment and I really think that the whole bike will look a ton better once the powder coating is done.

You know I really don't know what to do about the engine. I have cleaned off that crud with the wire wheel, but it's really difficult to get the whole engine looking consistent. I wish I could get it blasted but that would mean pulling it all to bits and I can't really afford it and it doesn't need to be pulled apart either. It's frustrating because there is a lot of dirt still in the fins and I have got the dremel brushes onto it but still it looks bad. Around the sparkplugs is pretty grubby too, but difficult to get to. I have even tried some mag wheel cleaner on the fins but it can't cut through all of the crud.

Oh well, the rest of the bike will look amazing. And the engine covers look good. I don't want any colour on the engine but it might look good if I could paint the finned bits.

 

[Guest]

Hey thanks guys! Pete I dunno how long they will have my frame but I will be asking them to make it quick that's for sure! Good Times I think you are right. The frame looks awful at the moment and I really think that the whole bike will look a ton better once the powder coating is done.

You know I really don't know what to do about the engine. I have cleaned off that crud with the wire wheel, but it's really difficult to get the whole engine looking consistent. I wish I could get it blasted but that would mean pulling it all to bits and I can't really afford it and it doesn't need to be pulled apart either. It's frustrating because there is a lot of dirt still in the fins and I have got the dremel brushes onto it but still it looks bad. Around the sparkplugs is pretty grubby too, but difficult to get to. I have even tried some mag wheel cleaner on the fins but it can't cut through all of the crud.

Oh well, the rest of the bike will look amazing. And the engine covers look good. I don't want any colour on the engine but it might look good if I could paint the finned bits.

You know Good Times painted his with it all in one piece? And it looks great

 

[JimmyR]

I think I have the engine as good as I can get it without pulling it to bits and blasting it. I think I will never be 100% happy with it until it is blasted but that will have to wait until I need new rings or something.

So this week is a bit boring. The frame is at the powder coaters, and I took my fenders to a blaster to get them textured. The guy at the blasting place did a little sample for me (I took some cut off sections for testing) and it looked really good. So once the fenders have been blasted I'll get them anodised and maybe even put a 2-pack satin clear coat on them.

That all means that there isn't much bike here to work on. All I can do is clean the crap off bolts and stuff like that. My rear wheel spacers look fantastic now! I didn't realise that they were bare aluminium. They were covered with so much crud I assumed that they were finished black. Nope!

After all this work all I can think of is putting it all back together. I really have trouble waiting...

 

[Good Times]

I think I have the engine as good as I can get it without pulling it to bits and blasting it. I think I will never be 100% happy with it until it is blasted but that will have to wait until I need new rings or something.

That's exactly where I was. I made sure I didn't have any caked on grease left on the motor and got everything off that I could. There was still some metal that was discolored in the fins, but without taking every square inch down to shiney metal, that wasn't going to change. I'm please with the result. If the paint comes off then I will go the route of stripping it, taking the motor apart and blasting it in a couple of years when I rebuild the top end. For now thought it looks awesome. I'll just take a bunch of pictures before I ride it. LOL!!!

 

[JimmyR]

Hey GT - went and looked at your thread again and the engine looks incredible. Coming to Australia any time soon?

 

[JimmyR]

Playing around with logos at the moment seeing as there's not much to work on here right now. I have always LOVED the Norton logo. I would never use it on a bike that wasn't a Norton though, but I might use something similar! The regular Suzuki logo doesn't look right on the bike now.

 

[7981GS]

Playing around with logos at the moment seeing as there's not much to work on here right now. I have always LOVED the Norton logo. I would never use it on a bike that wasn't a Norton though, but I might use something similar! The regular Suzuki logo doesn't look right on the bike now.

I also am a Norton fan and your bike looks great!

Eric

 

[Tim Tom]

This bike is looking beautiful. It's refreshing to see someone do a custom that isn't the standard fiberglass bubble tail, or crappy hacked apart bike. Seriously cool. I love the norton-esque logo as well. It fits perfectly.

When this thing is done you should submit it to Pipeburn or BikeExif. They'd eat it up on there.

Again I can't echo how nice it is to see a custom in the works that isn't a cookie cutter bobber / cafe thing. Keep up the awesome work!

 

[JimmyR]

Wow - thanks mate! I really appreciate your words. I do intend to photograph it properly when it's done and send some pics to Bikeexif at least because that blog has been extremely inspiring to me.

I have a few "bike shapes" in my head - it's a bit difficult to explain. For example I have an almost cartoonish idea of what a V-twin bike should look like, and it's pretty much the softail frame shape, a fat bob tank and very simple lines. No bits that don't need to be there. It's the same with the 70s Japanese or 60s Triumph/Norton/BSA bikes - I have a very simple idea in my head of how it should be. I love simple, clean shapes and lines and a balanced outline. Nothing should look awkward or forced. It's a cartoon of a bike.

It's almost as if I want the bike to explain how it works to the viewer. Anyway, this all sounds way too pretentious when really all I want is a bike that I can understand!

I just feel incredibly lucky that it was a GS1100G that I chose to build with. It has the perfect combination of simplicity of form, power, ease of riding and comfort. I didn't know that when I bought it - I just thought it had the right shape.

Lots to do still. But it definitely is coming up to the fun bit. I am going to get the tank cleaned up a bit and clear coated again and am becoming quite tempted to do the logo in paint rather than a badge. Hmmm, but that would mean filling the badge lines... Nah, I'll get a couple of badges made up. If it needs paint then I'll buy another tank.

I really do appreciate the kind words. I am so happy with how this is going and stoked to find such a great resource as this place.

 

[Johnny Drummond]

badge thoughts

badge thoughts

I agree with the others,that style of lettering suits the bike really well.If you are having to have badges made why don't you look for someone(say a student in art college who works in metal sculpture,or an artist blacksmith) who could make you up some in sheet brass/guilding metal say1.5-2mm thick then you can use the original screw holes for the suzuki badges but you could shape them to follow the curvature of the tank and make holes in them so you can put the suzuki screws to mount themthen polish them up, I think that would look really good with that deep burgundy paintwork(just my thoughts).keep it up ,can't wait to see the finished job.Johnny

 

[Guest]

+1 on the badge ideas... or if you want to do it yourself, you could always design them, get them laser cut, then chromed...

 

[JimmyR]

A few years ago I taught myself how to make valve guitar amplifiers. So I have made quite a few - and run out of room to put them all! Tweaked versions od old Fender tweeds, 60s Marshalls, that sort of thing. To male them look finished I would get logos made for them in my own design but reminiscent of old amp logos. Some of them would be made for me by a sign maker - the sort of place that makes signs for office doors, trophies, public buildings.

So I was thinking of doing something similar here. There is a black/dark brown hard plastic sheet with anodised gold aluminium foil on top that they use for signs and badges. They cut the basic shape out and then etch or rout the foil down to the plastic layer to revel the darker base, so that the letters are gold and the surround is black. I do intend to use the Suzuki screws to attach them.

Early days yet. I'll work it out. Good ideas guys - and yeah I've been wondering about keeping the contours of the tank Johnny. Maybe gentle heat will help?

 

[Good Times]

I wish I could make to to Australia! That would cut into my build time and budget though.

You are on the right track Jimmy! It's looking really good. I like the look of the logo on the tank badge. It fits. All that thinkin' and agonizing over the design is paying off.

 

[Johnny Drummond]

Contouring

Contouring

If you have made amps and used a particular supplier of plastics for the logos I would ask him about UV resistant plastics,mainly cos you lot seem to see more of that bright yellow thing in the sky than we do,just because they will become brittle over time and break through the screw holes-not what you want to see disappear after all the work you have put in.That is why I was suggesting brass/aluminium/copper as an alternative and if you use brass you can polish/lacquer it,aluminium you can get anodised basically any colour you want and as Pete suggested get the copper chromed if you still want to still go with the plastic(which might be cheaper and quicker if your sheet metal prices are anywhere near the same as ours),go to a school supplies shop and ask for a flexi curve(I think),which looks like a ruler with no numbers on it and is soft and can be made into curves.Then put it against the tank which will give you the contour,draw it on a piece of hardboard and cut along the line then just use a hair dryer to gently heat the plastic until it fits the hardboard template.Again just a thought,or ask Pete how he did the flyscreen

 

[JimmyR]

You know a lot about this stuff, don't you Johnny?? Thanks mate, some very good ideas there. They might be able to do aluminium for me - I'll check. Thin aluminium would be easy to get anodised gold and easy to fit to the curve of the tank.

Thanks - good idea!