Rim size recommendations

[storm 64]

I am in the process of building a set of spoked wheels for my 1979 GS 1000e. I have the hubs from a early GS750. I am looking for rim size recommendations and words of wisdom. The front wheel, will stay a 19 inch diameter with a width of 2.15 the same width as my 82 850. However my rear wheel currently has a 17 inch diameter X2.5 The 750 hub had a 18inch diameter rim. I'm thinking going to the 18 inch diameter rim and increasing the width to maybe 3.5 Now, I don't want any clearance problems. Is 3.5 to wide? Do my wheel dimensions sound okay? What size wheels and tires do you have on your GS1000? Thanks for any advice you can give me.��

 

[Nessism]

3.5 is not too wide. 2.15 on the front is too narrow. I'd go to 2.5

 

[sharpy]

2.5 X 18 front and 4.25 X 18 rear. Using a GSX550 ESD front guard. You should go 18 front if you can afford it. Common swap is using the rear OEM alloy rim on the front and getting a wider rear rim.

 

[Nessism]

Why 18" on the front?

I like the 4.25 on the rear.

 

[storm 64]

That sure is a sweet set up Sharpy. And thanks Ed for your input. I think I'll definitely stay with the 19" dia. and go with the 2.5 front. The rear wheel 18"X 3.5 or 4.00 I'd gess that I would use a 130/80X18 rear tire? I spent most of the day at work cleaning wheel hubs. This is going to be nice.

 

[sharpy]

Why 18" on the front?

I like the 4.25 on the rear.

Easy fit if you already have a set of allot rims due to that rear to front swap. Quicker steering, more tyre choices when it was done originally (82/3 weeks old) and later found out its added bonus of more air flow to the oil cooler which wouldnt fit if still running 19 rim and front guard.

 

[GSXR7ED]

Spoke wheels are so Vintage!


Ed

 

[thebrandonbeezy]

I like the 18/18 combo on my tc185.. but thats a totally different bike lol

 

[TeamDar]

Like Sharpy said. You find a set of alloy spoke wheels off of a GS1000. Throw away the front rim. Lace the rear 18" rim to the front hub. Lace up whatever you want for the rear. For the street or road racing, the common choice was a WM6 rim which was 3.5". I have a 1980 GS1100 track bike that has that set up in my collection. Looks good and works well. Dar

 

[sharpy]

Sit down when you price a new Rear rim. A good quality one is very expensive. getting a set of alloy rims the way dar suggested would be ideal. We built the bike below with rim sizes i quoted in my 1st post and handled like a dream. In the old days when ST's first come out the biggest rear rim was 3in. Glad we get more choice these days. PS. dont throw away that 19in front rim if you use 18in. It come on handy one day for a quick sale

 

[storm 64]

Yeah, I've been pricing rims and spoke sets... It would be nice to keep this project under a grand. I have to buy tires, chain and sprockets anyways so you can't count that... right?

 

[storm 64]

I did make some headway on cleaning up the hubs. The front hub is done, the rear hub still needs some rubbing...

 

[sharpy]

All due respect. who butchered ure hubs?

 

[Chuck78]

Stormin' Norm!!!!! Hey buddy you will need the wider widths and appropriate tires when you come down to Appalachian Eastern/Southeast Ohio to ride with me!

I have 3 sets of GS wheels with aftermarket rims. Two are old D.I.D. Daido 3.50x18 rears and 2.50x18 fronts.
One is Sun Rims (Buchanan's makes Sun motorcycle rims) 3.50x18 rear and 2.75x18 front.
DEFINITELY ditch the slow steering 19", running a wider front on a 19" will slow down the steering response even more by adding a lot more trail. These sizes I list are perfect for our bikes.

2.15 front will fit a 100/80 or 100/90 perfectly. If you want a 110/80, it will fit but the tire manufacturers recommend a 2.50 or 2.75 rim as best fit there.

A 110/80-18 or 100/80-18 or 100/90-18 fits a 2.50 perfectly according to the tire manufacturers' spec sheets.

The 3.50x18 rear fits a 130/80-18, 140/70-18 & 140/80-18, & 150/70-18 very well, with the 140 being the best fit.
a 150/70-18 is recommended most on a 4.00x18 rim, most rim models come in a 3.50 and a 4.25.
I often run a 150/70-18 rear, and it looks AWESOME size wise on our bikes, really fills out the rear end nicely and looks very appropriate.
*However...if you run and o-ring chain (wider than a non-o-ring chain), you will have very minimal tire to chain clearance on a 150/70. Although I have what looks like just enough clearance there, the chicken strip edge of my rear tire tread says that the chain has been polishing the edge off the tread on my tire on right turns and engine braking deceleration!
You may slso need to heat up your brake stay torque arm and "clearance" it slightly with arm hammer or in arm vice with blocks of wood clamping it. It's tight. Even with a 140.

 

[Chuck78]

Your best bets on rims are Sun Rims (USA/Buchanan's) or Excel Takasago (the other best rims these days, Japanese). 2.50 or 2.75 front and 3.50 rear. The 4.25 will limit you to only 150/70 rear tires but fits those best. You can get some good 160/60 rears though at least in the Avon race tires. The Excel come in dimpled, which I like.
3rd best choice is the classic retro reproduction Italian Borrani Record H-profile type flanged/shouldered valenced rims with the tall sidewalls. Morad (Spain) reproduces these and Akront TC rims. Another company made up of former Borrani employees bought all the original Borrani tooling and reproduces them as well.
The big drawback here is that the largest width in the H-profile is 3.00", & Buchanan's doesn't have these sizes. You really need to buy them from a wheel shop that can drill the proper spoke angle into the rim based on the hub flange diameter.
You can get these H-profile tall sidewall rims pretty cheap from Italy or Spain off ebay, & have them shipped direct to Woody's Wheel Works or Buchanan's where they can check the spoke hole angle and re-drill them for your hubs if needed. Woody's has Buchanan's make all of their spokes but Woody's is generally cheaper on the Excel rims if you go that route, & they may have a direct source for the H-profile Italian/Spanish rims.
You may be able to get the Akront TC style rims in 3.50 but I'm not certain.
With a 3.00 rim your best tire choices would be limited to a 130/80-18 in the Battlax BT45V or Avon AM26 Road Rider.

****Check the stock GS1000 rear OEM tire size diameter vs a Pirelli, BT45V, & Avon AM26 size that I proposed. I bet a 140/70-18 would be similar or slightly taller than the original OEM spec tire diameter. Going a bit taller with an 18 rear and dropping down to an 18" front will both help your steering sportiness substsntially, & this upgrade will give you a lot better traction with wider tires.


Did you chuck those hubs into a lathe & shave the ribs off? Looks cool, but I'd clean them A LOT and clear anodize them as you will never be able to re-polish them as good as this once the spokes are in the way!!! Or get some SprayMax 2k clear coat (oil and gas resistant 2 part rattle can paint, best stuff in existence for amateur painters!)

 

[Chuck78]

In tires, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the economically priced Shinko tires in a 230 TourMaster 100/90-18 front and SR741 140/70-18 rear. You will only get 4,000 miles out of the rear, but wow these tires grip AWESOME! Especially for the $130-ish price tag for both, SHIPPED TO YOUR DOOR! The rear will definitely gave a flat patch worn down the middle of the tread at 3,000mi though

This time around, I around trying around mix& match with a 100/90-18 Shinko front and 130/80-18 Bridgestone Battlax BT45V rear. I am doing this in trying to overcome the shortcomings of each. The Shinko rears wear rapidly, & a few Battlax users (not all) complain of weird handling quirks on their fronts, resulting in an uneven cupping treadwear pattern. Could be tire pressure related? The shinko front I believe will do better in the rain. The Battlax BT45 rears have "Sport SACT" technology - a dual compound rear with extra grippy soft side tread and slightly harder compound down the middle so that they wont wear flat as quickly. They still wear much faster than an Avon AM26 Road Rider, but the grip is undeniably better than the Avon street tires. I will report back on my findings.

I also am doing these particular sizes this time around as an experiment to see if running the narrowest recommended sizes on my wider Sun rims will slightly flatten out the tread profile enough to give me an increased contact patch and more traction! I can never run the "best recommended fit" tire sizes leaning all the way over to the edge of the tread without scraping hard parts anyway, so it seemed logical to me. It was a tough call vs a very affordable and superbly constructed Shinko SR741 rear which I know will be an EXCELLENT performer.

The Pirelli Sport Demon in a 140/70-18 rear and 110/80-18 front will hands down be the most phenomenally gripping tire in wet and dry conditions, you should really try these out, but the rears wear pretty quickly too. They are supposedly designed now (newer ones in the past 2 years) to not wear down as fast on the center of the rear tread but these are an extremely sporty tire, so it's going to wear fast regardless.

I don't like the Avon AM26 as much as most people talk about, as I have had the rears step out on me quite a lot the way I have been riding in the past 5 or 6 years. Last season the front slipped slightly on me twice at hard lean angles, which scared the $#!+ out of me! Luckily it was very minimal but enough to tell me not to run these if I continue to push the limits of cornering ability in the amazing Appalachian hills of SE Ohio / Eastern Kentucky / all of West Virginia...
The Avon Road Riders are great if you don't want to change tires often or if you so mostly city and highway miles. Best cornering grip for a better treadwear lifespan tire

 

[sharpy]

we run Akront rims. Best around and rear matches the new front exactly. pretty sure you can still buy them but in australia there around 600 for a rear rim.

 

[Chuck78]

I just picked up a bunch of Akront TC and TR rims for 2 race bike projects.
TR 4.25x18 40h and 2.15x18 36h for the Rickman/Scarab hubs I have for the Rickman CR chassis with a monster 1105cc bored and stroked GS1000 engine I have here in pieces. I really am searching for a 2.50x18 front Akront TR rim though. They are hard to find so I may strip the anodizing off of a DID 2.50x18 and polish it instead, as it has a similar slight flanged lip at the bead like the Akront TR.
I got a 1970's NOS 2.75x18 rear from ebay.it and 2.15x18 front newer old stock (5 year old Morad reproduction) from a guy Charlie in Idaho that has like 3 or 5 more on ebay now that would probably fit a GS front hub fine, he doesn't have 36 hole rears for us though but his front 2.15x18's are incredibly priced at around $140-ish shipped I think I gave him. Basically same rim as the Excel but bare polished aluminum not clear anodized. This will be the race wheel set for the GS425-489cc project, as I am limited to 3.00" rims in WERA Formula 500 class rules.

 

[storm 64]

Great advice Chuck, I was hoping you'd chime in. I was getting ready to call you. I'm not not sure how the 18 inch front would look under my big chrome fender... I'm still waiting on Woody from Woody's Wheel Works in Denver to get back to me with a price quote. And yes, I did machine the ribs off. Just to smooth everything out. I don't think I "butchered" it up to bad. Lol.

 

[Chuck78]

Great advice Chuck, I was hoping you'd chime in. I was getting ready to call you. I'm not not sure how the 18 inch front would look under my big chrome fender...

the 18 will look totally normal up front in a wider size, as the wider tread width tires will be substantially larger in diameter in a 19" size than a stock 3.25-19 tire or whatever they were, and one thing you absolutely want to avoid is sticking with the same overall diameter front tire - YOU WANT TO GO SHORTER OVERALL FT TIRE DIAMETER as they do steer a little sluggish like the most sporty of Hardly-Ablesons do stock. Front tire diameter is the biggest factor in steering trail. #2 is the rake of the frame, which can also be steepened to decrease trail by taller shocks/shorter fork installed height, & taller diameter rear tire / shorter diameter front tire. Getting down from a stock 4.21" trail spec to a 3.9" or so range will make that the steering responsiveness of that big 998cc beast handle like a dream, as if you dropped 100lbs off the bike.

I was running 110/90-18 fronts which are basically the same diameter as a 3.25-19, but I am done with that size, they look too tall and don't steer as quick as a 110/80-18 or 100/90-18.

Also I'd look into some YSS G-302 shocks with the adjustable ride height clevis so you can dial in the steering feel better. Those are an excellent bargain at around $500 with adjustable damping. Works also has some Street Trackers in the same price range.
While you have the front wheel off, YOU GOTTA upgrade to Racetech gold valves and Sonic Springs... your GS1000 will be the sweetest thing around with all of these performance enhancements! Stainless brake lines and new pads, too. Or just do the popular twin pot brake mod. You can get some decent 296mm Chinese 98-99 cbr600f hornet rotors that are black centers and a direct bolt on with no spacers (after u drill the bolt holes from 6mm to 8mm).


****I edited my above posts and added more info, you may want to refresh your browser and re-read.