The tossed 78 GS1000 rebuild thread.

[Chris]

Ian,

Love the shot of the coffee table. I think mix and match games make for an enjoyable evenings entertainment.

The headlight looks great too. I'm glad the headlight ears showed up. What about the forks and wheels?

I'm looking forward to seeing the engine in the frame. What did you pad the frame rails with while installing the motor?

Did you have to swap any shims when you checked the valve clearance?

Dad

 

[IanC]

No forks and wheels yet. I was assured they were in the mail as of yesterday so soon. To protect the frame I just taped up the sides of the frame and had a few people help slide everything down and get it lined up. There still ended up being a couple scratches that I need to touch up. The motor isn't bolted in completely yet. Not happy with a few fasteners and since the local hardware source doesn't have them I'll either order them from www.tastynuts.com (not a porn site :lol: ) or Fastenall. I hear rumors of a place in Knoxville that specializes in metric fasteners so I may try finding that.
The valves were mostly in spec. A couple were tight and replaced shims in those. Now to get Colin motivated to do his while it's waiting on parts.

 

[IanC]

Hasn't been a lot to report lately. Been wet sanding my swingarm, wet sanding it some more and yet still wet sanding it some more. It's getting close to done. Mostly been waiting on parts.

Made up a new engine to battery ground cable as the old one was in sad shape. I'm working out a set-up to replace the underseat electrical connections with GM style weatherpack connectors. Like this:

You can get them in a number of different connections and they are easy to custom pin. Best of all, as the name implies they are weather proof. So all those annoying bullet terminals will be replaced and any random ones left will be replaced with new.

New to me wire wheels to replace the mags. One was bent in the accident. I really like the looks of the wire wheels. Eventually these will have to be relaced as the wires are looking a little sad but that will be for another winter. Tires that came with them are practically new so I'll ride them out for a bit. The front wheel luckily came drilled/tapped for dual disc so that saves me a trip to the machine shop to have it done.

New forks. One of mine was bent. Since these came off the same single disc brake bike the wheels came off of I have to take one down and swap the fork leg out with my old one so I can mount dual discs. Which leads to another project, since I was already eventually planning on getting Progressive fork springs for it I might as well spring for them while I'm going to have a fork apart anyway. So Progressive front springs are on the way.

In a fit of wanting instant gratification I mounted the dual discs to see what they'd look like. I love the look of wire wheels with dual rotors. I plan on doing the cbr rotor/Kawi twin pot brake upgrade so I'll see if the funds are available before I button this all up. If not they'll come later.

Now I noticed that sliding the 1100 swingarm over the rear wheel gives me lots of spare room between the tire and swingarm. Does anyone know how wide a rear tire you can fit on these wheels and still clear the swinger? Also, the 1100 swingarm and the 1000 swingarm bearings use different part numbers in the microfiche. Does anyone know the difference? I know the 1000 one will work in the 1100 swinger but is the 1100 a better bearing?

 

[Big T]

Two things

1. Widest tire you can put on that rim is a 120. 130's get all puffed up, leading to poor handling. You can get a wider rim that will accept a wider tire and go up to 150/160 width. But the rims won't match, as the GS 1000 rims have their own unique profile

2. You can't use single brake fork lowers for a dual brake set up, they're left side only. If you mount one on the right, the offset is wrong. Get some dual disc fork lowers and adapters

 

[IanC]

My bike was originally dual disc. I'll be using the lower from my original fork so I can mount the caliper. Thanks for the tire info.

Edit: Just re-read that, so the mounting point for the caliper on the left was different?

 

[Chris]

Glad to see the new parts.

Glad to see the new parts.

Ian,

I'm glad to see the parts showed up and happy they look in good shape. To answer your question about the left side lower fork leg caliper mounts: No, I'm pretty sure the left leg caliper mounting points are the same. Easy to check..just compare and measure between your old left leg and the new one. You should be fine once you assemble a new right fork leg using a good fork stanchion and right slider with caliper mounts. (As a bonus, we should be one good fork tube away from a good spare set of forks which would be a nice sort of spare part to have stashed away.)

If you're ordering new fork springs order a set for me too. I think this summer I'll work on my Suzy's suspension now that we should have the carbs worked out. I have that JMC braced swing arm to mount and with better shocks in the rear and fresh fork oil and better springs up front that should give Suzy as much of a handling boost as I want to take on this summer.

I don't want to get too involved with the GS-S or Bimmer because I really want to get started on the Gamma restoration.

I worked on the Bandit today and changed the rear disc and brake pads, replaced slightly trashed old instruments with eBay treasures (I had to swap out the mph speedo to keep the kph one.), fabricated a mount for the remote reservoir for the GSXR1100 shock I installed (another eBay treasure) and changed the oil and cleaned like crazy while I had it apart. Your Mum is currently a bit miffed that her sink is full of filthy Suzuki parts. After 35 years you'd think she'd be used to it...

Speaking of GSXRs I was in a Red Baron shop in Yokohama yesterday with your Mum and she noticed a totally stock '86 GSXR-750 hiding in a crowd of used bikes for sale. It looked very good and only had a little less than 20,000 kms on it. It even still had the stock exhaust! Their asking price is 375000 yen which converts to 3955.50 at today's exchange rate. Hmmm....

BTW: Picked up your rear brake line at the Rough Road accessory store so you'll have all the parts for all the brake lines coming your way. Your Mum was scandalized at the prices. I mollified her by promising you'd reimburse her for the brake line set with an equivalent amount of knitting supplies. So head's up! Get ready to buy $200 worth of yarn in June or deal with a fired up maternal presence...

Dad

 

[IanC]

Made a bit of progress. Got the new superbike bar, all the gaskets, random nuts, tach gear, rear brake light switch among other things in from bikebandit. Took 15 days to get the order!

New Progressive spring, got the new to me forks apart and discovered they had Progressive springs already. Oh well dad wanted a set anyway.

The tires on the wheels I got are brand new! Knobbies in the middle still.

Motor buttoned up.

Progress...

Not much clearance between the brake line and the cluster.

 

[KitKat]

haha on that third pic it looks like your car has a spoked wheel

 

[IanC]

Kia on Dayton's is keepin it real homie.

 

[Chris]

looking better all the time

looking better all the time

The motor cleaned up nicely. Glad to see things coming together. Looks like the long pole in the tent right now is the tank.

Thanks for the springs. Suzy is grateful.

Dad

 

[IanC]

Got my brake lines in from Dad. Look great! Here's the mock up.

Can't really get a good mock up of the rear as the swingarm isn't ready to bolt up.

Splitter..

Fork at full extension leaves just a little play left in the line still.

Sneak peek at my yet to be completed swinger. Note to self: I will never, ever do this again! Holy hell what a pain!

 

[midnightcafe]

nice bike, I can't believe how much progress you made in so little time! I've spent every school vacation for the past two years finishing mine, and you've about caught up to me! Probably because you've done some smart time saving ideas-I'm going to use expandable freeze plugs and send the motor to the car wash next time around rather than spending two days scrubbing the **** out of the motor. And yes, polishing sucks, especially when you do it by hand (don't have a proper buffing wheel setup). my bike's been sitting indoors for half a year and the cases need a detail already:|

Looking forward to the end result!

 

[Chris]

Looking Good!

Looking Good!

Ian,

I'm glad you like the brake lines. I'm impressed with the job you're doing on the bike. It's looking great and it makes me all the more eager to tear into the Gamma. Don't worry, polishing isn't part of the picture there.

Just a thought, maybe we should start a "wish list" of stuff to be looking for when we go to the swap meet at the AMA Vintage event. Do you think you could also get up to Carlisle this year? Remember last year and the stories we heard from the riders who went?

Anyway, great job on the bike. Keep up the good work but remember, it's not good to show up your old man. (or his bike)

Dad

 

[IanC]

Been making progress still. Got the front end done. Worked on some wiring. I've started converting some connections to GM Weather pack connectors and other ones just get heat shrinked male/female connectors.

Yeah I know the crush washers aren't on right. Brakes are just mocked up right now. Excuse the mess in the garage :-#

 

[salty_monk]

I have one odd bracket if you want to go 1 sided dualpot.... It's been done before

 

[IanC]

Thanks Salty but I think I'm going to hold out for a full set when I get the parts sourced up. Dad's going to be doing the conversion this summer and I need all the help I can get keeping up. :-\\\

 

[Guest]

looking good ian looking good :!:

 

[Nessism]

A body shop with one of those weld-on dent stud puller tools should be able to pull the dent out of the tank. Worst case is a small section of the tank will have to be replaced.

Nice progress by the way.

 

[salty_monk]

Chef did a pretty good job on his with one of those stick on dent pulled kits from Kragen. Theyleave no marks.
For $30 it might be worth a try

 

[IanC]

Tanks already got an appointment to be professionally fixed. I drop it off Monday. Be a bit more spendy but worth it.