Last night I finished installing my 2 new throttle cables, the night before that I installed the carbs and the airbox. It took me a little bit to get the throttle to work smoothly last night, it kept sticking & it would not return on it’s own. But in the end last night, I got it freed up & adjusted it the best that I could at that time.

So tonight, after getting my Ignition switch back from my co-worker friend… who repaired the broken connector… I installed the gauges, hooked the wires back up & installed the headlight. After adding some 4-stroke lawnmower gas, bam!, the motor fired up pretty quick, it only took a few revolutions. Actually though, it sure fired up… revving around 4,500 RPMs & holding. I shut the motor down & looked into the culprit. In the end, I ended up putting my one good OEM Throttle Cable backs on the bike. The new aftermarket cable that actually pulls & opens the throttle, well I never was able to get it adjusted to were it had enough slack to let the bike idle down. The new aftermarket throttle cable did seem to be a little longer in length then the OEM throttle cable.

So now that the bike will idle at a decent RPM… well let me repeat that… now my bike will idle. That was my whole problem last fall when I tore into the carbs. Back then, my GS would not idle on its own. So after all my messing around & waiting to get my Idle Adjuster fixed, now that the Idle Adjuster is fixed, my GS will idle on it’s own. This is a big step in getting the bike back on the road & to being a decent commuter bike.

The motor seemed to be running a touch rough, I wasn’t 100% sure that it was running on all 4 cylinders… so I pulled all 4 plugs one at a time, & verified if I saw spark… which I did… I also shocked myself 3 out of the 4 times when holding the spark plugs to the cylinder head looking for that spark (doesn’t that indicate either that I don’t have a wire grounded somewhere, or that my spark plug wires/boots need to be replaced?). So now that I verified that it has spark for all 4 cylinders… I accepted that it was running a little rough, the bike has been sitting for so long, plus my jetting is likely to be off a little & my carbs likely needed to be sync’d as well.

Well the next obvious thing to do was to put some more air in the tires & take the old bike out on the road.

“She’s a runner” I thought to myself as I’m cruising around my neighborhood. It seems to be running ok. It has decent enough torque & actually pulls ok from 4,500RPM - 7,500RPM’s (redline is 9,000 I believe). Of course I didn’t “get on it” right away. Boy, does this thing feel totally different then the ‘08 GSXR600 that I’ve been riding for the last 2 weeks! Everything is different about it; seating position, all controls feel very different then the new GSXR, it has an old feeling to it, it shakes & vibrates more, the brakes work… but surely not very well. But I must say, it was fun to ride it & that it for sure has it’s own character. With it being so old, that makes it cooler, I did notice a few guys & girls definitely watching me ride past.

After riding the GS for a while, I did jump back on the GSXR, now that felt different to me, instead of back to “normal”. I can see that jumping back & forth between bikes will likely need time to get re-acclimated with whatever bike I’m riding at that time… to give it a few minutes of riding to let my brain come to grips with that particular bike.

So yea… I did get the bike up to 65MPH, it seemed just fine at that speed, I do suspect that the brakes will improve a little when the new pads bed into the rotors & that I will look into “dialing in” my carbs better in time… plus just putting some miles on the bike might improve how it runs by itself. I still feel that the GS is a very easy bike to ride & that it would make a great beginner bike, plus it’s way more comfortable then a new sportbike. Oh, and to adjust the Idle Adjuster after you’ve been riding the bike… that thing is a bitch to reach in-between the tank, carbs & the airbox. I tried when stopped, not sure if it’s even possible while riding?

Where from here? Well my wife Brandy, a few days ago, she just received her motorcycle license… so we’ll be battling over who rides which bike of the two… we’ll have to alternate of course. For the GS itself, of course I plan to continue improving it, getting it to run better & stronger, plus to continue improving the looks & condition of it… each year it will only be a cooler bike as it gets older & older. So this is far from the end of The GS Project, it is just the beginning of the next chapter.

After I completed the transplant, I went through & swapped out a few fasteners from the GS carbs that were in rough shape, and exchanged them from the non-rusty set of fasteners from the KZ carbs.

I do like the Kawasaki KZ Idle Adjuster better because the Suzuki GS adjuster has a plastic knob on the end, while the KZ’s is all 1-piece metal. This seems like it will be much more durable to me.

This was all pretty straight forward stuff, kind of like a building model as a kid… just disassemble what is needed & reinstall the other equal items. Here is a great set of pdf instructions that I had at my side during this process http://thegsresources.com/files/vm_carb_rebuild.pdf

First I removed the 8 countersunk fasteners on the back of the rack, this is partially what holds the carbs to the rack. Next, I needed to remove the shaft that all 4 carbs hold onto at the top of them. This shaft also is what the throttle linkage grabs a hold of to pull the slides up when you turn the throttle.

After I removed the shaft from all 4 carbs, now the rack is free to be pulled off of the 4 carbs. In this scenario, I was careful not to separate the four carbs from each other, with the rack removed, I believe all that is lightly holding them together is the plastic & rubber fuel lines that go in-between each of them. No harm if they did separate, I just avoided taking the step to put them back together.

Next, I cleaned up my donor rack from the KZ carbs & simple placed it onto my GS carbs, since the rack is the identical Mikuni part #, it just bolted right on. Doing this gives me my working Idle Adjuster since this came along with the transplant as already attached to the KZ rack.

Then I just reversed my steps from un-assemble of the parts. Once the GS carbs were put back together, I did a mechanical sync of the slides… making sure that they both closed & opened the same amount. This is done with the adjuster on the top of each slide. Once that was done, then I installed the 4 carb tops, re-assembled my old rack onto the KZ carbs & now I have my working GS carbs finally!!! I know that I have not explained every step to what I did, but it is all explained in better detail in the pdf link that I listed above.

There were 2 difference that I spotted between the parts that I exchanged. First was the Choke mechanism. On the ‘78 KZ, the arms that actually rotate up & down, that lift the choke plungers up & down… they had a little different shape to them. I do not know if this comes from a Mikuni change in ‘78 from ‘77, or if it is a Kawi Suz difference. Second was on the KZ, where both ends of the Throttle Return Spring attaches, the KZ has a rubber condom over the metal… so that both ends of the springs were attaching to rubber, instead of metal. I guess I’m going to presume that this is a nicer feature that Kawi added, over the basic metal set-up that the Suz has.

I know that there will still need some jetting changes most likely, plus vacuum syncing & possibly more adjustments. Tonight, I hope to install my updated GS carbs onto the GS. At this point, I still do not have my electrical problem resolved, so even if I do complete the carb install tonight, the bike will not even turn over until my Ignition Switch is fixed… which hopefully will only be another day or two.

when I tried to ride the bike that one day last fall, the bike wouldn’t idle, that is when I figured out that I could not adjust the idle on the bike. Since later this spring, my carbs have been at my co-worker friend’s house, while he tries to get the adjuster fixed. He ended up finding out that the threads for the adjuster are a very unique thread, one that he hasn’t been able to find a tap for… since I did buy a Idle Adjuster that was in nice shape from a different co-worker. I just needed the bad adjuster removed & the threads cleaned up.

Well it’s been a long time, so I finally started looking at carbs on eBay to either replace my carbs or to take parts from them & just repair my carbs.

My co-worker friend confirmed that this cheap set of ‘78 Kawasaki KZ 650 carbs uses the same Rack & Idle Adjuster as the carbs on my ‘77 Suzuki GS 750. So yea, now it’s just a matter of replacing the parts that need to be fixed on my GS carbs, getting them sync’d & hopefully firing the bike up for a test ride, finally.

With any luck, in a few days I’ll be posting about my test ride of the GS.

Actually, my co-worker friend will most likely be the one who repairs my busted connector on my bike. He said that he can just repair the square plastic connector, instead of replacing the entire switch… which I hope to use my original switch, so that my key doesn’t change.

Here are some pics of the used Ignition Switch that I just picked up.

So yes, the new bike, kind of a impulse, but also we’ve been talking about this for a few years, I’ve been doing some casual research for a couple of months, she calls up the bank, tells me what time to show up to sign & all of a sudden we own another bike. You gotta dig a wife that is pushing the purchase of toys

Our new bike is a 2008 Suzuki GSX-R 600. Really, the ‘77 GS750 is the foundation of where the GSX-R’s came from, so it does all tie into the same family, I suppose if we had gotten GSX-R 750, that would of have been even cooler next to our GS750… but o’well close enough. The 600 is still possibly more bike then a beginner should even start with. I hope to start Brandy off on the GS for awhile, but I know that isn’t going to last long, she already wants to ride the GSX-R in a parking lot, the parking lot because she doesn’t have her license yet. I also have to add, that I am nervous about her riding alone… not so much because of her, but the other people on the road.

Well enough babble about the GSX-R…

In the end, it was actually quite easy to do. I just tried to take my time & not rush it. I must say, that I feel really good in knowing that I did it myself, I can take satisfaction in that. So now the tank emblems are on & the threads are all cleaned up to put the fuel door cover back on, as well as the fuel petcock.

It felt good pushing the bike out of the garage & into my driveway… I can’t wait until I actually start to ride the thing !!

Here are some updated images from today of the bike. You can see the tank, as it looks in primer from the body shop, as well as the bend of my new handlebars… I feel that the handlebars are fairly close to what the Superbikes from the late 70’s ran… well I think so anyways…

So today, I decided to try something a little different… instead of just typing it all up, I thought I’d try something fun & video it. Besides, I needed something fun to work on… my GS’s gas tank is still causing me to struggle.

The basics of the video, in case you don’t want to wait for it to download are; that the tank in primer has primer on all of the threaded holes. I tried to thread the various fasteners back into the tank & have cross-threaded some, plus one little screw that holds on a tank emblem has broke off inside of the tank.

So I am becoming really frustrated with the tank part of my project. I’m going to have to have all of the holes tapped before I can go on… & I hope that the tiny screw hole that holds the tank emblem on is reparable… with it’s very small threads I mean.

About the video, sorry for the sort-of poor quality, it was shot with my digital camera, not a video camera, just a point & shoot digital camera.

Originally they quoted me $100 to extract the broken bolt, repair the rust & then spray the tank with primer. After sandblasting the tank, they actually found some holes from rust damage. The holes were not on the sides, but back where the tank & seat butt up to each other. To repair these holes, the bodyshop needed to weld the tank, then they applied some kind of a fiberglass something or another, maybe he said resin something… not sure, sorry. They also applied some filler in the deep pits from the rust damage on the side by the emblems, and then of course it was all sanded smooth & finally sprayed with 2 coats of primer.

Even after the additional work from finding the holes in the tank, they still held to my $100 quote & charged me exactly that. I was prepared for the final price to be higher because of the additional work. So of course I was pumped about that. At this point, they told me that I should wet-sand the tank with 600-800 grit sand paper & then it would be ready to be painted. But as I wrote before, I will likely just run the primer for the last couple of months of summer, then likely get the bike painted over the winter. Oh, and he did recommend again that I do get the inside of the tank re-coated with that rubber liner chemical… this is since they blasted some holes in the tank & welded them up. Again, I’m going to wait until winter to do that along with the painting.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that there is a little bit of “something” inside the tank, it can be seen from the filler hole. Not sure if it’s sanding dust, fiberglass “something” from the weld repair, or what… it looks similar to sand. So I’ll need get that out first things this weekend. I still need to give that some thought on how I’m going to do that, I have some old 2-stroke gas in the garage, maybe I’ll swish that around in the tank & rinse it out with that… without the fuel petcock on it, since that has a screen to filter.

Also, the filler hole has a touch bit of rust just above the line where the rubber liner starts inside of the tank… maybe I’ll sand that lightly, before I rinse the tank out. I don’t see it as a big deal, but I’d just feel better if I didn’t see the rust when I removed the filler cap.

But yes, in the end, I am very happy with my tank, it looks great now… although only in primer gray color. No rust, pitting & etc is very sweet! I have very little experience body work to really know, but to me, the $100 was a nice price to get the rust repaired correctly & that busted bolt finally extracted… as both things were kind of kicking my ass… I’d rather spin wrenches then do body work.

Oh, I am also excited to install my new OEM tank emblems that I bought from Suzuki last winter… as well as replace the tank filler cap “cover” piece as well. More fun things to do this weekend!

The bodyshop made it sound like it’s not a big deal, that they just welded it up & that they mostly likely will be done with the tank tomorrow. They did recommend that I do get the inside coated again, like I had already gotten done. So that would be another $50 from the place that I go in town. He said that since they welded it up & that the hole penetrated all the way through, that it would be a good idea to have re-coated again inside of the tank. I will plan on that, but I’ll likely wait until this winter.

After I left the bodyshop & was thinking about this, it made me even more glad that I took it to a bodyshop to get done, instead of me continuing to try & do it myself. I’m not sure if I would have found the holes, unless it started leaking onto the floor after I was done with it & all back on the bike. Also, I don’t know how to weld… so I would have had to bring it to them anyways with the holes being an issue now. So it does pay to have the pros do some things

So hopefully tomorrow I can get my tank back, then I’ll most likely install my brand new OEM tank emblems (even though its only in primer) & get the tank all ready to be put back on the bike. Currently I’m still waiting on my work buddy to find the piece needed to fix my broken electrical connector for my ignition switch…. as well as the correct size tap to repair my busted idle adjuster knob on the carbs (he says it’s an uncommon size). It’s getting closer to this years first test ride…

I must say though, who would ever want to hand sand bodywork to get the paint off. I had tried that, plus tried using a sander on my Dremel. What a pain in the ass that was. Per the guy at the bodyshop’s request, I bought some paint stripper & removed the paint with that before I brought him the tank to do the work. Using paint stripper was soo easy! Just brush it on, & then like 10 minutes later, I first heard it, then saw it… the paint was bubbling right off of the tank.

Once I got all of the paint off of the tank, it was very obvious to see the areas that I tried to sand the paint. Just like the guy at the bodyshop said, I was making more work for them or myself, whoever would be doing the painting. The areas that were removed only with the paint stripper were totally smooth. The areas that I did, they are all gouged up & need to be smoothed before it can be painted.

Actually, I kind of thought the tank looked tough in it raw-finish state… makes me wonder more about what color to have it painted when the time comes.

I first tried to do the bodywork myself with sander on my Dremel, but after I gave up & took it into a bodyshop for a quote, they said that I made it worse because of my scratches & abrasions. They said that I should have & still should just use some quality paint stripper to remove all of the paint chemically. If I brought the tank it totally stripped of paint, they quoted me $100 to; repair rust, extract broken bolt & spray tank with a quality primer.

Since receiving that quote, I had planned on bringing the tank back to the bodyshop, but now money got tight, so over the last couple of days I tried again to do the work myself. It keeps turning out to be a very frustrating experience for me.
First I tried to removed the broken bolt. I found a couple of articles on the Internet, so I bought a screw/bolt extractor. After soaking the bolt in rust penetrate, drilling the hole & engaging the extractor… the extractor broke off inside the jammed bolt… just like the article warned about happening. So now I have a bigger mess in removing the bolt then when I started.
About the tank sides itself, I pondered trying some kind of a rust chemical, but now I’m just thinking of sanding the loose rust off & spraying the tank with Rust-oleum primer. But I know that would only be a temporary fix and that by itself would do nothing to smooth the tank where the rust has pitted it.

This pic is the broken bolt inside of the tank, but now with the busted screw/bolt extractor broken off inside the bust bolt just to make things worse.

I suppose an option would be for me to buy a tank that is not rusted. But when I bought the bike, the tank was rusted inside as well, so I had a local shop put this rubber coating inside the tank. The inside of the tank is totally coated now & will no longer rust inside. That cost me $50. Because of this, I do not want to lose the tank & start over with a different tank.

Right now I see my options as:
1. Just paint the tank as it sits now with the Rust-oleum primer, leave the busted bolt in place & later have it all done right.
2. Try again to remove bolt, try on my own to do the bodywork to repair the rust. Then primer the tank with Rust-oleum.
3. Bit the bullet, get the $100 & have the tank done right, hopefully they will still be able to extract that bolt as well.

#1 This would be a easy temporary solution. This would allow me to get the tank exposed to the environments again, but the tank could possibly rust even further underneath the primer while I wait to have the tank professionally repaired.
#2 I do not see myself trying this option any longer.
#3 This would be the best solution, but I’m not sure if I’ll have the extra $100 this month of July… I know, lame… but that’s the way it goes. I am hoping to ride the bike in the next couple of weeks, so temporarily doing Option #1 might be the way to go, then when I can afford the professional work, then strip the paint myself with the paint stripper & bring the tank in to the pros.

Man, I don’t know how some people enjoy it, but to me, bodywork really sucks!
I suppose part of it is having the correct tools & work place for the job…

Well I’ve never really done body work before or very much metal work, plus if I wreck the fender, well it is my original fender… so I would then have to buy a different one… but how hard can it be?

Here is the original fender… and yes the chrome is rusted through the chrome as it sits now.

I suspected that the metal fender would be a real bitch to cut, but it ended up not being too bad. I estimated where I would like it to be in length, drew 2 lines with my marker, then just used my Dremel & cut the 2 ends off, it wasn’t that hard to cut.

Next, I debated on what kind of an arc each end should have. should it be real blunt, pointy, or what? I would like the bike to look like a Superbike from the late 70’s era… but in the end, I just used the 2 cut-off ends as templates, this wold give me the correct, as in original, curves… so I figured that the customized fender will look OEM, just shorter. I’m sure that there are some “purist’s” out there that think I should have left the fender stock, but I want to make the bike more appealing to me.

After drawing the lines from my templates, I then used my Dremel again to cut closer to the drawn lines. After that, then I used my new bench grinder & ground down the edges up to the lines.

After getting the new edges pretty much up to my drawn lines, then I just took some sand paper & smoothed the edges, trying to round them just a little. I know that it is not up to a professionals level, but I really think that my customized fender suits my interests better. In the future, I think that I’ll have the front fender painted, instead of keeping the chrome, the chrome is rusted through anyways. Actually, I’m slowly removing the chrome on the bike…

So he is my finished results, it was easier then I expected… what do you think?

I’m going with the analogy that the eBay caliper did not have the little o-ring in-between the two caliper halves… that is why I missed installing that o-ring when reassembling the caliper

Fortunately I was able to steal the o-ring out of my original bad caliper, & just install that in my new eBay caliper. After that, I re-installed the caliper on the bike, hooked up my new braided stainless-steel brake line again, re-bled the brake line & bam, the caliper didn’t leak anymore… and I now have a working rear brake!!

The remaining tasks to get done before I can take the bike out for it’s test ride are;
1. Fix my electrical problem
2. Get my carbs back & installed

These are my 3 final steps before I can take a test ride on the GS, to see how my improvements perform; as well as reveal what other surprises are still hidden preventing the GS from getting back on the road finally.

1. Install Rear Brake… well technically I could ride it before this is done, but not as safe of course.
2. Resolve new Electrical problem that has arisen.
3. Get Carbs back & installed.

1. Rear caliper frustrations. I had boughten this caliper off of eBay because one of the bleeders from my original caliper was stripped out. While I was rebuilding the eBay caliper, I managed to drop the caliper off of my work bench, onto my concrete floor. Afterwords, my banjo bolt wouldn’t thread back into the caliper because the caliper landed on the part where the banjo bolt threads in. So once again, my co-worker friend helped me out, he tapped the threads to make them round again. His advice was to always leave the banjo-bolt threaded in when the caliper is off the bike, to prevent something like this from happening again.

So last night after getting my caliper back from my co-worker friend, I was excited to install the caliper, braided-steel brake line & then bleed the rear brake. This would get me down to approximately 2 tasks before I can take the bike out for it’s first test ride this year.

After I got the brake & brake-line all installed, I went to bleed the rear brake. I ended up having a leak in my rear caliper while bleeding the inside bleeder! It was dripping onto the ground. This is getting frustrating… I’m anxious to take the bike out for a ride this year. But I know, piece by piece, I’ll get it there, plus it is rewarding working on the bike.

Off hand I’m not sure if when I separated the two halves of the rear caliper, upon reassembly, is there supposed to be some kind of a sealer or o-ring, I do not recall either of them when I dissembled the caliper. I just looked at the fiche on-line… it looks like there is likely an o-ring or something where the bolt threads into the caliper, to attache the 2 sides of the caliper together. Makes me feel a little dumb to not have noticed either way up assembly of the caliper. Well I’ll just separate the two sides of the caliper once again & check it out… hopefully I can get this resolved easily & then get it mounted back onto the bike w/o any leakage of brake fluid.

I will also need to come up with a way to mount the rear master cylinder reservoir… since the stock ‘77 750 reservoir is all one piece with the master cylinder. The master cylinder that I’m using now is from a GS1000 and these have a separate mounted reservoir. The original 750 master cylinder on this bike was junk from sitting so long that the brake fluid dried up inside of it. For now, I can at least bleed the brakes with the reservoir leaning up against the frame, and I can put the side panel back on the bike to pretty much hold the reservoir in place when I take it out for its test ride. In the end though, I should attach the reservoir somehow so it stays sitting flat, instead of leaning like it is now.

2. To install my new steering-stem bearings, I needed to completely pull the front-end of the bike off of it. So this meant that I needed to disconnect a number of the wires from the wiring harness, these wires all connecting inside the headlight bucket. Upon reassembly, the Ignition Switch Connector within the headlight bucket is messed up, when it wasn’t before I took it apart. Now, when I turn the ignition key, there isn’t any power to the bike at all. Electrical work is one of my strongest weaknesses, so this kind of sucks. By feeling around & moving/squeezing wires, I was able to track down where I needed to move/squeeze to get the power to come on, but it would cut out once I let go of the wire. It is the Ignition Switch Connector that seems to be causing my lack of power to the bike. Upon further inspection of this connector, I found that 1 of the 4 wires going into the connector was loose, and that I could actually just pull the wire out of the connector w/o any effort.

So off to my co-worker friend for advice, he told me how I can remove the little metal pin inside of the connector & then just solder the wire back onto that metal pin, and finally just re-install the metal pin & wire back into the connector. Well I haven’t soldered since I was a little kid, so I figured this is a good opportunity to relearn how to do that. I went & bought a basic soldering kit, & hopefully this resolves my electrical issue. One thing that makes me question if there is more then one wiring issue going on… when I squeezed the wires & there was power to the bike, when I turned my ignition key from the first position, to the 2nd (where I can actually start the bike), the power then cuts out again. I wonder if it’s possible that I might need to improve a couple other wires in the headlight bucket, but we’ll see as I progress along.

3. The last issue is still that I don’t have my carbs back from my co-worker friend. He has them because my Idle-Adjuster is broke from corrosion & me reefing on it to try & get it to turn. He says that he has been bidding on some racks of carbs, that he’ll snag me the idle-adjuster from one of them that he wins, plus he wants some additional carbs for his own needs. Once I get my carbs back, I can install them, & fire the bike up, presuming that I have my Electrical problem resolved. I am guessing that my jetting is fat (rich), based off of my plug readings last fall… but I never really did get to ride the bike much last fall, so we’ll see. The big test though is that when I’m able to turn up my idle speed, that I’m hoping the bike will actually idle on its own… it wouldn’t do that last year.

Oh, another form of frustration that I’ve been having when working on the bike is that all of a sudden this last week now, my radio station that I listen to in my garage doesn’t come in, it cuts in & out with mostly static… that has gotten real old.
But on the bright side, I did receive a bench grinder for my birthday from my wife, so that is cool. I’ve casually wanted a bench grinder for a few years now.

Lucky for me, one of my neighbors works in a machine shop. I had him do the machining of the stem in the lathe, plus had him press off the old bottom bearing & press on the new bottom bearing. Now with this completed & with much appreciation, I have been able to put the front-end of the bike back on, and the triple-clamps turn smoothly now… another step closer to getting my bike on the road.

Here you can see before & after the machining was done to the steering stem, for the new top bearing to sit…

…and here you can see the old ball bearing & then the new roller bearing on the bottom.

I ended up going with the Avon AM26 RoadRider’s because they had favorable reviews & weren’t all that expensive. For the sizes, I tried to pretty much keep them the original size, I was afraid that if I went too big with the new tires, that the handling might suffer. I figured one size larger would be good though. In the end, I’m afraid that my rear tire is a little smaller in width then I wanted… but I’ll run it for now, maybe at a later date I’ll replace it with something else.

Here are my old/new tire widths, you can see I gained a little width in the front, but the rear is unfortunately narrower, I had hoped for a touch wider.

Old Front Width: 80mm - 3.25×19
New Front Width: 88mm - 100/90-19

Old Rear Width: 113mm - 4.00×18
New Rear Width: 99mm - 120/80-18

Even with the terrible weather, we had a great time stomping around in all the puddles, watching the show & roaming the pits, hoping to spot the pro racers & admiring the machinery.

One of the young-guns, up-&-comers or whatever you want to call him… Blake Young seems to be a rising star in American Road Racing, well he’s from a nearby town of mine… so I’m rooting for him since we are from the same state of WI. Well it was very cool to watch him race & win in SuperStock & possibly cooler to be right next to him in the pits, listening to him talk with his team about his bike, the track conditions & lack of grip in the rain.

But anyways, here are pretty much the best pictures that we took from the rainy day at the races.

Well for starters, the swingarm looked pretty ugly as I took it off the bike. I know that the ‘81-’83 GS1100 swingarm is almost a direct bolt-on, that it is box-section aluminum & that I do want to put one on my bike. But that is not top priority right now, so for now, I’ll just clean up my original swingarm. Oh, & from my research, the aluminum 1100 swingarm has a larger pivot axle, so the frame either needs to be bored out, or a space made to use the smaller 750 axle in the larger 1100 swingarm. Plus the 1100 swingarm is 2 inches longer, so that means if I use my stock shocks, then my ride-height will be reduced, which I wouldn’t want… so that means I should use longer shocks with the 1100 swingarm. This is all cool & everything, but it’ll have to wait until the time is right financially.

So here is my After picture… I did some sanding, then primed it & finally painted it. I am only using spray paint… so it’s nothing like a professional paint job. But again, I am looking at this swingarm maybe only being used for about 1 year… so as you can see, this should look so much better on the bike then before. I do wonder how the color is going to look… I chose a “semi-gloss” black. I knew that I didn’t want a “full-gloss”… but I did consider a “flat” black, a lot of the current sport bikes use some kind of a flat black on their frames & I think it looks great.

The little cover over the starter-motor was heavily rusted as well. This piece is easily seen when looking at the bike, so that bummed me out as well. Here is the Before pic

And here is the After pic. I know that it is not an exact match in color, but it is close enough for me at this point. At a later date, I’ll be fully cleaning up the motor & can resolve the color then. For this color, I just went to the hardware store & guessed… it’s pretty close. This should be much better when looking at the bike.

The last few pieces that I cleaned up this weekend were my headlight mounting brackets & my top triple-clamp. From day one, my headlight mounting brackets have been bent, so I first put those in the vice & tried to straighten them as best that I could, they seemed to of come out pretty well, they should be basically straight now.

After that, then I sanded, primed & painted these pieces. Here you can see them with a fresh coat of primer. My lower triple-clamp is off at the machine shop being machined as- needed for the new tapered-bearings it will be receiving, to replace the old ball-bearings. So once that’s back, I’ll paint that piece as well.

Maybe I should just stop tearing the bike apart, because the more that I dig into it, the more rust I find. This bike, the $75 purchase from a co-worker who had the bike sitting in his shed for 15 years, this bike is turning into quite the rust bucket… which is a little discouraging. This reminds me of another co-worker who recommended that I do not get into this project for reasons such as this.

For comparison, you can see in this image the rusty brake-arm that was on the bike, versus the much cleaner brake-arm that I won off of eBay. Notice how little rust & corrosion is on the other piece. This also matches the brake master cylinders… both the front & back master cylinders are full of corrosion. Earlier I was considering to try & rebuild my rear master cylinder… but I have since decided to just buy a nicer piece off of eBay… actually, I’m expecting to win that auction is about 12 minutes from now… I hope.

Something else that I didn’t even notice until I was pulling off the swingarm tonight. Both of my stock silencers on my exhaust have rusted holes near the end of them, on the bottom side. you can kind of see it in a picture on my previous post, the image showing the clearance issue when pulling the rear axle out. Just another example of the GS’s rust problems. Or, another reason to buy that 4-into-1 exhaust 

So yea, as I work my way through my GS Project, I am starting to think that finding an old bike or car that has been sitting in storage behind someones house… that it is not always what it’s cracked up to be…

Once I have installed the new items that I bought, pretty much all of the safety concerns will be resolved. The items of interest; Tires, Brakes, Chain & Steering Stem Bearings.

Oh, first off, about my carbs… last year when I did ride the bike… I could never get it to idle on it’s own. I believe the problem came down to that the Idle Adjuster is seized up from rust, so I can’t turn up the idle. Well after some reefing & prying, some rust pentrator & a torch… I still haven’t been able to break free the Idle Adjuster. So I brought my carbs to a co-worker of mine, he’s good with the old bikes. I hope that he’ll be able to fix this. He has gotten back to me with an update, letting me know that the actual adjuster is cracked, bent & needing to be replaced. He will likely need to drill it out, re-tap the threads & find or make another adjuster for it. So for the time being, I do not have my carbs, but this is fine since the bike isn’t even ready for the road yet.

Tires
I must say, that I am pretty excited to get my new tires mounted on the rims… they look pretty sweet! I went with Avon RoadRider’s, they have gotten favorable feedback on the GS forums, plus their price wasn’t all that high. the same co-worker who is fixing my carbs, he said that he didn’t really like them when he put one on the rear of his bike… so we’ll have to wait & see…
Oh, the sizes that I went with are; Front 100/90-19 & Rear 120/80-18. The front is pretty much the stock size, but the rear might be slightly wider, but it is also a shorter sidewall, so I’m not sure how the results will be, between looks, handling, bump absorption & etc.

I had planned on removing the old tires & installing the new ones myself, just using tire-irons like when changing dirtbike tires… Then bringing them in only to be balanced. But I gave up after trying to remove the rear tire. I might try again, but I think that I’ll likely just bring them in & have them mounted & balanced at the cycle shop.

There’s been a few things while working on this bike, where I can tell that the engineers back then hadn’t really considered ease of maintenance. For example, to remove the rear wheel, you must remove the rear axle of course… but the exhaust is in the way on both side to actually slide the axle out! What a pain… I really didn’t want to have to remove the exhaust… so after giving it a little thought, it occurred to me to removed the rear shocks, this would allow me to lift the axle & rear swingarm above the exhaust… allowing me to pull the axle out without removing the exhaust. So there’s another reason to get a 4-into-1 exhaust on the bike… they stop before the rear axle, allowing room to remove the axle easily.

Brakes
Well I’m back at working on the brakes again. I plan on removing my Stainless Steel Braided front brake line, and installing that on the rear brake. I feel the length that I used on the front will fit the rear better… I bought a shorter line then to put on the front. Last year, I had rebuilt my front brakes… but never touched the rear. Well yesterday I started looking at the rear master cylinder, it is in almost as rough shape as the front was last year. The brake fluid had mostly dried up & was a brown sludge inside the master cylinder… oh and the piston doesn’t seem to be moving within the rear master cylinder. So that is up in the air, I’m not sure yet if I should try to rebuild this master cylinder, or if I’d just be better off finding a different used master cylinder somewhere?

When I bought the bike, I received a spare rear wheel, the spare had some busted spokes. But the spare did have a brake rotor on it, as well as a sprocket. After comparing the rotors between the two wheels that I have, I found the spare to be in better shape, it has less grooving in it. So I swapped the rotors, giving me the rotor that is in better shape, to be used on the bike when it hits the road again.

Speaking of rotors, I took some emery cloth & sanded my front & rear rotors. I did this hoping to aid in the new pads that I bought in seating better. I’ve never sanded rotors before, but how hard can it be? I just went in different directions then the circular grooves worn in already. Pretty much just made an X pattern in the rotors, kind of like honing as far as I know. The rotors sure cleans up, well brightened up from removing the old crappy surface. I didn’t sand them all that much, the circular grooves are still in the rotors, but you can see my hand “honing” in addition.

So yea, I bought new brake pads, I plan on sanding down the pins that the pads ride on, putting Braided Stainless Steel lines on… hopefully in the end, my brakes will be back working in a safe enough manner. Last fall, I didn’t even have the rear brake mounted on the bike, and the front was barely working… there was good lever pressure, but barely any friction between the old pads & rotor… it was to the point that when I finally slowed down enough, I’d actually put my feet down to stop a couple of feet shorter.

Chain
I had a few options to go with replacing my rusty old 630 chain. I could buy 530 sprockets & convert it down to a 530 chain, or I could just put a 630 chain on it. Well I’m well aware that you are not supposed to put a new chain on old sprockets, but that is what I’ll be doing. I inspected the current sprockets on the bike, they are in pretty decent shape, plus money is tight, and finally, I still see that down the road, I might be installing a different or newer wheel & swingarm on the bike… so that’ll necessitate a different sprocket then. So I’m trying to avoid buying things twice if I can.

Upon removing the old chain, I first hunted out to see if it had a master link, which I did find. But, the pins wouldn’t slide through the links… so I still needed to grind off the heads of the pins to get the master link removed. But in the end, no big deal, the old chain is off & waiting to install the new chain.

Steering Stem
Finally, I need to address the steering stem bearings. There is a very pronounced “catch” when you turn the bars right & left… right in the middle or straight position. Sure, I could possibly just repack the ball beargings & it might be fine. But I preferred to just replace these bearings. With newer technology then 30 years ago, the replacement aftermarket bearings are tapered-roller bearings. But the instructions tell me that I need to have my steering stem machined just a little, so that the top bearing will seat correctly. Fortunately, one of my neighbors works at a machine shop… so my plan is to give him my steering stem & new bearings… I’ll have him do the machining, plus press off the old bottom bearing & then press on the new bottom bearing for me.
In the end, the front end of the bike will be safe, tight, secure & move freely, all on new modern bearings.

Looking at my triple clamps, I see that they are fairly rusty. The lower triple clamp had been covered with this chrome trim piece. I’m pretty sure that when I reassemble the triple clamps, that I will not use the chrome trim piece, I’m not real crazy about chrome. Even though I am anxious to get it back together, I imagine it makes more sense to clean up the triple clamps now & paint them while they are apart, instead of doing it later & then possibly disassembling them again to do it.

Well that’s about it at this point. I still have more work to finish to get the new items mounted on the bike, let alone get my carbs back & installed. After that is all completed, then I should be ready to give the bike another try. There is still a little bit of a question on if the bike will even run reliably, or if there are any still-hidden secrets that will need to be addressed to make the bike reliable enough for daily commuting.

So… these pictures that I took are from the Colorado Outdoor Nationals motocross race last year (2007). I am not sure how them image gallery will display them, but that is what I’m about to find out.

OK, I’ll admit, I only rode the thing first a few laps around a parking lot that is near my house, then I did only 2 laps around my neighbourhood block. I road it so little because it’s not registered for the road, plus that the tires are so weather cracked that I wouldn’t trust them at all, and that the chain is so rusted & tight… I was afraid of it snapping & breaking my engine cases.

I am a little surprised how good it felt to be riding on the road again. I haven’t had a street bike in 7 years, while I’ve been off doing the dirtbike thing. I have a mixed-bag of observations & feelings from this first ride on the bike, with some good things as well as things that need definite improvement. Well, mostly things just need improvement with the bike to complete bringing it out of its 15 year hibernation, the good parts, I guess those were mostly just the joys of riding the thing.

Well first of all, I do like the handlebars that I put on the bike, they will do fine for now… much more sporty feeling then the stock bars that were on it. Now that the bike is running on all 4 of its cylinders, it does rev much more freely (well that should be obvious, huh?) When I did give it a little bit of gas on the road, it did have a little bit, maybe more so then I expected, of a engine growl. So that of course is cool, it didn’t sound so wimpy after all. But, the bike still won’t idle, I’ll have to track down that idle adjuster & crank that up a bit… I think I can see it, but I have to remove the tank to get at it… that part sucks… what a drag. A newer bike would have this at a much easier reach. But anyways… oh yes, the left pipe seems to have this occasional pop, while the right does not. Not sure yet what’s up with that.

The front brake, yes… well maybe I should say no. It felt like I must have a piece of wood for brake pads. The lever was firm enough, remember I put a braided stainless-steel brake line on the front, but there just was no real stopping power to it. At this point, I still have the pads that came with the bike. In the near future, I’ll need to buy a new set of pads & hope that they give me some more friction.
The rear brakes, yea… they don’t even work. The rear caliper isn’t even on the bike right now. I hope to be buying a caliper off of ebay here tonight, then after that to rebuild the caliper & the rear master cylinder… and follow that up with a braided stainless-steel brake line for the rear. But that’s all good stuff to come. I must say that it felt a little weird with no back brake and a front brake that didn’t work all that great. I don’t like the idea of no rear brake for the concern of forming a bad habit of not using it.

Oh! The clutch felt good, so I’m happy about that. It doesn’t seem at this point anyways, that I need to worry about updating my clutch, so that’ll be a money saver

A weird sensation that I felt was that it seemed like the bike was always trying to turn left just a little bit. I am not 100% sure that the handlebars that I put on it (take-offs from my dirtbike) are even straight, they look like they are… maybe they are slightly bent & causing this left turning sensation? Another suspect is my steering-stem bearings. I know that they need attention because it is almost like the bike has a steering dampener on it. Well in the sense that there is a notch or a sticky spot for lack of a better word, when you turn the bars left to right. When the bars are straight, it takes a little effort to get the handlebars to turn, once free from straight, they turn easily. So maybe this stuck or dead spot, is actually not totally straight, maybe it is slightly to the left. I’ll likely be updating my steering stem bearings, instead of just re-packing them.

As I said, I just went around my block, so I kept doing right turns at the intersections. I had a hard time keeping the bike running when I came to a stop… often times the bike stalled & I would have to keep restarting it. So after my ride & I pulled back in my driveway, I wanted to check it over a little & also drain the carbs since I have been warned about these old carbs clogging up much more easily then modern carbs if they sit w/o running for a while. Here I noticed 3 more things.

1. The bike sure has a lot fo smoke coming out from underneath it. But I do know that there is a bunch of old oil & grime on the motor & possible old leaks or something… but it does not leak now as far as I know. So I figure I’ll just keep cleaning, plus when I do start to ride it, hopefully this’ll just burn off.

2. I do not think that the charging system is working My battery died eventually from all of the restarts. So at this point, I have no idea what is the cause of this… I of course am hoping for no major costs to get it working.

And finally 3. The fuel petcock on this bike makes no sense to me. I do not know which way the lever is actually pointing… plus there is no “off” on the petcock. There is ON (should be obvious what that means), there is RES (this should be Reserve of course), and finally there is PRI. What does PRI mean? My guess is Prime or Primer? But that doesn’t make any sense to me. I was trying to turn the fuel off so I could drain my carb float bowls. I finally managed to get them to stop draining by leaving the petcock set to ON… but how does ON mean OFF? and Again, which direction it the lever even pointing, there are no markings as far as I can see. But here comes the real kicker! When I had the carbs done drainging, I tried to start the bike to make sure that they were empty of fuel… and the bike fires right up & runs as it jsut was. I even revved it for a bit just in case there was some fuel left in the carbs, but it just kept running. That confuses me, the carbs appear to be empty, so I assume that the fuel is shut off, so how does the bike keep running? If the fuel is not shut off, how come the carbs quit draining? So I am going to have to do some Internet searching and/or ask around on this fuel petcock scenario… If anybody out there can educate me on what I feel should be a simple thing, please do! But yes! It felt damn good to take the bike for a spin & I look forward to getting the bike on the road again.

Updated: 9-4-07
OK, I did a little research on the Internet & I believe that I have figured out the fuel petcock on this thing… sure is different then what I’m used to.
The GS has a vacuum petcock.

ON = The fuel pours out when the motor is running, the running motor causes a vacuum pressure to allow the gas to flow. And when the motor shuts off, then the gas no longer flows when the petcock is set to ON, since the vacuum pressure is gone when the motor stops.

PRI = Prime. This setting allows the gas to flow even if the motor is off & there is no vacuum pressure. The idea for this setting is if the carbs are empty of fuel, the bike wouldn’t start, so this allows you to fill the carbs w/o the vacuum pressure.

RES = Reserve. I still haven’t verified if the RES setting behaves just like the ON, in that the fuel will not flow when the motor is off… but I am assuming that it does.

This also goes along with how I was able to drain the carbs with the motor off, when I had the petcock in the ON position. But when I fired up the bike to test if the carbs where empty or not… that it surprisingly fired right up again. This is because my starting of the motor brought back the vacuum pressure & the carbs filled back up.

So for me to drain the carbs like I originally wanted to, all I should have to do is leave the petcock set to ON, turn the bike off & then drain them… w/o me turning the bike back on until I’m ready to ride next time.

This oldschool stuff is both simple, yet sometimes confusing because it’s different then what I’m used to.

Actually, the installation was a little challenging for me. I must say though, that I really have little experience in electrical systems, so some of the terminology in the supplied instructions were a little foreign to me & added some confusion. I felt some additional images in the instructions would have helped me greatly. I actually searched the Internet for some help, but found virtually no images of the Dyna S installed on a bike, so I will include some with my post.

Here is the OEM Points & Condenser set-up

So after re-reading the instructions numerous times, reading between-the-lines & some searching of images on the Internet, I confidently had the new ignition installed. Actually, I was about to give up for the day & ask my co-worker friends for help, but now I am glad that I kept trying because the satisfying feeling after completing the installation myself.

After the installation, then comes adjusting the timing of the motor. I don’t have a timing light, but I was able to get it timed pretty close… I do feel that it might be off just a little bit still though.

After all of this, I fired up the bike again… it has been a number of weeks since I have tried to even start the bike. Well I gotta say, the bike fired up quite quick! So that makes me pretty pumped. It was very easy to tell by sound & feeling, that the bike is now running on all 4 cylinders. The bike still won’t idle though, granted the bike hasn’t been ridden in about 15 years, plus I do not have the carbs totally dialed in yet, but the bike does rev more freely now.

So yes, I’m happy about my progress today. Successful things like this just keep confirming that I will keep the bike, instead of  just parting it out on ebay & then finding a different bike to own.

This is what was removed to be replaced with the modern electronic ignition…

… leaving this behind

Next is to install what they are calling the rotor, in place of the stock cam (shown on the left)

Reinstalling of the rotor back onto the bike

Here is the completed project, right before I put the cover back over it. What a sweet set-up, compared to those old points & condensers from ‘77,

Maybe I should clarify what I mean by having more the qualities that I would want out of a streetbike, in case somebody happens to read that that feels a bike from the’70’s is just fine the way that it is. For me, when I think of motorcycles, I think of performance. Well, a bike from 1977 doesn’t really ooze very much performance any longer. In fact, it’s pretty well dried up. My previous streetbikes, in order, have been a; ‘90 Yamaha FZR600, ‘96 Kawasaki ZX7R, ‘96 Suzuki GSXR750, ‘00 GSXR600. Now I have my ‘77 Suzuki GS750 after a 6 year lay-off from streetbikes, as I’ve been off playing in the dirt with offroad bikes. So yes, as i let my mind wonder, I do feel that there are some things that my GS might be lacking, that maybe with a little bit of engineering, research, blood & sweat…. well and some swearing… I might be able to increase the “cool factor”, performance & trickness of my GS.

The bike that currently has inspired me the most would have to be Roland Sands “No Regrets”. Obviously my GS will never be up to this level in any way, yet I feel that I can pull some of the stronger attributes from his bike and try to implement them into my GS. Mine wouldn’t have the chrome V-Twin motor, or the $1,500 a piece rims, or even all of the one-off machined parts… but I could try & get the cool things, such as; inverted forks, wide rims and the aggressive road-racer seating position. More pictures and a story on the No Regrets bike can be found here.

Here are a couple other links to some other GS Projects out in the world. They aren’t necessarily the best one’s I’ve found, just what I can come up with quickly as I write this… but they can help give you an idea of what I’m thinking about.
http://forums.cycleworld.com/cycleworld/board/message?board.id=10&thread.id=11778&view=by_date_ascending&page=5
http://www13.plala.or.jp/xyz-yykrs/tofintsukuba.htm
http://www.robwilton.com/kats.html
http://www.katanaclub.nl/

So where does that leave me? Well, I have started a “Build Sheet” as I’m calling it. It is basically me compiling the things that I would like to do to the bike, plus a way to document the technical data that I come up with.

As of this current time, what follows are my thoughts & wishes for my own GS Project.

‘77 Suzuki GS750 Build Sheet

• Front-End – Complete GSXR750 (’01 or newer), GSXR600 (’04 or newer) or GSXR1000 (’03 or newer) with inverted forks, clip-ons, dual-disk brakes (would love radial brakes, but to keep costs down… they are not likely. Do not want the 6-piston calipers from the late 90’s… use the 4-piston ones).

  Would I be able to use the GSXR controls (key-ignition, start button, kill switch, light switch, turn signals, horn & etc) with my GS wiring?

• Rear-End – Complete GSXR (’01 or newer) rear wheel (5.5” rim & 180 tire, not the 6.0” rim from the ‘96–’00 GSXR750), brake caliper/rotor, sprocket & etc.

  Swingarm most likely should not have bracing above the swingarm, bracing underneath the swingarm would be fine if it happened to be there. This is because that cou