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8Ball's Winter Cafe Project

8K views 45 replies 17 participants last post by  8Ball 
#1 ·
Well it isn't R6 related, but I picked up a project for the winter. A friend of mine bought a 1979 GS550 and started a Cafe Racer build on it, the ran out of time and room. Here's what it looked like when he got it a few months ago:


It was in fairly good shape, and actually ran (however not so well), which was surprising since it had been stored for quite a while. He started stripping and cleaning and picked up a few mod parts (Dyna ignition, clubman bars, larger carbs, exhaust, etc....). Then he ran out of time and room in his garageand I ended up with it for $600.

Here is how I brought it home, today:










...stay tuned.:toocool:
 
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#34 ·
It's been a while since I updated this thread.* I have done a few nickel and dime items and have continued working on the rearsets and linkage layouts:

First, the rear brake linkage set-up:

I cut off the brake pedal:


Made a tab for the linkage:


Shaped, drilled and welded the tab to the brake pedal clamp:


Cleaned it up a bit (had to grind off the rest of the chrome for paint eventually):


Here it is installed with the link attached:


...but why, you ask, did I use a shackle with a removable pin instead of a heim joint on the front joint?
Well, I'm glad you asked!* The kick starter cant be used with the rearsets in their normal position:


...so I made it so you fold the peg, and disconnect the linkage (without tools) and flip the brake pedal out of the way, and Voila!* The kicker* is functional!


Next, the shifter side:

As I mentioned before, the shifter that was included in the set pointed up, but this would cause issues with the linkage,


...so Kris Richardson from Old School Speed sent me a shifter that pointed down:


I drilled off the original ball joint from the shifter link:


And here it is...


Finally, the rearset brackets needed to be trimmed down to get rid of the excess:


With only an angle grinder and a bench grinder....not too bad, if I say so myself:


and here it is installed:


I need to get some 1 inch spacers made out of 1-1/4" round stock to replace the sockets I have between the brackets and the pegs, and I need to find some place to counter bore the mounting holes so the bolt heads will sit in a bit, then I can paint them.
 
#35 ·
OK, it's been a while...mainly 'cuz I've been out of town, but I got home and today I got back to the GS:

Today I started to work on the electrical component tray. First the general shape was cut out of cardboard:


That was transferred onto the sheet metal, and cut out:


Using my backyard sheet metal break, I got the bends done...


Then I laid out the components where they will end up. Man that Shorai battery is small! (2.25" X 3" X 4", and about a pound):


The rectifier will end up mounted on the bottom of the tray so it will get plenty of cooling air.
 
#36 · (Edited)
Today I finished up the electrics:

And after I made the tray, and got everything mounted and laid out the wiring:


I did have to lengthen the cable from the starter to the starter relay, and make a new negative batt cable, so I had to figure out how to crimp a 6 gauge wire terminal without spending a bunch of money on a crimper.* So I used my AMP crimper in the 10 gauge slot to start the crimp, then finished the crimp in a vise.* Then flowed solder into the crimp for a complete connection.* Ugly, yes, but 100% connected:

This is where all the electrical components used to be, behind the side panels:


...and this is how it looks, now:




Tune in next time when this gauge cluster get fluster chucked! ...or, Fun with LED's
:nocontrol
 
#38 ·
...so the original cluster is an abomination, IMO, so I gutted it and painted the gauges (mentioned in a previous post). I still wanted the indicator lights, so I took the inside housing and flipped it upside down:


Then I cut a plate out:


and mounted it on the housing:


One of the light socket holes was unused, so I used it as a mounting point:


Drilled holes for the LED's and painted it black:




And done!

 
#39 ·
Update time:

These cheap Chinese RFY shocks were included in the pile-o-parts I got with the bike.


CrazyPJ, from one of the Cafe racer forums is the only person that I have found that has rebuilt these things, and he states that they are not bad, but out of the box, they don't have enough oil, or Nitrogen. And I found that to be the case with mine...

....so it's "service time". And a HUGE thanks to PJ for answering my few...OK, a dozen....questions. Between PJ's help and the following video from Youtube, I was ready to tackle a set of shocks for the first time.



First, I bough an adjustable pin spanner wrench I found on eBay for 6 bucks (also good for my angle grinder)


Next, I need a spring compressor..which I don't have...but I do have a bead breaker on my tire machine:

..and the center stand that was removed from the GS...

...and some flat stock...and a vise...


Some creative use of a tie down to stabilize it, and now it's a make shift spring compressor:


With the spring off and the seal retainer removed (with the pin spanner wrench) I cut an 8" piece of tubing off of an old porch swing this is in the scrap heap. With the spring seats, a couple of washers and the shock shaft nut, I used the tubing as a puller to pull the shaft seal.


Here it is disassembled:


To reassemble, I followed the youtube video, with a few small modifications for the differences in design. In Crazy PJ's build, he drilled and tapped the shock body to install a bleed screw in this spot:


I didn't have a way to counter bore the hole to accept an o-ring, so I didn't do it. It isn't necessary, but it is a great idea, and allows you to get every bit of air out of the shock.

Here they are re-assembled. I took them to a tire store and had them charge them with 75 psi of Nitrogen.


Job done. Oh, I used 10 wt fork oil. We'll see how well it works. I might need to go up or down in weight.
 
#41 ·
There hasn't been a whole lot of reportable progress on this project in the last few weeks due to my work travel schedule, but I did get a couple of things done.

I spent a few hours cleaning the swing arm and rear wheel, then installed a new chain and sprockets:



I also set the front fork oil level and installed some 1.5 inch spacers in the forks to set the front sag where I wanted it (aprox 1 inch) and it also raised the front ride hide to where it should be. The static sag seemed a bit too excessive before.
Since the fork tubes are just a bit too small for 3/4" inch PVC, I used 1/2" PVC and some 1" fender washers to keep everything flat (pictured are the 2" spacers that I started with, and found did not allow enough sag):


Ride height before:

Ride height after:


I also had an OCD moment. When I adjusted the valves, I rotated the engine without the shims in the buckets (shim over bucket arrangement). I found out later that this is not good on a GS engine, although not as catastrophic as I was first led to believe. Yes I did score the edges of my cam lobes, but I dressed them with a small file and I made sure that no filings were in the valve cover area. This was a few weeks ago.....my OCD kicked in and I removed the valve cover again, today, to double check for metal filings and shavings in the top deck. All is good and I should start carb tuning tomorrow. Hopefully I will have some warm, dry days soon to do some plug chops.
 
#42 ·
Got it running and got the pilot circuits dialed in, and I was gonna do a few plug chop runs to see how the needle and main jet settings are.....when the heavens opened up.

 
#43 ·
Out for some test/tuning runs.






Running a bit lean, still.

This is the part of bike building that gets tiresome QUICKLY!!! I am sooooo thankful for fuel injection!!! Not working some where? A little off idle stumble? Flat spot at 5000 RPM? No problem! Hook the laptop up the the PowerCommander...a few clicks...<Enter>, and boom! put the computer back in the backpack and try out your new tweaks. No pulling the bike apart...No draining carb bowls...No gasoline smell all over your hands (and clothes so your wife makes you get undressed in the garage and leave them there).


Tank off and carbs about to be removed......again..



Float height is good. cyllinders 1 and 4 seem slightly richer than 2 and 3. Wonder if one coil is weaker than the other. Easy to check out by swapping the coils. input to both of the coils is 11.94 Volts. Batt voltage is 12.29 (with the bike not running and headlight off) With the bike not running and the headlight on, the coil volts are 10.97 Volts. Nope, not the issue.

Ended up with 100 mains on the outer cylinders, and 102.5's on the inners. #3 is still slightly lean. Checked for leaks around the intake boot. Found none. made sure the clamp on the carb had a good bite Some duct tape between the clamp and the boot helped.

Sync'ed pretty good (#4 gave me a little trouble)...


Revisited the idle circuit settings and went for a quick ride before it started to rain. Running much better. Very smooth power and pulls good, but I still think the #3 is a tad on the lean side......

...it sucks having this particular form of OCD!:bash
 
#44 ·
Here are a couple of shots from last Friday when I had the old GS out:



The front end needs some work. It is really harsh and it feels like it is connected to another motorcycle.....and I think that bike may even be on a different road. I'll be playing around more with fork oil levels and weight, spring pre-load and ride height. Also the term brakes on this thing is a bit of an exaggeration. I can pretty much lock up the front tire, but it seems to want to fold up and hide under the bike during hard braking.....and it is a really more of a retardation of speed than stopping.

There is a reason they don't build them like they used to!

...so today I took the modern bike (still 10 years old) out and remind myself of that reason! Dusting off some pucks:
 
#45 · (Edited)
So I did a little tweaking....

The front end was very harsh. I had originally set the fork oil level at 140 mm (compressed with spring removed), which translated to 200cc. The service manual called for 165cc, but the stock ride height has the forks sitting about 2 1/2 inches into the fork travel, and the front seemed too low. So I set the fork level closer to what I used to run on my old race bikes in the 90's which also had damper rod forks.

I took the fork oil out and measured what the service manual calls for and that translates to 205mm fork oil level, a difference of 65mm. I raised it slightly to 195mm, because I have raised the static ride height with pre-load spacers. And the front end feels 10 times better!

Next I needed to deal with the rear brake. The linkage set up I made for the rear sets was a bit.....well, not effective. I couldn't even get it to slow the bike down. I don't use the rear brake, usually, but since the front brake on this bike is pretty weak, The rear needs to work....at least some!

The link I welded to the collar was too short:


....so I made a new, longer one:

Painted:

Now I can lock up the rear...with a little effort...but it is plenty. I will clean it up a bit, paint it and be done with that part. Aside from some more carb fine tuning, the bike should be good enough for the rest of the season, to ride around and figure what needs to be done next winter.
 
#46 ·
Been a while since I have done any updating on this, but I have a couple things to add:

First, this thing has no horn! And that is a problem because APPARENTLY it is also invisible! I don't think I have had need to use a horn on a bike a handful of times in the last 25 years riding on the street, but I have had to make several hard maneuvers because people haven't seen me on this bike. It got to the point where I followed my wife home one day and asked her if my headlight was working.

Anyway...I got a cheap horn from ebay. It worked well enough, except that the mounting tab is too flimsy and it bounced around like a fat boy on a diving board. So I made a new mount and it works fine.

You can see the differences in the mounting tabs in the photos:




Next I have been planning the next phase of the build and I want better brakes, maybe get some super bike bars (not sure) and maybe another seat (if I can find a stepped one that doesn't look like crap and fits the stock tail). All this will wait until winter. But in preparation for the brake upgrade, I looked at a few options. One option was to swap out a modern front end (and consequently, rear end). But to be honest, you lose a bit of ground clearance and in my opinion some of the character. Another option was to get a set of dual disk forks, and put modern rotors and calipers on it. That would require hub spacers and caliper brackets made and getting the rotor offsets and the caliper positioning right. That is totally do-able, but I don't have access to machine shop, and would require a bit more money. But it was the direction I was going, until....

....While looking for a dual disc front end, I came across a good deal on a set of forks from a 1982 GS550M (Katana). It has the same diameter fork tubes (so I can use my current triples) and it uses the same axle part number, so I can use my current front wheel (Suzuki was nice enough to drill and tap the rotor mounting holes on both sides of my hub).



I also found the rotors and calipers from the same seller so I got a package deal.



I will need to paint the carriers and calipers, cause the red won't go too well.
 
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