Koffs GS750 Build

[Koff]

Hey all,

Thanks for the warm welcome in another post, I thought I will start my own rebuild/build post as I intend to update pics and commentary as I perform it.

I'm not sure how many people read or remember my intial post but to recap... I have always wanted to rebuild a bike but life kind of always got in the way, work feels like its always taking my time.
Recently however my dad passed away at the young age of 54 and with no prior history of any illness or symptoms (he was still working full time as a carpet layer), this has made me re-think my priorities in life.

This is where the GS comes in. I have always loved the look of cafe racers/trackers and have decided to give it a go on rebuilding one for myself.

I have decided that there are plenty of CB750's and SR400/500 out there and wanted to get something different. Here she is as on the day i bought her.

 

[Koff]

She was a non runner but i didnt care, she had compressions and previous owner said he has heard her run, this was good enough for me.

As I said I will be rebuilding her to suit my own style, I'm not a big fan of the duck tailend so will be going for a tracker flat seat that i will try to make myself. I will also attempt to put my own knee indents into the tank and clean the rest of it up, I will be removing the front and rear mudguards, will be changing the rear suspension, probably acewell gauges as atm I have none, new headlight, new tyres, brakes, brake lines, new paint job, etc etc. Basically I will probably change or upgrade most things beside the frame/wheels/engine as I really like those. these will get painted though, maybe not the engine.

My first priority is to get her started before I break everything down.

Some more pics of the first night I bought her

This is also a pic of my other daily ride. A Honda CB1000R

 

[Koff]

OK now to catch up to current day and what i have done so far.

I have totally taken apart and cleaned out all the carbs as per guide on this great forum, they were filthy, I had new o-rings from the website suggested and replaced all of those, luckily that i did cause I found that the t-junction between petrol tank and carbs had the o-rings so stuffed that one of the o-rings was actually overlapping another and hence petrol was leaking. that is now replaced and all as it should be.

next job was to have a look at the whole electrical system as she would not make a single noise when the starter button was pressed. Found that there was no battery.

New battery bought, found that the coils were of different type and look, new dyna s 5ohm coils bought and put on, dyna ht leads, ngk caps and sparkplugs also changed over at the same time. As I want to keep the bike I want it to be perfect.

Tried to start the bike and still no joy, neither kickstart nor starter button did anything. no crank.

I forgot to mention that the ignition barrell looked stuffed and i could use a screwdriver to turn it, no keys when I bought it. So I replaced the ignition barrell with one i bought from ebay with two sets of keys.

put that on bike today, turned key and i heard bike click from relay, pressed the starter button and bang, she now cranks over but still wont start. no biggie, a small step forward.

I also purchased a dyna s electronic ignitionand will be replacing the old points and condenser unit over the next few days and will try again.

Thanks for reading

 

[Guest]

Hey mate, I'm gonna tune in for the ride here.

Also, if he ever logs back on again, there's a fella called Leigh south of Melbourne who is supposed to be cafe'ing his 750... not sure if he's started yet though.

Once you get her fired and running, are you going to head cafe or tracker? Personally I find cafes are just done to death now, but a good one is still a good one Just my 2 cents anyways...

Good luck and keep us up to date!

 

[Koff]

I like parts of both bikes, like the front end of a cafe, clubmans or clipons, nice headlight, nice gauges, etc..... but like flat type seat and no rear guard and half the wheel exposed of the tracker on the rear end. will be leaving the battery box and electricals where they are and will keep the side panels as they are in perfect condition. new paint job will be in order obviously, no real plan yet, just going with the flow and see where it takes me, i have around a 6-7k budget and am only 1500 into it so should be able to come up with something nice in the end. wont be starting on anything until i get her started. if i have to do an engine rebuild my budget will be shot as I heard that it could cost me as much as 3k. Im hoping im wrong. well see. thanks for reading. been following yours and speaking to you on the ton website, thanks for your help there.

 

[Koff]

Just rememberred a few other odds and ends I have done. Ripped out the rear brake pads, totally shot, new pads ordered. There is minimal fluid in both the front and rear master cylinders and it looks dirty so will be getting the rebuild kits, or getting new pots, i think some nice metal pots would look good, the oem plastic ones are ugly and i have to replace the lines anyway so might as well replace the whole thing at the same time, wont be doing this project yet anyway as i will be tearing the entire bike down for a respray, luckily the frame looks great and cant see any rist or even rust bubbles anywhere, the frame paint all looks good too well old but reasonably good for its age. I'm thinking of either tarozzi rearsets which i know have one available for this bike or getting some gsxr 1000 rearsets and modifing the frame to fit which i have seen done a few times already on these bikes. some more food for thought.

OH yeh, one more thing, took apart the petcock and cleaned it up although didnt have to do much as it looks reasonably new, i have put see through fuel lines in to make sure fuel is flowing nicely and it is.

 

[Guest]

Looks like you've got no apprehension about tearing into her. Top notch work so far, some great improvements with the ignition stuff. I agree with you that there is nothing more rewarding in life than rebuilding a motorcycle that is going to be a routine transportation for you, very rewarding.

 

[Guest]

Good stuff! Didn't recognise her from DTT... oops! Then again I've been neglecting DTT of late, losing a little interest over there except for some specific threads I've been following, and I just realised yours is one of those... haha

 

[Koff]

Thanks Guys. Does anyone know if the acewell gauges or the modern motorcycle company gauges will work on this bike, I am still unsure how to find out what tacho and or speedo I can use, i know there are ratios but in the two workshop manuals that i have bought for this bike I can't find anything about it.

I dont mind DTT, a few nice bikes on there that had me going like, wow, that looks cool, how can i do that on mine. I would not have found this site if it wasnt for them and you pete so i'm pretty glad i was told about it. I will be having this rebuild project on there as well as a few of mine non suzuki mates have their bikes there.

I love the fact that these bikes are so hands on. anytime i want to do anything on my new bike its plastic clip this or plastic screw there, have to be so careful not to screw something up. These bikes are soo forgiving. and its all metal. my CB1000R is 197kg now (got rid of a few things like the cat and stock pipe 12kg on their own). This bike is 253kg, shes a heavy girl.

Found that the stator cover was dripping oil last night, so popped it off to find there was no gasket at all and all that was holding the oil back was a sealer on the outside of the case.

Lost 1ltr of oil when i took it off, will be making my own gasket out of gasket paper i picked up at autobarn. did the same on the carbs and they weeped at first, but have stopped now even when i was trying to restart after new ignition bits went on. I guess they had to seal themselves. all good.

Sorry about the constant ranting. every time i do something else or remember i did something I write it down. I have a few pics of the carb rebuilds so will post those, have the before and after pics. bit of a change.

 

[Koff]

As promised, here are the two pics of the carbs,

Before

After

As stated, all o-rings and gaskets were changed, thorougly cleaned and jets and all little bits soaked in carb clean. All dried of by air compressor and all seem ok after put back on. Hopefully theyre all good, first time ever taking one of these apart, Guide from here was invaluable.

Cheers.

 

[GateKeeper]

nice work on the carbs, if ou have them all back in the right order, hopefully it will all be OK and they will work great for you...

as for your question on gauges have a look here

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=186439&highlight=gauges


.

 

[TheCafeKid]

Good stuff! Didn't recognise her from DTT... oops! Then again I've been neglecting DTT of late, losing a little interest over there except for some specific threads I've been following, and I just realised yours is one of those... haha

That place has changed a ton (no pun intended). I was/am a member over there from near fledgling days. It's gone so commercial now. You can buy every damn part to build a "cafe" look alike. It's kind of wrong IMO. I built just about every "cafe" part on my project. Sure, didn't turn out exactly like I envisioned, but I was on a super slim budget. Now you can just shell out greenbacks and instantly have one how-ever you want it. Kind of takes away from the fun, art, vision whatever.... I pop in from time to time but not much.

 

[Guest]

Mate nice work on the carbs! They look real nice now and a good clean never goes astray.

Don't stress on the ramblings, that's how my rebuild thread got to be over 2000 replies It's worth it in the long run when you can go back and see what you did...

I'm hoping to go the Acewell path fairly soon myself to sort out some dodgy gauge issues and am hoping to get my hands on the standard 2853 model. Not sure how soon yet but within the next month or so I hope.

TCK: I tend to hang in the Trackers forum as that's where all the unusual stuff seems to end up, some fun stuff going on there at the moment.

 

[Koff]

How does the acewell 2853 receive the speed and tacho data, im guessing its not mechanical is it ? do you need to connect sensors ?looks like a great unit. and all in one would suit me just fine.

 

[allojohn]

It's no biggy, but the next time you've got the carbs off you might want to switch the bowls on 2 & 3. The drain plugs are facing the wrong way and are difficult to open that way around.

 

[Koff]

Thanks for that, I just replaced them as per how they were before i took them apart, will change it over next time I have them off.

Would anyone know if this cable is the cable that I need for the acewell speedo to be able to be attached to the acewell gauges, i think it uses the oem suzuki mechanical connection on the bike

http://www.s3performance.com.au/acewell-s10-speedo-cable-for-kawasaki-suzuki-road-bikes-p-72.html

and how would the tacho gets its rpm in the acewell gauges ?

 

[TheCafeKid]

Most of those aftermarket fancy multi-function gauge sets come with magnetic sensors for the front wheel, and then tie into a coil for tachometer in the units I've seen.

 

[Guest]

How does the acewell 2853 receive the speed and tacho data, im guessing its not mechanical is it ? do you need to connect sensors ?looks like a great unit. and all in one would suit me just fine.

Speedo is either via the provided magnetic sensor (you'll need to get a couple of magnetic bolts) or you can use a cable like you've shown below.

Tacho is done by ignition coil or spark plug lead apparently, although I haven't looked into exactly how that hooks up yet.

Thanks for that, I just replaced them as per how they were before i took them apart, will change it over next time I have them off.

Would anyone know if this cable is the cable that I need for the acewell speedo to be able to be attached to the acewell gauges, i think it uses the oem suzuki mechanical connection on the bike

http://www.s3performance.com.au/acewell-s10-speedo-cable-for-kawasaki-suzuki-road-bikes-p-72.html

and how would the tacho gets its rpm in the acewell gauges ?

If you look at that cable, you'll see the end they show appears to be what fits into our gauges as opposed to what goes into the speedo drive on the front wheel, so you'd need to know what that end looks like and thread size etc.

At the moment, I'm planning on looking closer at where I can mount the sensor before making any decisions. I believe the sensor needs to be mounted at 90 degress to the rotational direction of the wheel (if that makes sense).

 

[Koff]

OK, so I had some time today so I tried to start the bike..... cranking over but not catching on. fuel going to carbs, all sparking as it should but no joy, put some starter spray into carbs and she fires for exactly 7 seconds, then dies, still its progress, at least I know she fires. no blue smoke out of exhaust, so thats good.

I'm thinking that my carbs are not getting the fuel into the engine in the right amounts. I have them on the stock settings as per workshop manual, dont have carb sync tool, im guessing im gonna need to invest in that. the carbs are definately getting fuel. It might be my float valves and float needles that are gone. Im gonna be buying these from ebay and replacing and will try again.

It was good to hear her fire though, even if it was for 7 seconds.

Also, bought a 7 inch headlight and the acewell gauge with the cable, Pete, will let you know if the cable is correct once I get it and install it.

 

[Koff]

Small update, bike now runs, but fuel/air is not right cause i have to have full choke on for it to start. It dies if i take choke off. Still, at least I know she runs. Going to take carbs to have them properly tuned I think.