New Member, grabbed the avatar name Suzukian, as it was up for grabs

[Suzukian]

I live in the Northeast. I purchased a 1983 GS750ES, which I still own, new, back in '83. It has around 40K miles on it and goes strong. I also have a Honda CB400F with a Kaz Yoshima Stage III 458cc kit in it, and also a 2004 Kawasaki ZZR1200. I work on my bikes, even mount my own tires. I thought I would joint this forum and see how it works out. I am a licensed Electronic Technician, machinist, and I do CAD programming, have a machine shop in my Barn, and programmed CNC machines for far too many years. I didn't get a chance to hardly ride at all this year, building a shed, and I have a very bad back from a car accident (I was hit). Looking forward to meeting like minded people. I have thick skin and am not easily insulted, but don't really enjoy smack talk, though poling at the ribs can be fun. Life is too short to be short tempered and not have a sense of humor about yourself and everything else. IMHO.

[Nessism]

Welcome to GSR! A thick skin isn't necessary around here...unless you join the VORTEX, which is a black hole sucking everything within proximity down.

Your bike is on the tail end of the GS era. A 3rd gen GS so to speak. Keep an eye on the charging system, because when, not if, the R/R fails, the bike may see high voltage which wipes out things like your ignitor, which are getting hard to find.

Just for $hits and giggles, you may want to check out the Newbie Mistakes thread, linked in my signature. It may help you avoid future problems.

Good luck and please be sure to post photos. Photos or it didn't happen is my moto!

[Rich82GS750TZ]

Welcome. Need pictures!

[dorkburger]

Welcome. As noted this is a pretty genteel corner of the ‘net.
Those third gen 750s have grown on me in recent years. I still kick myself for passing on a 750es that was for sale locally at a good price about a decade ago.

[salty_monk]

Welcome to the madhouse! Yep definitely needs pictures!

[rphillips]

Yep, Welcome... Pretty mild place with tons of knowledge. Oh yeah, except for the vortex, and it ain't bad long as you don't take it too seriously.

[gs scott]

Welcome to the show! There's a few of us in the northeast that still ride. One friend, with similar tastes as you (he had a ZZR, and before that he drag raced his 1150ES), he lives just south of Hartford. Another rider lives in the Stafford area. We usually meet up in Deerfield MA right off 91. Considering the distance traveled just to meet up, we end with 300+ mile days. But if you're up for it, I'll ping you for the next ride.
Oh yes, pictures....

[alke46]

Welcome and yeah, we all like pictures of the ride you are on.

[gs scott]

Hey Suzukian,
This morning I was successful in making reservations for our 20th annual motorcycle camping weekend at Coolidge State Park in Plymouth VT, September 7, 8, 9 and 10. This year we secured the group camping site and the large pavilion (Vermont State Parks - Coolidge (vtstateparks.com)) . The riding in that area is so good, and the comradery around the campfire at night is equally good if not better. Would love to have you join us. Any questions, shoot me a PM.

[Suzukian]

I have fixed so many of the GS poor electronic design problems, on many people's bikes. Suzuki recitified all 3 legs of the Stator by only regulated one, leaving the other two to swing wildly. The oil bathed stator coil only lasted so long because it was cooled. I removed and replaced mine more than a decade ago with a "NoSports" unit, 20% more power, and use the R/R off of a Kawasaki 1100. a huge beastly thing that I put where the tool box was. I ran the 3 stator wires directly to the R/R, and ran the positive and negative wires to the battery, the wires are probably 10 inches long, getting rid of 6 feet of wiring which was way too thin of a gauge, from the harness. I have no problems with my bike. Recently I have started Polishing the cases with Jewelers Route. Looks almost like chrome. Not quite done with it. I'm in the middle of building a shed for my bikes and M.G. Midget, so didn't get a chance to do much this year. I am also almost done with my 2004 ZZR1200 Kawasaki, which I purchased with 4835 original miles on it. I'll post a pic. I have a set of Lockhart lowers for the half fairing, which I intend to color match and mount. My bike looks very much like this one (below) and will look exactly like it when I put on the fairing lowers. I'm an electronic technician and was a machinist for most of my life. My exhaust is stock

1-RIGHT.jpg

[argonsagas]

Welcome aboard GSR.

Look around the site and you will likely find a fair number of members who are in your general area..
It may be a bit late right now, but NE US of Eh? sees multiple member get-togethers every year so watch for them next year..

[Nessism]

I have fixed so many of the GS poor electronic design problems, on many people's bikes. Suzuki recitified all 3 legs of the Stator by only regulated one, leaving the other two to swing wildly. The oil bathed stator coil only lasted so long because it was cooled. I removed and replaced mine more than a decade ago with a "NoSports" unit, 20% more power, and use the R/R off of a Kawasaki 1100. a huge beastly thing that I put where the tool box was. I ran the 3 stator wires directly to the R/R, and ran the positive and negative wires to the battery, the wires are probably 10 inches long, getting rid of 6 feet of wiring which was way too thin of a gauge, from the harness.

Our forum electrical expert member has deserted us, but his legacy lives on here. Maybe you can be the new one!

Anyway, he has taught the collective mind here that the number one problem with the GS charging system is that the generator produces too much power. Since the system is driven by a permeant magnetic rotor, it produces power automatically, not in reference to demand, and any power not consumed by the bike gets shunted back to the stator by the R/R, where it gets converted to heat as it's dissipated. Result: the stator turns to charcoal after a while from too much heat.

Suzuki, must have known this because the early bikes ran one leg of the stator wires up to the headlight switch, so unless the headlight was on, that leg of stator power was disconnected from the system. As the US adopted the "always on headlamp" law, though, the wire loop remained in the harness. Unfortunately, this extra run of wire will develop a lot of resistance as time and corrosion sets in, and sometimes the heat in this wire can melt down the harness up by the hand control connection.

The fix for all this is to use a SERIES type R/R, and rewire the bike to eliminate the headlamp loop (which you did.) The most popular R/R option is the Shindengen SH775, which can be found on eBay, used, for reasonable pricing (most of the time.) Triumph sells a retrofit kit to install one of these R/R's on their bikes, and the harness only costs about $11 USD, so many members use that for the connectors and jumper harness.

A "20% more power stator" would concern me if you are still using a shunt type R/R, because the stock system already produces too much power. For reference, Kawasaki KZ bikes, from the GS era, don't burn stators very often because they don't make as much power. In fact, installing an Dyna S can cause problems on some bikes like the KZ550 because the charging system is already barely making enough to serve the stock bike's needs and the Dyna puts it over the top.

Oh, and another of our departed electrical dude's rants was about the grounding of the electrical system. He fancied a "single point ground," which I frankly never fully understood nor embraced. Anyway, that's a topic for another day...

[Suzukian]

I used the Regulator/Rectifier off of a Kawasaki KZ "Something Huge". It's a massive unit with heat sink fins. That takes care of any heat under Ohm's Law( P/IxE) I put it in the battery box bay, making a special bracket to hold it, removing the useless tool tray, all the stuff fits in the tail piece. I haven't a problem in 15 years with it, and the extra voltage is nice. I use Iridium Spark plugs, which seem to give a better combustion, but that could be psychological. I just replaced the clutch, and at 120 mph, that bike is biting really hard. I realized it had been slipping, just didn't notice it. The wiring loom on that bike has too many feet of extra wiring. I haven't had to touch anything else. I purchased 2 extra CDI units at $35 bucks ea., when people didn't know that the one for that bike was a one year model, now they are insanely expensive, but my stock one works great.

Suzuki grounds the bike to the engine with a bolt attached to a painted engine. They relied on the threads to provide ground. This is problematic. The threads corrode The area under the bolt head should have been bare metal. On my bike I sanded off the paint, put a new bolt in, and that fixed the grounding problems. The problem with too many grounds is that you get Voltage Drops, and the grounds may not be grounding at all the same levels. I used to work on aircraft, and those Piper Cubs, made of Steel Tube and cloth were really hard to ground. Some people would run a block of copper, and solder a bunch of grounds to it, and then wonder why their radio sounded like crap. The proper way is to use insulated sheets of copper, with one bolt connecting all the sheets for conducting, and all grounds go to that one bolt. This prevents Hysteresis (just like it sounds, the electrons don't know which way to go) but having one point prevents this, and your radio becomes completely silent. I repaired a Piper Super Cub that had a Garmin Radio Stack that cost more than the plane, artificial Horizon, the works, but Garmin did the ground bad. After I fixed it, we turned it on, and all the lights came on but there was no sound, we did a Tower call in test, and they replied loud and clear. The same thing applies to a motorcycle, all the grounds should go to one spot, and then to the battery negative. It would make the components last longer and corrode less.

My bike is a survivor. I have 40K miles on it, I purchased it new. I can imagine I should be putting in valve stem oil seals soon, but it doesn't smoke, and I am meticulous about oil changes. I have always used Valvoline oil. I use that in all the car I flip. I used to rebuild and flip Mercedes Benz's a lot. Presently I have a '73 M.G. Midget that I blueprinted the motor, added forged pistons, 10 degree more duration Kent Cam, and a Side Draft DCOE 40 Weber Cam. I also have a Mallory Dual Point Distributor for it.

I also own a Honda CB400F with a Kaz Yoshima 458 c.c. Stage III engine in it. I was clocked at 135 mph on that bike, I was a lot thinner then, 14,500 r.p.m.red line. That bike has 8K on the engine, Gold anodized aluminum D.I.D. rims and aluminum Koni shocks. It's in storage, pickled away in my Barn. Kaz also turned my stock carbs into Hollow Throttle bodies and flow benched the head to the exhaust he hand bent for me. The bike is from 1975, not for sale, going to my son, as is my Suzuki and my ZZR1200. My brother in law met Kazio Yoshima at a trade show, and I got an in that way, and ended up with one gem of a CB400F. It has a lot of other mods, too many too list.

[Suzukian]

I have finally finished the steel roof on my shed. The temperature go up to 47 degrees! I was able to close off the steel roof. A couple of pics below.

It's 10'x12' with French Door style load bearing panels, double pane fill with Argon Gas. I got them free when an installer was forced to remove them, and gave them to me. I have had them for over 15 years, figured I should do something with them. I have a severe Spinal Cord injury that limits my work ability, so this took way too long.

It's going to be for my bikes and MG Midget primarily. I have a Barn next to it. This thing has been a Monkey on my back. The town would now allow a concrete slab, so I put it on pavers, with holes filled 2' with crushed rock. The opening at the end of the side is getting big huge strong door I have for it, it's mostly glass.

SHED1-5.jpg

[Suzukian]

The Steel Roof. Looks crooked, but it's not, the lawn is flat, but not plumb flat. I'll but running power from the Barn to the shed. I have 200 amp service in there.

roof shed small.jpg