Been a while!

[Guest]

It has been quite some time since I have posted anything on this forum. I have been busy tinkering, customizing, etc., and unfortunately life tends to get in the way of things as well. Anywho, since my most recent post many a change have occurred on the ol' 79 GS550L. She's turning into exactly the girl I'd like her to be With an upcoming (hopefully, depending on my level of competency) valve adjustment and carb sync, she'll be running tip-top for Summer here in FL. Customization over the last few months in the pics below!



















Been treating me poorly of late, with the shutting off and other blasphemes, but after a recent spark plug and oil change and the adjustments mentioned above, she and I will be back on the road again soon!

[Redman]

Looks like you modified the L out of it.

And made your own seat.

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[JTGS850GL]

Green???????????

[Redman]

Green???????????

color coordinated with the licence plate (both of them).

[Steve]

Green???????????

Nothing wrong with a green "L".



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[suzuki_dog]

What a transformation, looks good. The green looks good, also...

[Allie]

Okay I spotted this bike in the 'L' thread, for the life of me I can't figure out what moved me to look in there, maybe I'm more of an 'L' fan than I thought. As I said on the other thread, I am a previous owner of this bike, it was owned by at least one other member before it got to you, a forum member who doesn't seem to come around anymore. The military has a way of doing that to you I guess. Here's a little history on the bike, if you're interested.

Not to scare you off, but that bike has had a very hard life. However it was pretty well torn down bolt by bolt by the owner mentioned, and documented on this forum - this might be of some use to you, who knows. In any event most of the bike should be pretty solid now, however I see from your post history that the electrics weren't.

Here is the thread he started, around post 14 or so is where he gets a 'new bike', which I donated because he wanted a parts bike. He felt that mine was in better shape so went with that and used his original as a donor bike.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?156565-1979-GS550L-Let-the-Education-begin

As far as pre-history, I know the thing was in a wreck (something about a malfunctioning throttle lock), and sat for like a year or so outside in a police impound lot. A good friend of mine acquired it some time after that, and used it as a 'college bike', which means it got the stuffins beat out of it some more. He had a blowout with it at one point and sent it careening down the road - I think it glanced off a semi or something, I forget. He patched it up and rode it some more, then put the thing in his driveway under a tarp when he had his knee operation. This is several years post college now. When his knee finally came back he bought at brand new V-Star 650, and I ended up with the bike, he knew I liked working on things.

It was, needless to say, in sad shape when I got it. The big issue was the carbs, which I tore down and rebuilt, using the K&N kits supplied by my friend. True to form they were less than optimal for my application. Nonetheless the bike ran after a bunch of tinkering and trial and error. The charging system had been replaced at some point with a non stock item, and I had strict instructions to never run it without the headlight on. The seat that it came to you with was done by a local car upholstery shop, we used 'BMW' seat vinyl, it came out well and was super comfortable. I rode the thing for about 10k miles before I picked up my 750. The only issue I had was the fuse box kind of fell apart on me, and I had to jury rig it with wire to hold the fuses in and get it home. By this time I wasn't using it much and so never did put a new box in it. I also had to replace the R/R, though the stator tested good, I had a Rick's unit in it when I let it go. I also did the steering head with the fancy roller bearing upgrade. I did the fork oil too at the same time. I actually never had the bike registered because my slacking friend lost the title to it and never got me a new one until I wanted to sell it. So sue me I rode it with a fictitious plate, though I did carry insurance the whole time.

Good luck with it, it's getting a lot more mileage than I ever thought it would, it's been basically given a new life. I'm not much of a fan of bobbers but your mods look pretty decent on it, and nice job on the seat. I agree that some larger signals on it would actually look good and make it a little more visible. Put a little weight on that skinny rear end lol!

[JTGS850GL]

Nothing wrong with a green "L".



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Kind of spooky.