New to the Forum with an '83 GS850G, Minnesota

[Gn0hm]

Hello from Minnesota, I'm new to this forum! I bought my GS850g a few years back when I saw it on craigslist for a steal, not in the best shape ever but well worth what I paid and was a complete bike with most of it's stock components in tact. It had a few different questionable paint jobs layered on top of one another, and looked like it had been well loved. Didn't know much about the legacy of the GS series at the time, but something about the look and the feel of the bike just drew me to it. Got it running for a short season of riding a few years ago, and learned a whole lot about stators and rectifiers after a couple of push starts, but other than that it ran quite well.

After that, I went off to college and didn't have much of a chance to give it the restoration I wanted to. These pandemic days, my school life has become a lot more flexible, and with all the classes being online I've found myself with the time this winter to put in the work and make the bike what I want it to be. I've learned a lot working on it and am excited to share the progress with you all when I get the chance to work on it periodically. I've made quite a bit of progress so far.

This will only allow me to post one photo, so I'll go ahead and share a picture here from when I first got it. I've got some other pics of the lovely paint job I did when I was a teenager, and my current progress with how the bike looks at the moment, that I'll post wherever is appropriate when I have some more time. I plan to rectify my lovely blue rattle can job by starting from scratch with a much more well planned Indian Chief inspired 2-stage job that I'll be attempting in a month or two. Looking forward to asking some questions that have had me stumped that maybe you all can help with, and posting more pictures as this project draws to it's conclusion. Most Importantly, I'm looking forward to the ride. Cheers! Snapchat-332484147.jpg

[salty_monk]

Welcome to the madhouse

[RustyTank]

Welcome to the forum Gn0hm. The 850 is a great engine.
Insider tip, if you want to post more than one pic in a post use an image hosting site, like Flickr or even Google Photos, I use IMGUR myself.

[rphillips]

Congrats on the GS, looks pretty good to begin with, head'in in the right direction, keep it up, & welcome aboard.

[Burque73]

For now, until finding an image hosting site, you can click on your pic then copy/ paste into the post to enlarge it.




The '83 is my favorite of the 850's. I've never seen a two tone seat like that and kinda like it.

Welcome to the forum.

[Gn0hm]

Thanks for the Tips! Funny you should mention the two tone seat, I liked it too but it was torn so I ran with it but made a new two-tone with a black and white color scheme. Here's a few images, one is the current look of the bike, which will be changing soon as well, but the seat is staying of course. The other two pics are an after/before of the midsection when I redid the electronics and repainted part of the frame.

https://imgur.com/D2JoeWw

https://imgur.com/NEf4Goa

https://imgur.com/32nvbbA

[2BRacing]

Wow, big improvement to the midsection in Before and After photos! Well done! Keep up the good work.

[Rich82GS750TZ]

Gn0hm

Welcome. RE: pics. You've already got an Imgur account. That's great. Just a few more clicks from imgur (full site, not the app) to copy the BBCode and paste it into a post here. Then the pics show up at the size you choose and we don't have to click on them to see them (we're a lazy bunch). Details linked in my signature of how to do this.

Also, please go ahead and create a signature. Go to Settings at the upper right of any page. You'll figure it out from there. Most people put, at the very least, their bike make and model in a signature. It's much appreciated here.

[steve murdoch]

Welcome to the site.
White seat cover? No way i would be able to keep that clean.

[Redman]

[Redman]

Welcome to TheGSR.

Sounds like you have done a lot of repairs and work on bike already.
And now you found THeGSR.

Are you saying you fabricated that seat cover.....?

.

[Gn0hm]

Welcome to TheGSR.

Sounds like you have done a lot of repairs and work on bike already.
And now you found THeGSR.

Are you saying you fabricated that seat cover.....?

.

Haha, yeah I've been lurking around for a couple years just doing some light reading of the stator papers, figured now that I had the means to make this bike a little more respectable I'd finally chime in.
As for the seat cover, yes. I found a good pleather fabric, took the old seat cover off, used it as somewhat of a pattern, made all of the individual pieces, and then had my sewing-talented sister stitch it up.

[650Skull]

For now, until finding an image hosting site, you can click on your pic then copy/ paste into the post to enlarge it.




The '83 is my favorite of the 850's. I've never seen a two tone seat like that and kinda like it.

Welcome to the forum.

I have tried this method to post large pics. The process breaks the pic into characters and tell me i have posted more than the site limit and the 13,000 characters, or depending on the size of the pic, shows up as characters and not a pic

[Jedz123]

Welcome! Great looking GS850!

[zuluwiz]

Welcome, welcome, Gn0hm, to the GS madhouse. The place isn't mad, but we inmates are: mad about Suzuki GS motorcycles. I commend you for acquiring, fixing, cleaning, and otherwise maintaining a GS850G. Yours looks much nicer than my '81, which I found in a barn several years ago and call the Ratzuki. It looked like crap then, and still does. However it starts, runs, and stops on demand, which is about all I ask of it. Have some fun here, have a cold brew, draw up a log and join the conversation. Again, Welcome. Rick