1992 GSX1100G project

[GS1000G Shopper]

Yes, if you use Salty Monk's bracket and parts along with the oversized rotors. He has a thread here someplace about the setup, and I have some research with part numbers as well.

It's a twin-piston caliper that's common to many Kawasakis and very few others- the GSX-G being one of them. The 1000G used a single-piston caliper.

[GS1000G Shopper]

I checked valves today, after making a stupid mistake of using the reference lines on the cams (like the 8-valve motor) instead of the notches. Couldn't figure out why I had 0 clearance! Then I re-read the manual and saw the cam/valve timing was related to the notches in the ends of the cams, not the lines. Most valves were within spec range or very close, had to adjust 9 total. I like not having to mess with shims!

Pulled the exhaust. The good news was unlike my Red GS, no exhaust bolts broke or were stripped. I noted some of the Marvel oil was dripping from under the #1 pipe. Like the rest of the bike, it is very crusty, so I'll have to see where it can be resealed or patched as needed. A good bit of rust on the header pipes, but not too much on the mufflers. I plan to sandblast the entire assembly, and coat the headers with ceramic thermal coating, and high-temp black the rest.

I'm soaking the calipers in Marvel oil so as to loosen the pistons. Hopefully I can reuse them. The pads had a good bit of wear. While I don't know if the odometer works yet, I'd say either the pads (which were stamped Tokico, so they appear to be OEM) were fairly soft or the PO used the brakes a lot in 7700 miles. Rotors are well within spec.

My list of needed parts is complete & the first & second orders are out. After doing a lot of shopping, I went with Boulevard Suzuki instead of the usual place, Powersports Plus (PSP). Boulevard has really lowered their prices, so even with tax and shipping (under $10!) for a bunch of parts, they were only $2 higher than PSP. I also like to support them since they are a member here (Ashley).

I'll be adding pictures here at some point, I'm taking them, but it's easier to do the uploading & posting at one time.

[GS1000G Shopper]

A few misc pics.

Exhaust:






Teardown progress:


Valve cover off:


Inner fairing (made from unobtanium). It is warped in the upper center, and cracked on the lower left, but most of the pieces are here. I've been reading on plastic repair and have some ideas.

[GS1000G Shopper]

Later today I hope to get the front wheel and forks removed. I'm getting a set of progressive springs and will use the factory recommenced 10w oil. I have new bearings for the wheel, and a new tire also, a Bridgestone Battleaxe 023 radial, with a matching one for the rear.

The calipers are all cleaned now and ready to be honed, painted, and for new seals. My first parts order arrived so I have most of the brake hoses and fittings. The rear hose takes a weird path to the caliper. I see it can be shortened about 5" by using an angled fitting. The rear MC is tough to get to and appears to be working well and not leaking, so I'm not going to mess with it.

I've ordered the semi-rare JR9B plugs as well. I need to test the coils and wires.

I'm debating trying to replace the oil cooler & oil feed hoses, but the fittings on them are weird and would be hard to adapt short of welding AN fittings to them. I think I will stick with replacing the o-rings in them.

[80GS1000]

Nice project, should be a really nice touring bike before you know it!

[ddaniels]

Hey Paul, nice project going there. You'll have a great slab buster when you're through. I test rode one once and it was a beast. Not much good in the corners though.

[GS1000G Shopper]

That describes about 99% of my riding, so I'm looking forward to it.

[GS1000G Shopper]

Front fender & wheel are off. I removed both front wheel bearings & will remove the tire later today so I can clean the wheel. I also took apart the speedometer drive so I can re-grease and reseal it. I'm tempted to paint the wheels black like I did on the ST1100.

The GSX-G has a lot of chrome on it. If I keep the stock gauges, I'll paint the cups black, and will either refinish the mirrors in black (they are pretty rough) or buy new black ones. I think when I refinish the master cylinders and switch panels I may black them out also.

Calipers are all cleaned, honed, and painted red. I've been reading header paint reviews and may go with the VHT primer & ceramic black. The techline coating is expensive and more difficult to apply.

The front fender was filthy- this appears to be from leaking forks, which are the next things to come off.

[GS1000G Shopper]

Fork tubes came off easily.

I'm replacing the fuel pump after it failed the manual test. Suzuki uses a complex 4-wire system. In a nutshell, it provides power either when the starter is engaged or when running- coil output. I've figured out a way to re-wire it using a couple of Radio Shack diodes and a regular 12V relay so I can use a 2-wire regular pump. The OEM pump is over $200! I'll upload a diagram later.

I found some Honda guys were using an Airtex E8316, which crosses over to an AC Delco EP234. I found one of those on eBay for $30 shipped brand new. The fitment is from a 1984 Honda Accord. There is no free lunch here, since the pump and non-removable bracket is considerably larger in diameter than the old one (pics below). I looked at grinding the bracket, but it still likely would not clear the side cover. It looks like I will try to fit it on the right side of the frame in front of the battery. I used a strap to compress the rear wheel so I could make sure nothing would hit it there while riding. My goal is to keep it accessible as well.

UPDATE
The stock fuel pump & circuit must be used. The aftermarket one I tried put out too much pressure. It may be possible to dissasemble the pump and rewire another one, but I ended up using a used pump.

Speaking of accessible (not) the air filter inside part was really clean- the intake had a bunch of leaves and crud. This supports either it was replaced in the 90's or the bike was not used that much.

I got the headlight bucket sandblasted, treated with rust neutralizer, and repainted, and the carb bowls sandblasted. They turned out better when I used something called LA Totally Awesome cleaner mixed with water. I get the cleaner at Dollar General for like $1/quart.


Here are some pics from the past couple of days:
Fuel bowl after sandblasting:


Caliper painted:


Clean carb (left) vs. dirty one


OEM and Honda Accord fuel pumps:


Looks like a wreck, doesn't it?


Headlight bucket repainted:

[GS1000G Shopper]

I finally fought the dried out old front tire yesterday. Won the battle using a couple of 2x4 pieces as a bead breaker (it's on YouTube and it works).

I pressure washed the wheel and it had some spots of corrosion, so I decided to sand it and paint it Rustoleum satin black. I messed up one of the rotor bolts pulling them off, so there's one more thing for the next parts order.

I still have most of a 1991 ST1100 here, and one thing I really liked about it were the brakes. For grins, I measured the fork tubes and found they were the same diameter and length. If I had not already reworked my calipers and ordered progressive springs and new seals as well as sold the ST1100 front wheel, I think I would give them a try. The rotors were maybe 1/4" larger in diameter, so I suppose it would not have made much difference. I'm going with EBC sintered HH pads after reading a lot of brake reviews.

Pics will follow. We're having great riding weather now, and I hope the GSX-G will be ready for similar weather by spring.

[GSScoobie]

I'm going with EBC sintered HH pads after reading a lot of brake reviews.

Aren't the HH pads the ones that eat rotors?

[portdave]

Looks awesome. Your garage looks like mine sometimes......Keep up the good work....

[GS1000G Shopper]

Aren't the HH pads the ones that eat rotors?

I read a lot of reviews and didn't see any complaints or comments about that. I was concerned over the issue as well as opposed to say the Galfer Greens, but apparently if it is an issue, it's not been widely reported.

It occurs to me I've put a little over 9K miles on my favorite bike since 8-2010 (it is currently in rotation with the Blue GS1000G), so coupled with my conservative riding style it's unlikely I'll run through rotors very fast, especially when I get the Sabre & GSX-G operable.

EDIT
Searched for those terms & found this on a Triumph forum:
EBC HH pads not rotor friendly
Short-attention span summary: This allegation arose from a parts guy. Two riders on that forum refuted the allegation with actual use of 30K and 25K miles. The posts are very recent & relevant, just a few days ago.

Your garage looks like mine sometimes......Keep up the good work....

LOL that's one of the tidier parts. You should see the area around the Sabre. Or maybe not. Thanks for the compliment.

[GS1000G Shopper]

More progress yesterday & today with mounting the larger fuel pump, and other fuel-related issues.

I found the petcock was seized and like the float bowls full of dried out gas. I tried a few things like soaking it in lemon juice, then acetone, and then the cleaner/degreaser in the ultrasonic cleaner. I was finally able to move the lever, but I can't blow air from one port to another. Looks like another $50 expense.

I still have to check out the part in the tank.

After reading all sorts of things about repairing plastic, I tried heating the warped part of the inner fairing with a hairdryer. Didn't get hot enough, so I used a propane torch. This softened it up and I was able to get it straightened out. It's not smooth or pretty, but now I can add a thicker sealing strip to it and close the gap. I plan on mounting some gauges in that area as well.

Next up was reattaching the part that broke off. This went really well using some JB Weld and painter tape to hold it together overnight. Seems fairly sturdy. I need to reconstruct the lip where the seal goes on one side, and will try some moldable 2-part epoxy clay for this part. Pics will follow when complete. It looks like I can use one of the old pockets as a template for the covers. I plan on trying some plastic and will add hinges at the top if they will fit.

I'm also shopping for another IPF headlight. I have these on my GS1000 bikes and really like them- it's the best pattern I've seen short of a projector HID, which can't be had for our bikes that I'm aware of. From where the inner fairing was warped, it looks like this was right over the headlight, so I'm going to put a 12x12 piece of thermal insulation there to avoid this happening again, and also since I plan on trying the 80/110 watt lamp vs the 55/60W one I have in the older bikes. I'm adding a power feed and relay there to handle the extra power draw. I'll do a post on this when I have everything together for it.

Fuel pump (UPDATE- this did not work, I bought a used pump)
I used a long 1/4-20 U-bolt from the hardware store (Lowes). It is 1/125" wide, and a snug fit on the frame. I cut a piece of aluminum so I could mount the pump at a decent angle. This will make for more compact fuel hoses. Since I'm not using the stock pump, I had to figure out how to turn four wires into two. I started by cutting the harness off the old pump, which gave me a decent pigtail to work with. I'm using a waterproof relay and socket- you can find it on eBay for about $20. Here is my wiring diagram:


Here are the wiring components:



Here is the pump bracket:


Here is a pic of the pump mounted:



I looked at mounting the relay by the pump, but settled on locating it behind the battery box. I welded a tab on to it and threaded it for 6mm, same as the other hardware.


Here is a pic of the repainted front wheel:

[GS1000G Shopper]

I took a good look at the tank today, and it is rotten- literally. Under some of the bubbles were rust holes, and the poor kreem job had plugged up the reserve outlet. The sender was rusted away. Only decent part was the cap, but I think I can clean the pipe part.

I'm also looking at gauge alternatives. The stock gauges are not to my liking- too cruiser-ish. I'm considering (based on cost & availability) a set from the GS750E (has gear position, fuel, and oil temp) or maybe a 90's model ZX11 (has fuel & temp and a clock). I may try to make my own panel as well using some digital meters I have on hand along with some regular round gauges.

Regardless of if I stick with stock gauges, I'll add a panel at the bottom of the windshield with my extra gauges. This will help to cover up the warped area of the inner fairing.

I also tested both coils and plug wires. All are well within spec at 3 ohms for the coils and about 35K ohms for the wires.