2x 82' 1100GZ Rebuilds

[Guest]

Hello there,
I'm in Portland, Oregon. I picked up two of these guys at the racetrack swap meet a couple months ago. One of them was wrecked so we haven't messed with that one much yet. These forums are really hard for me to navigate for information. I'm an Iraq war infantry veteran and I've got mild TBI.
Anyways, got one started on the first try, it hadn't started in over 10 years. Rode it around for a couple of minutes then it started smoking. The left side crank case gasket was bad. But oil was also coming up and out of it into the starter tray. Figured out it's because the old owner took the alternator out! And no rectifier installed either, yay.
I've already got some new shocks for it. I would like to put a modern front end on with awesome brakes. Who makes the best brake lines? We're going to redo the wiring after we get it running solid and get it registered at the DMV etc.
We're going to put modern lighting on it.
What's the best regulator/rectifier?
Actually, I just want to overhaul all of the electrical, please send any help you can.
I'm curious about aftermarket support or whatever for wheels as well.
Has anyone done a mono shock conversion with the shaft driven bikes? What's the biggest tire I can squeeze into the back? Is the shaft housing modifiable at all for more clearance? Etc...
Thanks guys and gals.
PwhirL

[Dogma]

What can be done with the rear end is mostly limited by your fabrication skills, and if you're going to get anything worthwhile done, you'll need some very good skills. If you have those skills, show us how it's done. If not, save everyone the headache and just fix and enjoy the bike for what it is. Then make small changes as your skills grow. Lots of noobs turn a decent bike into scrap metal because they had big ideas and no abilities, with no ability to stay with it and learn what they need to make their vision happen. I hope you're not one of those.

I'm not aware of anyone here who has done that kind of work on a GS shafty, so we won't be able to tell you what you can get away with as far as size of rear tire. Occasionally someone pinches a wide tire onto the stock rim, but that just makes an ugly wheel that messes us handling. A couple times there has been linked a video showing performance mods made to an 850G (very similar to your bikes). I can't find it now, maybe someone else can. I don't remember if they did a monoshock, but they did cut up the rear wheel and weld a new rim onto the hub so they could put radial tires on it. The front end I think was a normal Gixxer swap. There isn't currently any support for aftermarket wheels, just stuff from back in the day.