Poor Handling Bike. GS1100E

[Anonymous]

pjackson - very nice job! looks great. I pitched my stock shocks over 10 years ago and purchased a set of Koni's and never looked back. Best investment I made.

[Anonymous]

Ooops - wrong guy to congratulate! Sorry! Mike94form good job!

[Anonymous]

For tire pressure go by what it says on the tire NOT by what it says in the manual

Meaning no disrespect, this shouldn't be the last word on how to set tire pressures either. The markings on the tire indicate maximum load capacity at maximum safe inflation levels. In my case, that would put my front tire at 42 psi. Probably not dangerous, but certainly too firm for comfort. Regardless, I'd check with someone smarter than me before I put 42 psi into a 22-year-old cast rim designed for a maximum of 32 psi.

As a general rule, it's usually suggested that you run a couple of psi above what the manual recommends if using original equipment tires on a stock bike. This allows reasonable comfort and handling on bikes ridden in a reasonable fashion. Once the tires are replaced with another model or brand, all bets are off, and I would seek the advice of the tire manufacturer. And, as I've learned, advances in tire technology left my owner's manual recommendations useless.

[Anonymous]

Hmmmmmm....

I think I see your problem, but would it require hands on work to take care of it. If you could leave it with me for say ..... a year or two... no more than a decade... I believe it can be worked out .



Very nice looking bike!.

Do want to look at the chassis alignment article I mentioned earlier? I haven't "found" it again on any website.

Thanks If you could send it to me at angmic@attbi.com I would highly appreciate it

[Anonymous]

Does the 1100E have the 16 inch front wheel ? If so it is probably very sensitive to steering input , I was fooling with my screen trying to reduce wind noise at the helmet and tryed it without the mirrors on the bars, the difference in straight line stability was surprising and I concuded that wind was applying enough presure on the bars via the mirrors to have a noicabl e effect in straight line stability .

By the way I rode a late model GSXR1100 the other day and the stability was amazing , so dont compare new against old .

Dave

[Anonymous]

I have a gs850 with exactly the same problems. It is unstable and can be frightening at low speed cornering.

I have tried everything that you have, new shocks, rebuilt forks, steering head bearings, wheel bearings with no effect whatsoever. The guys in the UK owners club keep saying 'tyres' to me and telling me to get onto some metzelers........

.......... however, the problem is that I have another gs850 of exactly the same year which handles loads better (they never handle that well anyway) and it's used the same tyre mix as the earlier one.

Not much help, was I ? I just wanted to let you know that I have the same problems and have been through the same list of things.
I am going to swap the wheels on the two bikes to see what happens and I'll post here with the results (it will have to wait until the weather gets a bit better first)

Madoc

[Anonymous]

This is a little late perhaps and I'm certainly not nearly as knowledgable as some of the others in this forum but for what its worth a piece of info I just got from a fellow enthusiast.

He was looking at my 84 1150EF and noted that the front forks had a brace built into the front fender connection to the forks. He mentioned that earlier models didn't have this and would produce some scary wobbles at higher speeds. (I don't think this was isolated to GS's alone).

It's hard to tell, but it appears there is no brace on the photos you posted.

It may be a clue.

By the way, nice job on the restore, it looks great.

[Anonymous]

I've been going through the same problems myself. The pogo stick effect was fixed by putting in 1.5" spacers in my 400s forks. If I could muscle in longer ones I would, but what I really need are new springs.

Now when I pass people at 120 km/h my bike doesn't wag its rump all over the place. The rear shocks are still causing some bad handling as they are spent too.

None of the dangerous handling turned up for me until I put on new tires. The rear tire on my bike was worn flat across so it kept me from leaning in turns.

Steve

[Carter Turk]

Poor handling 1100

Mike,

If your into spending some money, get street tracker aluminum bodied Works Performance shocks 1/2'' longer than stock. They're about $400 and well worth it. May as well get the dual rate forks springs from Works or the Progressives work well too. Lower the front end in the triples a few mm and make sure if you have a steel fender support or fork brace that they aren't misaligning the forks.

If you buy the springs don't run any air.

Toss the cheap shens, they're probably the main cause coupled with sacked out suspension. Also the chain alignment notches on the swing arm aren't always aligned from the factory.

I've ridden a stock RF 900 and I thought my 83 Kat handled better with the suspension mods. The RF front end was horribly soft and vague.
Good luck and don't sell it. Carter Turk

[Anonymous]

I?ve had the exact same problem on my 83-1100esd when I bought it. It had Metzeler Tires on which were almost new so I was lucky. But going past a car in the left lane at about 80mph and cutting in front of it always made the bike wobble. Searched everything you guys mention but couldn?t find anything wrong. After 1 season the front was replaced with a 16" wheel making the bike lower in the front. MAde the steering quicker and much mor funny at twisty roads but the wobble remained...
After a while the rear tyre was used up, so I purchased a AVON tire. When the old one was taken away I noticed that it had a inner tube -BAD. Also the rim had remains of rubber from previous tires on each side. I removed all remains and mounted the new tire without a inner tube, and VOILA! The wobble was gone. Very important to have clean stuff, and you can?t rely on the tire-man being always 100%. Nowadays I have a widened (4,5") rim with a 160-60/17 Michelin Pilot ROAD on. You dont have to ask what that does to an old bikes handling. If you consider it I think that Peter has the story on his site www.biker66.com. It requires a conversion from 630 drivechain to 530 and offsetting it for about 5mm. Thats it. And modify the rear brake tensionarm a little. Its worth every penny, I promise you.