81 GS400 Cafe racer project

[Mike McNaney]

Hey guys, speaking of rear sets. Have you seen this place?
http://www.rearsets.info/suz.html. Im thinking about a set for mine.

[beergood]

Hey guys, speaking of rear sets. Have you seen this place?
http://www.rearsets.info/suz.html. Im thinking about a set for mine.

For $300 I can buy the equipment and materials to make my own. Which is actually what I am intending to do (watching Craig's for a mig with the right price). There seems to be a couple different people in different threads talking about fabbing their own. I can't wait to see what we all come up with.

Almost forgot...I love the tank. Do you have any pics of the process you used to get the checkerboard?

[beergood]

I haven't used these guys personally, but I've seen other projects on other forums/blogs that incorporated parts from these guys.

The stuff comes out real nice.

http://www.bigbluesaw.com/

[oldschoolorange]

The checkers are just a vinyl sticker I picked up. I went down to an automotive dealer supply store that prints vinyl and I ordered 5 strips of checkers to my specs. Next week I received them for $5 a piece. I just put them on and then cleared over top.

I have been keeping track of the restoration on my myspace blog. There is profanity in my writing so I am just letting you all know in advance

http://blog.myspace.com/oldschooldeathwish

[beergood]

I love profanity.

[Sasquatch]

That looks really nice. Very good job

[pete]

Hey guys, speaking of rear sets. Have you seen this place?
http://www.rearsets.info/suz.html. Im thinking about a set for mine.

Hey Mike, I just had a quick look at that, and the ones for the 450's look exactly like the picture of the Raask one's I saw...

[pete]

I am going to design my own rear sets and either have them CNC'd or just cut them out myself with a plasma cutter it will be alot less than 400 something dollars

That sounds good... I'd wondered about doing that myself, however I'm seriously "challanged" in doing that sort of thing.

The trouble I have over here in Aus is finding someone who actually does that sort of work.

The other two things I need to do from a fabrication point of view is shortening the seat pan and making up a bracket to allow me to bring the stock duck tail forward a couple of inches.

I found a place that can supply rear sets in parts so I could get the various foot levers and shafts and things, so I think it will really only be the brackets to mount them on that will cause me any grief.

[BentRod]

hey chris. my bike is hiding in a corner. next to this work of art you are putting together here, the terms tremclad and markers come to mind.

I'm still working on getting it ready for safety, as well as just comfortable. I've done some minor cosmetic stuff, but its mostly patch work to keep it looking decent until i have the chance and the money to do everything right.

I'll be doing a good bit of work in a couple weeks. reading week.

really the last things to be done for baseline safety are putting in the new bars, getting a couple of new cables, and fixing the rear light.

but Lola still looks like a barn animal, so hopefully the weather gets better and I can give her a good clean up, and finish checking and completing all the regular maintenance stuff.

Excellent tank btw.

[oldschoolorange]

The rear sets are on hold for the moment, It all depends on if I am going to sell the finished bike or not. The rear sets are going to be a lot of work and they will have to be made for the person who rides the bike. I finished the fairing today, Now all I have to do is figure out how I am going to mount it and the headlight. I will have to make up some custom headlight brackets for it.

[oldschoolorange]

I am going to be making a fiberglass seat tray tonight so I will take some pictures of that and step by step instructions

[Billyboy]

Sent you a friend request on myspace.

[beergood]

As did I.

Look forward to seeing the seat pan.

[Mike_H]

Beergood...Spent some time checking out your website...You need help man. No, Seriously

[oldschoolorange]

Seat Pan
I needed to make a seat pan for the bike as the original seat would not go with the look I was after and it was in pretty nasty shape. I am going to mould in a different tail so I decided to make everything out of fiberglass. I used cardboard and masking tape to cover the holes in the frame and give the fiberglass somewhere to sit on. I then covered everything in a light layer of vaseline so I could easily pop the finished piece off of the fiberglass. I had already cut the glass matting into strips and larger sections that fit my frame. I mixed up the resin and then layed strips along all of the frame rails and then diagonally in the corners. It is extremely important to get out all of the bubbles. Then I layed on 2 smaller sheets covering the holes in the frame and 1 layer of full length sheeting. I managed to get most of the excess resin off and the air out, I still need to mould in the tail piece and at that point I will be adding another layer or 2 to the seat pan. Then I just trimmed off the excess with my mini pneumatic sawzall. I don't think it is too bad considering this is only my second time making things out of fiberglass. *NOTE* The Tim Horton's coffee IS required for me to even consider working on something