My 1981 GS650G Thread

[Skateguy50]

Ahh, yea that tube just connects to my airbox. I did wonder what folks with pods did with the tube.

You fire yours up yet to see if your adjustable setting pods work well enough to avoid rejetting?

[Macguyver]

Side Cover Beautification???

Ahh, yea that tube just connects to my airbox. I did wonder what folks with pods did with the tube.

You fire yours up yet to see if your adjustable setting pods work well enough to avoid rejetting?

I haven't been able to fire her up yet since I need to finish wiring in my new battery, but I have finished the new electrical tray, so I am very close.

I have changed my mind about the adjustable pods, and instead I am going with 2 mini-airbox-esque pieces tailor made to mimic the free flow rate of the stock airbox. I have to yet to finish making the internal cage in them, but once I source the wire I need, it won't take long to finish them up.

I have however made significant progress on some other stuff, like doing some cosmetic stuff with the side covers. I etch-primed and painted some expanded aluminum mesh, and used some steel weld epoxy to secure it to the side covers after roughing up the mating surface.







I have also done some other stuff this past week-end, such as my new choke setup. More to come soon, like, in the next post!

[Macguyver]

Choke Relocation

Since I am going to use the choke mounting area for my starter switch, I needed to relocate the choke control somewhere. So I decided to mount the choke control directly onto the carburetors.

Materials:
1 - metal ring cut from some 1/8" steel, with a 3/4" tab coming off on a 90 degree tangent
1 - throttle mounting plate from a spare set of carbs
1 - M6 Nut, with a small piece of sheet steel rolled into a tube, welded together to create a stop to hold the cable end of the control assembly
1 - choke cable mount, cut down by 3/4" and welded back together
1 - frayed end stock choke assembly cut down in length, with a new cable end soldered into place

After welding together the nut and sheet metal-turned-tube, I welded it in place on the throttle mounting plate, making sure to check the spacing so the completed assembly would firmly hold the control with no slack once tightened down.

I then welded the ring and tab piece to the end of the throttle mounting plate, and welded in an additional piece of metal to make sure the ring was well supported since it will be subjected to considerable lateral load when operating the choke slide.

Once everything was welded together, I passed it over the bench grinder to clean up the final shape, then etch primed the piece, and painted it to match the body color.













All in all, I am very pleased with the way this piece came together. It operates smoothly, and retains it's set position perfectly. While this is no great feat of engineering, I am quite proud of the end result.

Here's a little video of the completed assembly mounted on the bike.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLGplRdoCDU

Next project in the next post.

[ratdude]

All in all, I am very pleased with the way this piece came together. It operates smoothly, and retains it's set position perfectly. While this is no great feat of engineering, I am quite proud of the end result.

You should be ! that is a fine piece of work.

Rat

[Macguyver]

New Seat Foam

29 year old seat foam is a little less comfortable than I would like, so I decided while it was raining out, to redo my seat foam.

I stripped off the cover I made last year, and removed the old foam. Since I was planning on reshaping the seat, the cover and the foam are destined for the trash.

I started out on the new foam by adhering a layer of some thin, yet resilient camping pad foam onto the seat pan, then added some 1/2" thick carpet underpad. I followed that up with some 3" high density upholsterer's foam.
Everything is adhered together in a sandwich using foam specific spray adhesive.

Here is the rough sandwich.



I then did a quick trim to take down the big hump at the back where the passenger grab rail would normally go.



I then went over to a buddy's place and borrowed the use of his air tools, and smoothed the contours of the new foam to my liking using some 80 grit sandpaper, which resulted in this:



Once I was happy with the new shape, I stitched together an under-cover of speaker cloth, and adhered it to the foam.













As you can see in the pics, the new foam more closely follows the contours of the bike, and I will be leaving the grab rail off of the bike to keep that nice line uninterupted.

I will be picking up some seat material tonight on the way home to make a new cover, and will hopefully have it completed and back on the bike tonight, provided nothing comes up.

I think I will use a drawstring to keep the cover on the seat, so I can easily remove the cover later and get some interesting embroidery done on it.

Well, that's it for now. I hope you have been adequately entertained, and thanks for looking.

[Macguyver]

You should be ! that is a fine piece of work.

Rat

Thanks Ratdude!
I appreciate the praise.
I try and keep myself occupied as best I can, and that usually means working on the bike, or brainstorming on stuff for the bike, or staring at the bike, etc, etc, etc.

[pete]

Mac, you never cease to amaze me, that's impressive stuff, right down to the wire mesh on the side covers.

I intend to do the reverse of your choke modification; the 450 choke is on the side of the carbs and I hate it there so I want to try to get it handlebar mounted at some point down the track.

[Macguyver]

Mac, you never cease to amaze me, that's impressive stuff, right down to the wire mesh on the side covers.

I intend to do the reverse of your choke modification; the 450 choke is on the side of the carbs and I hate it there so I want to try to get it handlebar mounted at some point down the track.

Thank you for saying so Pete!

As far as the choke goes, I guess the grass is always greener eh?

[davidduarte]

It`s been a while since I have done an update, so here goes!

I have been obsessing over an idea I had about doing up some bar end signal lights for my 650 for a while now, and had built a few prototypes, but none really looked right. They kept ending up looking too long, and didn't really fit the mental picture of what I wanted my bike to look/feel like. So I kept redesigning them, and I think I have a winner!

I made them to be as low profile as I felt confident making them, and I wanted them to be really simple to attach, due to the fact I have bar end weights welded into my handlebars from the factory.

I made a mold for the casting out of a thread protector, an M8 bolt, some drinking straws, and my favorite mold release agent, white glue.
I then soldered some LED's together with a resistor and some wire, and positioned them in the mold.

Since they are going to be signal lights, I used a resin which has a dark amber tint to it once cured. In combination with the high intensity amber LED's, the color given off looks to be a very nice imitation of standard signal color. It may be a *little* more orange than some signals, but they have a rich tone to the color I really like. Yet I am confident they would be acceptable to any LEO who cared to check them in comparison to other signal lights.

So after the resin had fully cured overnight, I popped the parts out of the mold, washed off the mold release, and began sanding them down to be as optically clear as I could get them. I started with 180, then incrementally moved my way up to 1000 grit. when the resin is sanded, it will take on a more opaque look to it, this is normal, and can be cured by a polishing or clearcoating the piece. I clearcoated mine, and I am quite pleased with the final results.

I began drilling the center hole in the bar end weight for the mounting bolts to thread into, but my cordless went dead on me about 1/2" in, so drilling will be finished tomorrow night. Once drilled, I will tap the hole to M8 to match the bolts, and drill an additional hole to run the signal wire through to connect them up with the current front signals.

The first pic is the final mold, filled with resin.
The second pic is the cured part freshly pulled from the mold. You can kind of see the white glue sticking to it.
The final two pics are the finished part, sanded, cleared, and ready to install.

Overall time, about three hours so far for this set, maybe an hour tomorrow night to finish drilling/tapping the holes, and to install them. I think I may even go so far as to polish the bejebers out of the mounting bolts to get them to act as more of a reflector to send as much light out the sides as possible. I am sure they will be easily visible in the daylight, and will look amazing at night!

That is one of the coolest mods I've ever seen! Love it!

[Macguyver]

That is one of the coolest mods I've ever seen! Love it!

Thanks David,

I do what I can with what I have. It always seems that the parts I need are either not made, or are hella-expesive, so I usually end up making a lot of stuff, and a lot of prototypes.

I always get a kick out of using mundane materials in extra-ordinary ways. It's fun, and I highly recommend it.*

*As long as it is safe to do so, of course. I wouldn't want anyone hurting themselves doing something silly.

[Skateguy50]

I love the updates, keep them coming.

Hope to see you riding soon. I will have my 650 down for the weekend with a laundry list of projects ready to go. new seat foam & cover, fix the broken tabs on the seat pan, new rear tire and install new spline, fab up some brackets and install new saddle bags, mod a rack and sissy bar to fit, move the blinkers to the license plate holder to make room, install my rear brake ss lines. Then on Sunday is the engine top end job for new oem this time base and head gaskets, with a fresh valve shim check and toss in the new clutch springs for good measure. wrap it all up with dumping the oil and putting fresh oil and filter in.

I just hope I get it all done and can be riding again on Monday

[Macguyver]

I love the updates, keep them coming.

Hope to see you riding soon. I will have my 650 down for the weekend with a laundry list of projects ready to go. new seat foam & cover, fix the broken tabs on the seat pan, new rear tire and install new spline, fab up some brackets and install new saddle bags, mod a rack and sissy bar to fit, move the blinkers to the license plate holder to make room, install my rear brake ss lines. Then on Sunday is the engine top end job for new oem this time base and head gaskets, with a fresh valve shim check and toss in the new clutch springs for good measure. wrap it all up with dumping the oil and putting fresh oil and filter in.

I just hope I get it all done and can be riding again on Monday

That is a bit of a laundry list you have there, if you have some spare time, did you want to take care of a few on my list?

[Skateguy50]

Oh and didn't mention Church and staying late to try and sign up a few more sponsor's for the children and Haiti on Sunday, so the engine work wont start till like 1. Luckily I did it before so should be fast this time, no bolts should break <crosses fingers> and I know everything is decent on the inside.

I just got to slow down and be extra careful on my cleaning and tightening of the bolts. side note, got any idea how soon after I should torque them up again after the install? last time I did 500 miles and think that was too long maybe...

[Macguyver]

Side note, got any idea how soon after I should torque them up again after the install? last time I did 500 miles and think that was too long maybe...

I've always done retorques after 100 miles or so. 500 does sound a little too high. I am sure some of the engine builders here will know. Also, loosen the bolts by 1/4-1/2 turn before retorquing since static torque and dynamic torque are different.

That reminds me, the Yamahaha I did the topend on for my buddy needs to be retorqued. I asked him to ride it up to me and I'll retorque everything around 3 months ago. I am guessing he hasn't torqued them on his own. I think I'll give him a call. I would hate to see all the work I put into it be for nothing.

On a side not of my own, my usual supplier of vinyl doesn't carry it anymore. So I am stalled on making a new cover for my custom seat until I can source some material. I should be able to get some by the weekend, and if not, I will drive the two hours to a supplier I know carries it to get some.

I believe the next part to make on my list is the licence plate mount. Once it is finished and the electrical is all done(very close), then I can get the bike safetied!

[Rein]

would really love to have one of those choke cable assemblies. Any chance you could fab one up for me? or at least the shortened choke cable itself?