My 1981 GS650G Thread

[Skateguy50]

I hear you, I went heavy on the function over form on my build and when it was a matter of my bike not starting the radio shack button did the trick to get me riding.

I think the time of year makes a difference too, I did mine in the summer and I was commuting every day on the GS so looks where low on my priorities.

I will say though I love the style you got going.

[Macguyver]

LED Accent Lighting 90% done

I have the lion's share of the lighting installed and wired. There are a few that I can't install yet until I fabricate a few fiberglass pieces such as the front lower fairing/chin and bellypan/skidplate.

I think that should put me at a solid 90% done for the accent lighting, all the hard work is done. Just some fiddly bits to finish once everything else is in place so I can tune the lighting with diffusers.

So main electrical should be next on the list.

Here are a couple pics.

[Skateguy50]

Wow that thing is gonna glow, looks great.

[Macguyver]

Wow that thing is gonna glow, looks great.

Thanks,
I have been putting off reinstalling the carbs until I can get down to a home depot to grab some SS allen cap bolts for the carbs and engine, but I think I will just have to pull them off again when I get the bolts 'cause I really want to see what it will look like with the carbs and pod filters in there!

I have also redesigned my pod mods, so I will be putting up a write-up on that soon too.

Yep, she's starting to come together now. I just need to find the energy to keep at it.

[Macguyver]

Front Signals/Electrical Bucket

Whew!

Finally got the front signals and electrical bucket all put together.

I started with a 4"Wx6"Lx3"D electronics project box that I have literally had for 10 years. I knew when I bought it that I needed it, I just didn't know what I needed it for...yet.

Well, mystery solved. Does this happen a lot to anyone else, or is it just me? I have likely used a dozen different parts/pieces of material that I have accumulated over the years "for future use", that seem to be just what I needed for working on the bike. Kinda freaky. Good, but still kinda freaky.

I drilled two 1.5" diameter holes in the back of the box to feed the wiring harness through, and two more holes, one 7/16" hole in each side for the signals light mounting tubes.

I then cut down the length of the signal stalks by 1", so the mounting tube would reach far enough between the ears to go through the bucket by 1/4" untorqued. I then smoothed the cut end on the 1" stalk, and installed it between the headlight ears and the electrical bucket using a rubber washer and steel washer inside and outside the box to shock mount everything.

I also had to flip the headlight ears from side to side to get the proper clearances for everything to line up, and have the wiring loose enough when pulled through into the bucket to go from lock to lock with no problems.

The bucket is a little cramped so I may end up trimming the length of the main harness going into it by about 4" to alleviate the clutter if I find it requires it.

Now I need to make my mind up on the number of headlights and what the front fairing will look like so I can complete the front end. I have 6, 1.5Watt, 100 Lumen LED lights in the mail right now that I may end up using for supplementary (cosmetic) use up front to create the look I am considering for the front fairing.

I also am expecting two sets of 36-LED Amber 1156 style signal bulbs for the front signals. I really wish it were legal to only use LED lighting for headlights, it would make things so much more compact, and much easier on the the charging system.

Overall I love how much the new electrical bucket cleans up the look of the front. I've become accustomed to seeing the wiring spilling out and looking like my bike vomited electrical all over it's front fender. I keep striving to have more of those moments when I catch myself looking at my bike and thinking "Damn, that looks good." Definitely my favorite part of the project!

[Skateguy50]

Looks good but also looks naked with no headlight mounted yet.

Cant wait to see how that comes out.

[AF_Bill]

Mac, your 650 is looking good man. I'm really interested in seein the headlight mounted.

[Macguyver]

Redesigned Dash

While I am waiting on parts so I can mount the headlight and then build the front fairing, I decided to do something about the out of date looking placement of the idiot lights in the dash piece on my 650G. I had tried mucking about with illuminating trim rings, but nothing seemed to "fit" with the rest of the instrument cluster. So I decided to update the look of the original indicator lighting instead.

I had previously removed the dash and took it down to bare comonents so I could remove the blackout backing for scanning. Once apart, the piece was scanned on my flatbed scanner, and I set to work designing a better and more intuitive layout for the various indicator lights.

Once modeled in photoshop, I printed out a sheet of four images on one transparency sheet, so I can overlay multiple sheets if needed to get the opacity and color saturation I am looking for. I also printed out another version of the backing on plain paper, which has the colored areas slightly larger to use as a diffuser in behind the transparency sheet.

However, the transparency sheet doesn't take ink very well, resulting in a delicate finish. I am going to see if there are purpose-made transparency sheets meant for printing on tomorrow, and barring any joy there, I may just try and laminate one of the current transparency printouts.

I also cleaned the painted lettering off of the center shaded window in the dash cluster so I can use the full height of it for display purposes. For this task I used a small amount of Cupran hand cleaner, after carefully removing the grit from the cleaner of course.

I can't rave about Cupran hand cleaner enough, this is the only hand cleaner I have found that easily removes automotive paint and tinting dyes, so I figured it should have no problem removing 29 year old stencil lettering. Sure enough, it came off like it was nothing, just applied the filtered cream on it, let it sit for a few seconds, and wiped off the lettering with one swipe. Easy peasy.

As seen in the image, what were originally the gear indicator lights will be used for signals, headlight high beam, and oil indicator lights. I am using the center of the display for gear indicators, which means that I need to fairly extensively modify the original white filler piece to accomodate more lights, and in different locations than stock. This will be easily accomplished with some donor plastic and some ABS solvent cement.
All lighting will of course be accomplished with LEDs to decrease power required by as much as possible.

Here is the pic of what the new layout for the indicators looks like, and I am quite pleased with the way it looks. Much more intuitive IMO.

[Macguyver]

Vacuum gauge update.

My highly anticipated vacuum gauges showed up!


Since I had the parts, and the time, I decided to get to work at mounting them on to a bracket and getting them ready for use.

The gauges are 1.5" in diameter, by about an inch tall. I tried to find ones with black faces and white lettering to match the OEM gauge style, to no avail, so I ended up getting white faces and black lettering.

My first step was to grab some cardboard to do up a template to figure out the spacing requirements to make the rack as compact and portable as possible, since I had planned on keeping it in the toolkit on the bike.

I noticed the piece of cardboard was the same one I had used to make the template for the voltmeter and ammeter mounting plate. It was then that a scene flashed through my brain.

Picture if you will:
-ignition turned on, neutral indicator and oil indicators light up
-run switch flipped to "On"
-start switch pressed, and lights up
-bike roars to life:
--oil indicator goes out
--voltmeter rises to indicate ~13.5V
--ammeter swings to indicate mild charging
--vacuum gauges show draw on all 4 cylinders

The first after-thought to pop into my head was "I can build that."

My second after-thought was "Add some good music, dramatic lighting, and a couple pit-girls, and you would have an attention-getting commercial."

I already had some Monster Magnet playing in the background, but I didn't have any dramatic lighting going on, and I am unfortunately fresh out of pit-girls. So I settled for building the vacuum gauges onto the instrument cluster instead.

Now I realize that the gauges will likely have a greatly reduced lifespan due to vibration, and they are really only needed once in a while to sync the carbs, but I think it will look cool, and I kind of have a thing for gauges.

I traced the outline of the gauges onto the cardboard so that each side of the handlebar retainer would have two gauges on it, then cut out the template.


I then transferred the shape to sheet steel, and cut that out, followed by a quick trip over the brass wheel to clean the surface. I then drilled a 1/2" hole to accomodate the fitting coming out of the back of the gauge.

Using a mini-flat file, I squared out 4 corners from the hole, so that the 1/2" square fitting coming out of the gauges will fit snugly into the now-squared hole, keeping the gauges from being able to rotate when mounted. I think the the test fitting looked pretty good.



I then made a mirror image mounting bracket for the other side, and primed/painted them in my usual satin black color to match the rest of the instrument cluster.

Here is a shot which shows the square fittings I needed to make square holes for, and the 1/8" I.D. barbs leading from the gauges.


I mounted the gauges using an o-ring behind each gauge for vibration damping, and E-clips on the other side of the bracket to lock them into place. The E-clips were a bit too big, so I held the e-clips in the jaws of a pair of vice-grips, and gently heated the thin areas to the sides of the central spacer while squeezing them to reduce their internal diameter, while retaining most of their tempered, springy nature.


Next was installing them on the bike. I removed the bolts holding the top of the handlebar clamp one side at a time, and reinstalled and torqued them after putting the new bracket in position.


Different view:


I then removed the gas tank, and connected and routed the vacuum lines down to the carb area. I think the backbone area on the frame is looking kinda full with all of the split loom and relays. The tank still goes on nicely though!


When I cut the vacuum lines, I connected one end of the 20' piece of 1/8" I.D. vinyl hose to gauge 1, and the other end to gauge 2. I then fed the hose around the frame and through open areas of the backbone to route them to their respective areas, added a few inches, and cut them. I then followed the same procedure for gauges 3 and 4. I made sure to cut the split loom long enough to completely cover the vacuum lines all the way from the gauge fittings, up to the vacuum taps, in order to keep the engine heat from doing evil things to them.


Now I need to make the tuning manifold. I will make it able to close off the feeds from cylinders 2-4, and reroute vacuum from cylinder 1 to all gauges for testing and tuning purposes. I figure a piece of aluminum, or delrin, machined to accept a long, machined bolt which will act as an inline valve to reroute the feeds should do the trick. I will do another vacuum gauge update once it is completed and installed.

So how many people think I'm out to lunch on this?

I guess I will see how well this works, and what modifications are needed soon enough.

[Turtleface]

Are you going to run those vacuum gauges all the time, or just for convenience's sake during the test and tune? IMO, running them all the time would be overkill, too much information when you glance down at the dash.

Overall, the bike's coming along great! You're really earning your nickname with all this crazy LED work and modifications. The center piece with the gear indicator and dummy lights, I like that especially. Very well done.

[Macguyver]

Are you going to run those vacuum gauges all the time, or just for convenience's sake during the test and tune? IMO, running them all the time would be overkill, too much information when you glance down at the dash.

I am planning on real-time monitoring, but I may make the manifold so that there is an "off" setting, not really sure yet. I think I will decide this once I have tried it for a bit and see how it goes, but the gauges are permanently mounted.

Overall, the bike's coming along great! You're really earning your nickname with all this crazy LED work and modifications. The center piece with the gear indicator and dummy lights, I like that especially. Very well done.

Thank you for the compliments!
Being creative is quite entertaining for me, so I am really enjoying this part of the build.

I have decided that I want to finish most of the modifications before I put the bike on the road, since I know I'll be out riding when I should be fabricating if I don't. She will be ready soon enough, and I will enjoy it more without thinking about how I should build this, and install that, then make more of those, etc. I just need to make sure I don't waste too much of the season before putting her on the road though, I plan to do a lot of weekend camping trips this summer, and I will of course need a fun way to get where I am going.

[wrgum]

I can't believe I'm just now seeing this thread! I love the '81 650G. Great look, great size, excellent ride! Keep us updated!

[AF_Bill]

Mac, your 650 is looking great! Love the updated cluster. SO much cleaner looking than the OG.

[Theo]

Hey Mac,

I don't think you have enough split loom on your backbone . At least it doesn't look like this mess .



The bike is looking good, and thanks for posting lots of big pics this time.
-Theo

[Macguyver]

Swingarm Paint

First off, thanks to all for the positive comments and encouragement!

Since I was waiting on a new tire to come in for the rear rim, I decided to prep and paint the swingarm and the final drive to match the painted forks up front.

Here's the before pic.


I stripped off the rear brake set, the exhaust, and the passenger pegs to be able to get at every part of the swingarm. I then used some cord to keep the swingarm roughly level, and masked off the bike to get ready for sanding.



I then sanded everything with 320, then a coarse sanding sponge. I followed this up with a wipe-down with a tack cloth, followed with my usual satin black engine enamel treatment. I also stripped the caliper brace down to bare metal with a brass wire wheel, and primed and painted it the same as the swingarm.



I think it turned out about as good as it could for painting it in place, and I am trying to heat the painted areas as much as I can to get a bit of a bake on it since I used engine enamel.

My new tire should be mounted on the rim Monday if all goes as planned, and I will be giving the rim the same paint treatment as the front received a while ago.

By the weeks end I hope to have it all back together so I can move on to painting the calipers. I used the spray can machine at work to load a can of engine clear with the toners used to make the same color green that I used on the tank and fenders. Since it is only the toners, hopefully it will widthstand heat discoloration since the paint resin in the can is engine clear. I guess we'll see once I get the bike on the road.

I also grabbed 2 cans of satin black high temp paint by plasti-kote. It's specifically meant for exhaust headers. Rated for 1500 degrees. Now I can paint the exhaust and not worry about peeling at the header like the flat black engine enamel did.