My 1981 GS650G Thread

[Macguyver]

Greetings,
I have had my 1981 GS650G for over a year now, and I have slowly been customizing it to suit my tastes. This thread will contain the accumulated projects involved. I am sure there will be no real "end" to what I will be doing to the bike. There will just be longer intervals between projects for this bike as I get closer to a final stage with it.

As it stands, I had the bike up and running nicely, and since the cold weather is here now, I am taking the down time to build some things for it.

I hope at best this will prove to be an interesting read, or at worst, a good chuckle. Any and all comments/suggestions are welcome.

[Macguyver]

Projector Headlight Fabrication

I have been toying around with the idea of a projector headlight for my 650, and unsatisfied with the looks of the commercially available ones, I decided to build one.

Materials:
-spare automotive fog light
-Projector lens assembly from an automotive headlight
-some tie-down points
-9004 High Output bulb
-Dichroic lens from a broken fog light
-miscellaneous fasteners
-JB Weld (where do I sign up for sponsorship???)

1. Bare components
2. Lens in place in housing, now what can I use to keep it there? Why JB Weld of course! I am kind of wierd about JB Weld.
3. I have used JB this way for years, it makes it so much more precise than applying with a stick!
Mix it up and use the stick to smear the JB into the corner of a sandwich bag, tie the top and cut a small triangle off of the corner. Much easier to control.
4.Here we are, exactly the right amount. Next the dichroic filter is positioned, and another bead of JB is applied around the filter housing to make sure the entire lens assembly is as vibration-proof as I can make it.

I made sure to leave a small breather hole open between the lens and the dichroic filter so moisture buildup would not be a problem, and I am glad I did. More in the next post.

[Macguyver]

Headlight Assembly

So I was originally planning on bolting the headlight assembly together entirely, until I realized that the vibration would be too much for a mass like the projector lens suspended by only 2 bolted supports.

So out came the welder!

1 wet paper napkin, 1 protractor, 4 tack welds, 4 bead-ish welds, and a small amount of smoke later, I was confident the supports would be more than strong enough to keep everything lined up and in focus.
And thanks to the breather hole I left in the front optics assembly, I can clean out the smoke haze that ended up on the inside of the lens from the JB weld gassing off when I accidentally heated the assembly a touch too much when welding one of the supports.

1.Always make sure to cover your optics when welding! A few layers of masking tape will do. Spatter will melt into most auto glass to varying degrees. After cleaning and shaping, I filled in any small pits left in the weld with JB Weld, to be sanded smooth when cured.

2. I cut the bulb collar off of a spare fog lamp housing and epoxied it in place. I also used a hole saw to open the reflector plate enough to allow the 9004 bulb to pass through.

3. The bulb fit perfectly! (on the 3rd try )

4. The front and rear assemblies are bolted together at heavily reinforced areas since I haven't mastered that whole plastic to metal welding thing yet.

5.Low beam, the yellow tint looks very nice!

6. High beam, dazzles my camera enough to throw the colors off! Very bright indeed!

Next step is paint!

[Macguyver]

Final step

Here is the final headlight assembly, painted flat black.

Just need to clean the optics again, and do some close-up paint trimming around the lens with an exacto knife, and then the real fun begins.

Now I need to figure out the mount for it. I have already grabbed all of the hardware I need to do it. (I think, but you never know when one is building on the fly.)

I will update once I have it mounted. Hopefully soon, since we have had snow every day this week, but it hasn't stayed on the ground yet.
Maybe my next project should be building a workshed?

[Macguyver]

Regulator Rectifier Cooling Fan

So I recently received a replacement R/R from a fellow GS Member and decided to make sure it will never be suffer from being overheated like the previous one had been. That and it was snowing outside, and I was bored.

So I gathered materials, printed out some ideas for badges, and started building. The final assembly will be mounted under the seat where the battery and electronics are currently. I am going to be making new fiberglass sidepanels, and I am planning on having the intake mated up to a formed hole on the left side panel. Going for a turbine intake sort of look.

Overall, took a couple hours. Most of which was spent working on the badge designs until I came up with a few I liked. I will also be using a green version elsewhere on the bike. The red one you see is sealed in there with polyurethane so it has that OEM jewel look.

[AF_Bill]

Dude, I'm liking the way your 650 is turning out. Love the OD Green. I saw the thread you made about the redesigned taillight. I'm really interested in seeing how it all turned out. I LOVE the Suzuki logo you made for the fan. Nice idea too.

[ShortyzKustomz]

Very nice so far...As far as the headlight, Ever though about running a HID setup and hiding the ballast, that would draw even less current on our weak electrical sysem since most HIDs are 35w.

[Steve]

Although I am intrigued and amused by the workmanship on the headlight, I am curious to know ... what is the pattern it projects?

.

[Macguyver]

The pattern is actually pretty good, a nice round spread, with a decent focal length to it, although I am going to add in a small deflector behind the front lens to cut off the beam from the top down about a quarter of the way. Don't want to blind oncoming traffic from the beam being visible at the wrong angles!

I am also considering making a ported shroud/internal reflector to fill in some of the space between the front and rear assemblies to keep as much of the light going forward as I can. The original headlight I grabbed the lensing from just had a black plastic tube spacer that absorbed a lot of the output from the bulb.

As always, the parts I make are subject to change. Depending on real-world performance, I may tinker with it a bit, or I may use this as a proof of concept and build another one with refinments based on what I learn from this one. I don't know any lighting geeks I can harrass with endless questions, so I am learning as I go here.

[Steve]

Thanks. It sounds like you actually care about what you are doing.

Too many times, we hear about someone making a modification that might have disasterous consequences.
We mention the possibilities and they basically say "screw the world, I'm doing it MY way".

.

[Octain]

I'm doing it MY way"

Whats wrong with that?

If everyone did everything a certain way thing might tend to get really boring.
Then everyone would be grouchy.

[Macguyver]

Yeah, I turned down work on a few bikes for business aquaintances when I was in the GTA that left me shaking my head wondering how long it would be before the owners would get themselves or others seriously hurt by doing stupid stuff to their bikes.

One guy wanted a set of those spikey things like what were on gladiator chariot wheels sticking off his bike. idiot. Obviously never leaned a bike past 5 degrees in his life.

A person can be an incredibly smart animal, but people as a group are generally one of the dumber creatures on the planet. He was the latter.

Safety is my number one concern when it comes to making stuff, if it's not safe, it's not going on my bike.

Thanks for the concern, and if you do spot me doing something f-ing stupid, let me know. I am always open to constructive criticism.

[Macguyver]

I am trying to pull all of the posts I have done on building projects for my bike into one thread, so here are some links to other posts already on here.

Old bike, new owner
(O.D. green paint, exhaust repair, seat pan repair, bike cover)

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=131135

Shakedown Ride

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=148584

The infamous $2 brake bleeder, and stainless brake lines.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=148769

LED Tail Lights

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=150779

More to come.

[Macguyver]

Easy to make Valve Cover Gasket

Well, I was sorting out the pics I have for the "projects" I have completed on my bike and I ran across a few I haven't posted yet, so here goes.

Here is a pictorial tutorial (say that ten times fast!) on how I cut a new gasket for my valve cover out of some Fel-Pro Karropak gasket sheet.

Step 1. Gasket material. I used Fel-Pro Karropak #3046 gasket sheet available from any auto-parts store. It is fairly thin, dense material we need here, not the cork-like stuff.

Step 2. Removed valve cover and cleaned all of the crud from the mating surface with a razor blade. Made it nice and shiny clean. I used a detergent removable ink marker to trace the inside edge of the valve cover so I could trace the ink mark to have my inside lines.

*NOTE*
I have heard of soaking the sheet in water and setting the cover on the wet sheet with a 10 lb. weight on top and letting it sit overnight to get the imprint. This is likely how I will do my next gasket.

Step 3. I layed out the gasket sheet on a paper calendar desk blotter to make sure I would have a surface under the gasket which would be smooth and would allow me to cut right through the sheet without destroying the finish on the table. I then carefully placed the valve cover on the sheet, remembering once I start tracing, it cannot be moved until all of the tracing is done, otherwise the gasket won't trace or fit accurately.

*Note*
You can set a weight on top to help it stay put if you are worried about it moving. A friend of mine secures items to the wooden workbench with drywall screws to make absolutely sure things won't move on him.

Step 4. I then carefully put downward pressure on the cover to keep it from moving, and began tracing. I used a .3mm red sharpie permanent marker. I then traced around the entire cover.
Be careful around any areas that may not allow easy acces to trace. You can use the open areas around the center of the cover to trace the hard to reach areas. You don't have to trace it all in one continuous line, use a ruler later to join up the lines as needed.

Step 5. This is a shot of a punch I made from a cut off 1/4"x3" shoulder bolt. I used a dremel rotary tool and a pointed abrasive stone to hollow out the center approx. 3/16" deep. I used a cushioned vice to hold the rotary tool and very carefully began pressing the center of the bolt to the stone, while spinning the bolt with my fingers to get a nice round hollow with a relatively sharp edge on it.

Step 6. Next, I inserted the punch in the first bolt hole in the cover and sharply struck the punch in a downward motion with a medium sized hammer to cut out the hole. Make sure the holes are all cut out!
*Note*
After this, I bought a set of gasket punches, much nicer to use, highly recommended.

Step 7. I then traced the lines on the inside which were left by the ink impression, using a ruler as needed. Then using my favorite exacto knife, I began cutting along the inside lines.

Once the inside was cut out, I then used a set of Craftsman titanium scissors to cut the outside lines.

Make sure the blade is clean and sharp, and don't force it to cut quickly! Gasket material and too much downward pressure on the knife can make a bad combination. At the very least it will make the line wobbly , and at worst, it can make the knife bend and take off on a tangent, cutting through an area that should be gasket.

I know some of us still have a corks on our forks, so take your time, and be careful. I can't imagine blood is good for gasket material.

Step 8. Now I have a new gasket! It only took about an hour to do too.
If you are lucky enough to have access to a large format 11"x17" scanner, you can scan the gasket and simply print the outline of it on gasket sheet next time you need to make one. BTW, if someone has a scan of their gaskets, please share so we can all save some time!

I hope this helps,

[Macguyver]

LED Taillight Update

Here are some pics of the LED Taillights I made mounted into the rear fender lower for those of you who asked.

I plan to make a set of shrounds for them, dark grey with black, with a thrust vectoring look to them. About 1" tall, so as to not block too much of the lights when looked at on an angle. They will be fiberglass and will mount overlapping about 1/8" of the outer edge of the lenses.

Should look good, in fact I think I will go make the mold for them right now.