1978 GS1000 Skunk Rebuild and Mods

Good news on the progress of the GS1000. It appears the Caswell tank liner is working perfectly. After sealing up some major cracks and rust holes in the tank(it looked like swiss cheese).....its been holding gas for the last week, with no issues.

I've had the bike out riding it around locally and it seems to be running okay. Still need to get some K&N filters....maybe some jetting.....but more importantly, there seems to be an electrical issue. Some where its grounding out and draining the battery. Time to sort thru the electrics.

Anyways.....here is a pic from the other day.

Decided to try the Caswell tank sealer kit on my 1978 GS1000 tank that was badly rusted on the bottom with several holes. So last weekend went to Home Depot and got 2 gallons of Klean-Strip Phosphoric Prep & Etch and then dumped it into a big storage tote and placed the tank to soak for several days.



Someone left some gas in the bottom of this tank and it was rusted out. Alot of holes all over the bottom of the tank. I tried TIG welding some of the holes, but the metal was just too thin. Thus the reason for going the tank sealer route.



Put in a few drywall screws and after the first day.....we were showing progress. Rust was going away.



After about 4-5 days soaking.....all the rust was gone.



At this point I pulled the tank out of the acid bath and covered the outside and inside with baking soda to neutralize the acid. Once that was done, I used the air hose to dry out the tank....then poured lacquer thinner inside the tank to remove any leftover water. Using duct tape, I taped over the entire bottom of the tank to seal off any holes. Opened up the Caswell tank liner kit and mixed half of the kit, to get a 1st coat inside the tank.

The kit worked really good and was easy to use. The mix flowed really nice as I was doing this in about 70-80 degree weather. Majority of the tank coated with the 1st application. I'll mix up the final application tonight and finish sealing the areas missed during the 1st application.

Here are pics after the 1st application, after it had dried. The pics show the inside of the tank as brown(rust like), but when looking in the tank it is a drak metallic grey.....not sure why the pics did that.



Overall.....seems like the Caswell tank liner kit is working great. I'll update once the tank liner has several days to harden and have run some gas thru it. More soon......

Finally found an offset sprocket, thanks to Salty Monk!!
He lead me to http://www.americanclassix.com/stree...nversions.html and they have 12mm offsets in stock. Ordered it last sunday and came by thurs. Ordered a 530 17 tooth sprocket to use with the 43 tooth cbr600 rear wheel. Gearing will be a little off, but will address that later.

I really needed a 13mm offset, but the thin washer between the stock counter shaft sprocket and nut is exactly 1mm. So in order to get 13mm......just put that washer on the back side of the sprocket. I then had to find a washer to fill the new gap between the sprocket and the nut. Since this was a few mm wide.....I found an old steering stem washer off one of my old CB honda stems and opened it up to fit over the counter shaft. Worked perfect and now both sprockets are aligned!!

Now onto addressing my gas tank issues.......hopefully back on the road soon.

PM sent but here's where I got mine from: http://www.drivesystemsusa.com/p/359...sprocket-.html

Unfortunately.....they dont carry the 13mm sprocket anymore.

[John Kat]

Where did you order your 13mm offset sprocket from??

PM sent but here's where I got mine from: http://www.drivesystemsusa.com/p/359...sprocket-.html

[Big T]

PBI Sprockets sells 3/8 and 5/8 offsets

Mine is a 3/8, I'm using a Katana wheel. The 5/8 was rubbing on the shock

I think the offset depends on the wheel

I've been using a 13mm offset sprocket to clear a 160 wide tire.
The chain size is 530.
The 16 tooth sprocket comes from AFAM P/N 25003-16T.
On the box it says GS 1000
Here on my 1100 Kat with a GSXR 4.5" wheel

Where did you order your 13mm offset sprocket from??

[John Kat]

I've been using a 13mm offset sprocket to clear a 160 wide tire.
The chain size is 530.
The 16 tooth sprocket comes from AFAM P/N 25003-16T.
On the box it says GS 1000
Here on my 1100 Kat with a GSXR 4.5" wheel

Got around to tack welding the CBR900RR swingarm brace onto the GS1100e swingarm. Looks like everything fits and is aligned. Time to finish welding it up. Still need to weld in a rear caliper brake stay and de-tab some stuff off the 1100 swingarm. Also need to grind down whats left of the passenger peg mounts. More grinding and welding to come.

Still need to figure out what size offset sprocket to run on the counter shaft sprocket. I've heard either a 5/8th or 3/8th. I'll have to do some alignment and measuring soon.

Here are a few pics of the tacked in swingarm brace.

When are you taking that tank over to the guy? If it were me I would take the fairing and side covers just to see what they quote. I bet you get more of a discount to get it done at the same time? I would just check.

It looks awesome with that fairing and the modern suspension! What other mod's did you have in mind? I'm curious :P

Bowler.....not alot of mods going into this. Gonna remove the rear passenger peg mounts and after that gonna do some aluminum swingarm bracing to the stock GS110 aluminum swingarm.

Main objective is to get it back on the road.

Did you finish this thing yet? My offer still stands...

Working on it....HA!!
Gonna call it "DUST & RUST"!!

[Bowler]

It looks awesome with that fairing and the modern suspension! What other mod's did you have in mind? I'm curious :P

Did you finish this thing yet? My offer still stands...

Great
These forks are as long as the 1200 Bandit ones I'm using on my 1100 Kat.
The advantage is that there are adjustable in preload and rebound if I'm correct?
What about the triple trees?
Are these also from the VTR 1000 F?
I suppose you had to redo the lockstops?

Yes....these forks have adjustable preload and rebound. The top triple clamp is stock. On the stock VTR1000f, the clip-ons mount above the triple clamp. Yes....the fork stop on the steering head had to be removed. I'll trim the fork stop to the correct size and reweld in the correct location.