siamesing the twins. (one from two) 82 GS1100G

[Charlie G]

Dead?........only napping. A little bondo, paint and a couple of grand and they'll be fine. Nice picture, by the way.

cg

[engel]

thats the good sides charl. was out there again today and dead doesn't cover it. the through rust is horrendous.

on the plus side, the AP6 motor turns and has a two barrel manifold and headers. should be collecting next weekend i reckon.

[engel]

s series is on a mates farm. he has 3 drivers and 5 spares cars. now 6.

ap6 is here at home. started and runs well. hope to put the drivetrain into my hardtop.

katana hit 23000 kms last weekend and is still as sweet as ever. 4000 kays and i've not so much as removed a sparkplug.

[engel]

Things occasionally just turn up. Found this in a skip bin while visiting a mate. Went to borrow some tools while i was there from a family friend mechanic and spied it atop the scrap metal pile from about 50 yards. It's buggered. Very buggered.

83 gsx 250. No barrels or head. The largest part of it thats now still an assembly is the switchblocks. Crank and gearbox aren't in bad nick, the forks aren't pitted, and the main reason i grabbed it and dragged it 400 kilometres home alongside my MZ the front indicators are now on the rear of my katana freeing up the chrome ones that are now fitted on Anna until i get a chance to reglass the mount holes in her panniers.

A spare speedo drive, numerous whatsits and fiddly pieces, and a far less stuffed gearshift lever linkage were other bonuses and i've seen a guy on a 82 250 float past me this arve and if i can flag him down one of these days i'll get him to take all the useable specific bits off my hands as i hate throwing good parts away. a stator and starter motor can be a bloody handy thing to have at your disposal when things go **** up.

Pretty wrapped to get Anna back on her feet, Katrin looks groovier with the correct blinkers, and all because of a lucky freebie find cos i spied a suzuki pattern front brake disc across a paddock. Love when the occasional spot of good luck rocks up.

[Charlie G]

I love finding old junk bikes and finding homes for the pieces that are good. I wish I would find one that had parts I could use. GS rescue missions are fun.

cg

[gustovh]

I love finding old junk bikes and finding homes for the pieces that are good. I wish I would find one that had parts I could use. GS rescue missions are fun.

cg

Don't know nutin about em.....
V

[engel]

Me too charl, always plenty of handy **** to be found and free like with the two valiants is the best price i know.

[engel]

The gear lever fitted! The katana may benefit from a few more parts to be swapped in too, but this is probably the one i'll be happiest about.

Had to grind a few millimetres off the back of the pivot tube and swap the adjuster thread between them, but somewhere between a 32nd to a sixteenth of a turn of slop is gone and i could finally adjust the lever angle downward where it's comfortable. The freeplay used to mean downshifts where a hit and miss affair as the rear of the linkage would hit the footrest mount.

Been spinning off the line and drifting in the rain in long broad speedway slides lately so it's probably time to rid myself of the rear tyre. New one has been here since may but motivation hasn't quite kicked in. Besides which, the gearing multiplication of low tread has been a ball, particularly on gravel roads wear you can just hang the back out at will right through into fourth.

Little detail bits like the speedo cable rubber guide that plugs in the front mudguard, all the fiddly bulbs from the instrument cluster (anna has a working third gear indication bulb and high beam light again after yesterday) and extra wiring connectors that i can fix other harnesses up with have more than made bringing it out of the bin worthwhile. This is nearly as cool as the katana spares bike i bought but cooler again as no many changed hands.

[engel]

Chucked a kit and new switch assembly through the master cylinder from blue and bolted her up to katrin on saturday. The front is now capable of locking the tyre up at 60 kph. They were good before, now they're bloody great. Had to use the lever from the gsx250 as theres wear on the piston contact point that i'll need to get built up, and i couldn't get a "decent pedal" no matter how i bled it and the lever was hitting the throttle grip such was its travel. The 250 items ball end is missing but the feel is good.

She finally got her new rear tyre too.

[engel]

Home from my holiday in germany and after two months floating around on my rd350 at dopey speeds: australia feels slow, the gsx 1100 needs another gear, the 650 katana feels very revhappy heavy and ponderous, and the gs1100g's torque feels like it has another litre than it does.

And though it was fun, its nice to be home with them. Would love if they had kickstarters as 2500 kilometres and no girls bikes has me missing the simplicity of firing up by foot. Maybe i'll park on more hills and perform bump starts to ease the pain.

Need to buy a new mastercylinder clamp for katrin, as the two spares i have both have broken mirror threads and with the traffic here in town a lack of rearward view angle is tantamount to inviting someone to knock you off.

[Charlie G]

I bought a GS400 in 1977 as my first bike and it had a kicker. Then I prefered to start it with the kick start and thought of the electric start as a symbol of the general lazyness of the American population. I had no ideal they would disapear from most bikes. Some ultra purest might say that even using a hill is lazy and that we should learn to push our beasts to proper speed, fling a leg over and pop the clutch to start. Ok, this is a bit extreme.

There are mornings when all the cofffe and Advil pain reliever doesn't seem to make a difference in my feeling that my fast approaching 60th birthday has been converted to (100) metric years. Still, I would prefer to have one and use it when I do feel 23.

Maybe you could verify something for me. Does your 650 Kat have 37mm forks with anti-dive? I just rebuilt my 650g and have read and been told that the Kat had these upgraded items. Seems as though they decide the Kat version needed a few special features. Nice to see your still visiting here. Germany for two months. Sounds like a rough job. Glad you were up to the task. Any jobs openings your way? Cheers!

cg

[engel]

Morning charl. Yes i can confirm she does. Katrin is an 81 model and the 84 spare parts bike i picked up has them as well.

What i also realized is that the rd and and the 650 are a lot alike. The 350 has YPVS offering useable torque from 2-10000. The kat will lope contentedly along from around 1200 through to around 9500 so the same 8000 rpm of usability. Soft and sweet till around six and then they come alive if you so wish and around the same 190-200kph top whack.

I know they're polar opposites as far as design goes but i would have had a tough time choosing between them if i was in the market for a midrange giantkiller back in 83.

[Charlie G]

Good evening? The 650 kat is seeming more special to me as time goes on. Heavier forks, oil cooler, and hotter cam? I should have pick up the one I saw a few years ago in SF. Hind sight.

cg

[engel]

Yep, i reckon you shoulda. the riding position is pretty sweet too.

[engel]

25000 km on katrin.:

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/z326/glens-harem/AA2A02FC-5626-4820-9014-0064321000A0-1677-000002F819A123A8_zps01a7f8f5.mp4