77 GS400 to Cafe Project

[Englishman]

How's the quality of the Raask sets? I've heard mixed reports...

Pete, you have hit the nail on the head with that question. Quite frankly, they are a little disappointing. The pegs and levers are OK but the linkages seam sloppy and poor quality fasteners supplied to hold things together. A little booklet supplied with them by the US importer implied that I would need to do the final adjustments, filing holes to fit and buy some bolts myself ! As I said the large boomerang shaped brackets to hang the things onto the frame are ugly but very 70's looking and have saved me many hours and $ to fabricate them myself. However, I can see myself fitting some generic Tarozzi pegs to the Raask brackets later on

Mark

[pete]

Pete, you have hit the nail on the head with that question. Quite frankly, they are a little disappointing. The pegs and levers are OK but the linkages seam sloppy and poor quality fasteners supplied to hold things together. A little booklet supplied with them by the US importer implied that I would need to do the final adjustments, filing holes to fit and buy some bolts myself ! As I said the large boomerang shaped brackets to hang the things onto the frame are ugly but very 70's looking and have saved me many hours and $ to fabricate them myself. However, I can see myself fitting some generic Tarozzi pegs to the Raask brackets later on

Mark

Aah ok, yeah that's similar to other feedback I've heard along the way which is quite disappointing really.

When I was initially going to cafe mine I looked into them and while the price was good, the feedback was making me wonder if it was worth it or not.

Hopefully they'll do what you need them to and you can just neaten them up a little with the pegs etc.

[Englishman]

This weekend I put the motor back in the frame and fitted the Raask's and the exhaust arrangement to determine what cutting and grinding was needed to hang the pipes. Overall Im happy with the look thats emerging.





..and a view care of MS Paint, if I was to go Laverda Orange on the project



If anyone is at the stage in their project where it does not feel like you are making any progress, putting a few things together like this gives a little inspiration to get rolling again.

mark

[pete]

Mate that should look good!

And yeah, the minute I had a rolling frame I could wheel around the garage it felt a whole lot better than just a pile of parts...

[Englishman]

Unfortunately, between work, Christmas and life, its been 6 weeks since I have been able to do some work on the project. Recent deals on ebay on Progressive fork springs and a rather nice pair of shocks were waiting installation. Thanks to a tool looking like a miniature pick-axe in my father in laws too box, removing the old seals was only a 5 minute thing. Rubbing the paint and anodizing of the fork legs took somewhat longer (4 hours each) but the results look great. New seal and wipers and smoothing a few pits off the fork tubes and progress was made.




Next up, empowered by the Dremmel that Santa brought me was cutting the seat/tail unit to accept the Ducat 916 lookalike LED tail/break/turn lights...... I know this is not the purest cafe rear Lucas type light, but I wanted to keep the race tail look without hanging a big red lump off the end.





With one of the rear Progressive's in place and 5mm taller eye-to-eye than the stock units, Im startinbg to feel like Im getting somewhere again.



Next thing will be to fabricate a new battery tray to hold a gell cell battery. Bet you cant guess where it will get installed !

Mark

[Sci85]

That's a real nice looking build. I like the twins. So easy to work on. That bike would look really nice with a set of spoked wheels if you had them.

Sci85

[Englishman]

That's a real nice looking build. I like the twins. So easy to work on. That bike would look really nice with a set of spoked wheels if you had them.

Sci85

Actually the bike had spoked wheels when I bought it. Cast wheels are my personal preference. As it stands, I'm thinking of having both available to switch around.

Mark

[pete]

Nice to see you getting started again Mark

Let me guess about the battery tray... right in the rear in front of those new tail lights right? Haha

I like the idea with the brake/tail lights by the way, they should look well integrated with that tail piece.

[Englishman]

Nice to see you getting started again Mark

Let me guess about the battery tray... right in the rear in front of those new tail lights right? Haha

I like the idea with the brake/tail lights by the way, they should look well integrated with that tail piece.

......and Pete wins the prize for hide the battery!

The tail lights also integrate turn signals which will help keep the back end looking clean. Not sure what the Texas Vehicle Inspector will make of them but that's something to worry about (much) later.

Mark

[nvr2old]

I like the whole look of this bike. Your vision of it is coming to fruition quite nicely. The tail lights are a perfect match for the shape of the tail section. I, too, started with an Airtech piece for my Honda XL250 project. It was intitially designed for a Matchless, but with a little modification, looks like it was made for the Honda. Looks like you might have to do what I did, and that was to stretch the seat pan area a couple inches to reach the tank. It's a very subtle modification, but looks so right after it's done. How did you get such a straight line on the leading edge of the knee dents in the tank?

[Gumbo76]

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How did you get the line front of the banged in part to be so straight?

-Brian

[Englishman]

I like the whole look of this bike. Your vision of it is coming to fruition quite nicely. The tail lights are a perfect match for the shape of the tail section. I, too, started with an Airtech piece for my Honda XL250 project. It was intitially designed for a Matchless, but with a little modification, looks like it was made for the Honda. Looks like you might have to do what I did, and that was to stretch the seat pan area a couple inches to reach the tank. It's a very subtle modification, but looks so right after it's done. How did you get such a straight line on the leading edge of the knee dents in the tank?

Thanks nve2old. Yes I will be extending the seat area up to the gas tank. I believe the Airtech Laverda mold was based on a Lav 750 which had a long tank hence the relatively short seat. The Laverda 500 which is the design guide for my project had a longer seat so I should be able to keep the overall look I'm hoping for.

How did I get that straight line in the knee pad area?

I drew a line on the tank and used a straight edge (a rubber sanding block in this case) on the line. I bought a body hammer that had a mild point on it's ball and just tapped gently for an hour as close to the block as it would allow. It flet like nothing was happening for what seamed like 30 minutes and then the line appeared and got more defined very quickly. No need to hit the tank hard, just lots of little taps. The result was way better than I thought possible just as little patience and restraint needed.

Mark

[Englishman]

So the time has come to pick some tires to put on my cast wheels. The bike came with spoked wheels but I prefer the cast ones for the look I want. The cast wheels I have are both 18 inch from 450's. Looking at the space available between the rim and swing arm it looks like the largest tire I could fit would be 100/90 or 110/90 but that would appear to be so close. On the front 90/90 looks OK and 100/90 again pushing my luck. I would be interested to know what anyone running a 400/425/450 and 18inch rims have on.

Thanks
Mark

[TheCafeKid]

Looking very very cool. I have a mind to do a retro retro euro cafe with a GS myself. I really like the megs upswept like that. Where did you get them and how much did they run? I'd be doing it on a four, but I'd like to do the same and stack them ala a Benelli Sei.

[Englishman]

Looking very very cool. I have a mind to do a retro retro euro cafe with a GS myself. I really like the megs upswept like that. Where did you get them and how much did they run? I'd be doing it on a four, but I'd like to do the same and stack them ala a Benelli Sei.

Thanks Cafe, though progress is slow! I'm happy the way it's turning out. The mufflers I found them jerryscycles.com who has lots of odds and ends mufflers
I paid $140 for the pair delivered.

Mark