Biggie's gs750 resto/mod build

[Biggie]

As promised, i'm making a thread about my old GS750L.

I got the bike about 15 years ago when a started to ride motorcycles and sold the gs 2 years later for 500€ to a friend. I never saw the friend again untill 3 years ago, and the first thing we said was:

Friend: hey biggie, long time no see!
Me: yeah, long time man! You still own the bike i sold you?
Friend: yeah!
Me: You still drive?
Friend: no, been sitting in my garage for 9 years now, i tried to get my license but failed, and never tried since....
Me: wanna sell it?
Friend: Yeah sure, gotta get rid of it cause i'm moving!

And the rest was history, a week later she came back home and i cleaned her up and put on a new front tire, new oil + filter, registered the bike and took it for a few drives around the country. About 1000 K's later the engine started to make some noise and after checking the problem, it seems that one intake valve was hammered in and had to be changed. I still blame myself by not taking more care to put her back on the road properly (carb-cleaning and synchronising, valve adjustment,...) but time was not on my side as i was self employed and had a shop to run...

She has been sitting in storage for the rest of the time untill the end of July, but not forgotten! I was buying parts little by little to rebuild her as a more sporty bike, as the 750 16V engine is a good powerfull engine and i like to drive it fast .

So here's a pic of the bike as she arrived to my garage after being stored for about 2 years:




As you can see, she has lived a few lives...

i'll post more pic's in the next post

[Biggie]

so, as i said, i bought and prepped parts before bringing the bike home, so here are some pics of the parts:





I bought this tank for 20€ (25$) and was in a pretty rough shape, so i started stripping the tank to see what i had to work with:



and it had allready been repainted... but no worry's, this tank is gonna be repaired and repainted as it should be.

so i started to pull out the dents:





Then i got working with lead:





As you can see on the last pic, my lead skills aren't perfect, it has been years ago that i used lead... but it came out pretty good.

I finished the tank with bondo:





And sprayed it in primer:

[Biggie]

I also bought a spare engine so i could put that one in the frame while i restored the original one, and as i got there the guy sold me the engine and gave me a whole bunch of parts with it! He started a hardtail project but never got around to finish it so he wanted to get rid of everything and he saw me as the perfect "get-rid-of-things" guy, no complains from my side



I also bought some spoked wheels to replace the alloy onces, it looks way cooler i think

I took off al the spokes as they were badly corroded, as were the rims and hub, so i started to polish the hubs:





As time was going by, i started to polish the side covers of the engine and was trying to clean the block of the spare engine, but the cilinders were to badly crusted so i took off the head and cilinder to try and clean it better. Afterall, now i could install new rings also .



The inside of the cylinders were crusted with black residue, so it wasn't a bad idea to pull the whole thing appart

[Biggie]

And finally, i got the girl home so i could take her apart:





and a few hours later, she was ready for her makeover:



the frame, rims, cilinder and a few other parts went to the sandblasters so in the meanwhile, i continued polishing...





Maybe i should have put on a mask or something when i polished .....



I also ordered some parts to start with:

[Biggie]

And after a week, my sandblasted parts came back



Al the metal parts (frame, side stadn, center stand, etc...) have been "metalised" wich is like a zinc protection to avoid corrosion, even when you hit a rock, it doesn't chip off so no more rust for my honey.

The aluminum parts like the cilinder are sodablasted to avoid ruining the part, they are spotlessly clean!





and the frame is like new!



So that's where i am today! I'm still working a lot on the parts so i will try to update regularly.

[GateKeeper]

Welcome to the site....

Tagged for interest.....

Looks like a good build to follow....

best of luck

if you have not already been here or got the Mega Welcome package, this is a fine place to spend some time, it will probably help you out at some point in time...

Greetings and Salutations,

I have not been able to be on the forum much lately and many new members have not received their "mega-welcome". If you are here you probably have a 30 year old motorcycle that needs about 20 years worth of maintenance. You'll find all kinds of helpful tips, procedures, manuals, etc, in the links below. Let's get started.

Let me dump a TON of information on you and share some GS lovin'.

I just stopped by to welcome you to the forum in my own, special way.

If there's anything you'd like to know about the Suzuki GS model bikes, and most others actually, you've come to the right place. There's a lot of knowledge and experience here in the community. Come on in and let me say "HOoooowwwDY!"....

Here is your very own magical, mystical, mythical, mind-expanding "mega-welcome". Please take notice of the "Top 10 Common Issues", "Top 15 Tips For GS Happiness", the Carb Cleanup Series, and the Stator Papers. All of these tasks must be addressed in order to have a safe, reliable machine. This is what NOT to do: Top 10 Newbie Mistakes. Now let me roll out the welcome mat for you...



Please click here for your mega-welcome, chock full of tips, suggestions, links to vendors, and other information. Then feel free to visit my little BikeCliff website where I've been collecting the wisdom of this generous community. Don't forget, we like pictures! Not you, your bike!

Thanks for joining us. Keep us informed.

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[Biggie]

Thanx for the welcome and the interrest in my project!

Got my cylinder painted today, not much, but it's something

[Doona]

Welcome, looks like your doing a top quality job there. I'm in the middle of a gs750 resto myself.

[Good Times]

Good work. It's looking good Biggie. Looks like another Storm Trooper bike on the way. You and GK are starting an "empire".

I look like that after polishing as well. Always ask the wife and kids for a big hug. They don't go for it. lol

[Biggie]

Good work. It's looking good Biggie. Looks like another Storm Trooper bike on the way. You and GK are starting an "empire".

I look like that after polishing as well. Always ask the wife and kids for a big hug. They don't go for it. lol

lol, got the same reaction too wanted a big hug and got a big bottle of soap and directions to the bathroom instead

[Biggie]

Welcome, looks like your doing a top quality job there. I'm in the middle of a gs750 resto myself.

Great, thank you!
You have a build topic on here too?

[MisterCinders]

Nice work on the rebuild. How do you plan to fit that E model tank on your L model frame?

[6pkrunner]

God, I love clean parts!!!

[Biggie]

I did some more work the last few days, but not as much as i wanted too because of the scorching heat....

I got my spare engine almost completely disasembled, as i'm going to repaint the casings as it should, but first some mediablasting.
I also started to work on the frame, my gastank i bought dind't fit the frame very well. I had to cut some brackets off and have to weld them back on other places.
The tank was also a little narrow in the tunnel so i mildly hammered the tunnel to fit the frame. The tank fits perfectly now, and i'm almost ready to make the seat to fit the frame and tank. I'm also cutting off exces brackets on the frame to loose some weight an make the look of the bike "tighter".

I dropped my rims of at the powdercoater to have them powdercoated in deep black, i also asked if they could powdercoat my frame in nice gold... but that seemed to be a problem. They have some gold shades but realy ugly! And they ask about 200€ to do it, wich for me is a little pricy as i can paint the frame in the color i want and pay half of that price. OK, paint isn't as solid as powdercoating but it's not going to be a daily driver anyways so i might as well give it a little "showbike" looks

I'll post some pics later of the progress, as my garage is very messy so i have to clean up first

[Biggie]

Still haven't cleaned up because of some busy weekends (helped a friend move and helped my brother in-law with some electric problems)

But on the bright side, my rims came back from powdercoating! They look all nice and shiny and came out pretty good considering the state they were in when i got them, they had a massive amount of pitting and rust on them!

I'll try to make some pics tomorow because it's to dark now.