GS550L to Cafe Build

[Toasty]

The honing supplies came in this week so today I decided to tackle doing that... After reading endless threads on here about it I feel good enough to go forward.



Ready for honing.



The tools: 62mm aluminum oxide 240 grit ball hone, 62mm brush, flex hone oil (probably not needed but it wasn't expensive).



In the drill. I immediately switched to the cordless drill though, the plug in one was way too powerful for this job.



Oiled up.





Two down, the unhoned cylinders look nasty.



Done honing! I messed up at first, I went too fast and didn't get a cross hatch pattern. Go slow a few times and then pump it up and down fast to get the 45* pattern. I did it quickly on reverse too.



Washing with warm water and soap until all the metal particles are out of the cylinder.



Clean and lightly oiled.

[Toasty]

I'm worried about two of the cylinders though... I didn't notice prior to honing but two (1 and 3) have some pitting around were the rings were when the engine was sitting. It was originally from Florida but everything else is solid and not rusted at all.


Everything looks good in the sunlight



But in the shadow its easy to see... This is the worst of the two, and I can feel the pitting slightly in some spots



The other one




Am I worrying about nothing or should I be looking for another cylinder head (or serious professional honing)? I really just want to get this thing back together.

[Toasty]

Parts are coming in for 550L version 2.0. I found myself at an impasse and just decided to go big .

I'm piecing together something pretty cool, the majority of the parts will be here by Monday and I can start moving forward again.

The front end will be:
- 2002 GSXR-750 inverted forks
- Honda 954RR calipers (superior to the GSXR stuff)
- 50mm Woodcraft clip ons
- 954RR clutch perch and master cylinder
- Black powdercoated GS750 spokes
- Custom aluminum spacer to attach massive 320mm Triumph rotors (from T8erBug)

For the rear I have an aluminum GS1100E swingarm that I'll be using. I'm talking with a local machine shop to have some bronze bushings made up to replace the needle bearings and have the correct inner diameter to use my 550 pivot bolt. Shock wise... I'm not sure what to choose. YSS seems really nice for the price but I don't know if they offer eye to clevis. Works is legit but expensive and I wouldn't mind Hagons again but I would like some rebound/compression adjustment.



The sportbike take offs were not bad at all price wise. Apparently no one really cares about decade old forks... For a less than it costs to add cartridge emulators, performance springs, swapping to dual discs and adding good fork brace you can have modern adjustable stuff.




What has come in already:

PC-8 fuse box


50mm Woodcraft clip ons (the ID is HUGEEEE)


954RR brakes



If this info is useful for anyone else, it is possible to use 954rr brakes on GSXR fork legs. This only works with non-radial mounts/calipers and 320mm rotors. The bolt pattern is the same, there is just a MM or two that needs to be filed off the inside of the caliper so it doesn't rub on the rotor.

I decided to go with Honda stuff because I needed brakes anyway and the calipers are known to be better (feel and performance wise). Plus the gold is just awesome .


The things that are still in transit:
- GS650 block (9K on it and cheaper then machining my old one)
- USD forks
- Dime City order (battery and other smalls)
- Caliper bolts
- Clutch perch
- Wheel adapter (about a month away from completion)
- All Balls bearings

One last thing I picked up is this AWESOME voltage indicator LINK. Its a round LED that changes color/flashes depending on voltage. My friend with the GSXR got one and it's slick as hell. You can pop it out of the plastic housing and install it in a dash for a super clean voltage dummy light.

[wegs426]

I've been very happy with my YSS shocks and they are only the basic ones. They do in fact make eye to clevis shocks. I wish I had known about the swingarm swap before I upgraded. Now I've got a nice 1100 swingarm that's just waiting to be put on but I can't bring myself to buy new shocks when I just did six months ago.

[Toasty]

Good to know, I saw them advertise on DTT but they were showing some funky offset adapter for clevis mounts. I think for the money you get the most features with YSS, the ones with adjustable everything an no piggybacks are $399... Not bad at all.

[Toasty]

Yesterday a few more things came in the mail



It was too late to work on anything when I got home so this morning I wanted to test out my keyless ignition system. I bought a few packs of alligator clips from Fry's a few weeks ago and I finally had a working battery so I dove right in.







It worked perfectly . I posted a wiring diagram earlier in the thread which was mostly correct. I need to change one of the ground connections for the solid state relay, there is no split coming off of the RFID receiver like the instructions showed.

Here's the video, excuse the mess I was drinking my morning coffee and had to make space on the table.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUr6XIznZ3U

Replace the headlight with the switched ignition on circuit and you're in business. Really simple.

The basic rundown of how it works again:

* Connect everything to power and ground
* RFID receiver gets pulse from Key Fob
* RFID unit sends low voltage pulse to the solid state relay
* The SS relay sees the pulse and is programmed to "latch on/off" using the dip switches
* Connect the brown wire to 12v+ and the yellow 12v+ OUT to the 12v relay. You can make the yellow send out 12v- if you connect the brown to 12v- but that's not what you need here.
* Wire the relay correctly and it will click on and off when the key fob is swiped.

[Bonehead]

This thing is gonna be beautiful Toast... I may just have to ride up to see it in person when I'm done with mine

[Toasty]

Yea man definitely! We need to organize another big GS meet. Btw have you started up a build thread on your 650?


Oh, and here are some pictures from this weekend.

I made a pan for all the electrical stuff from a scrap piece of sheet metal I got from the local art/scrap place.


Figuring out where everything will fit


Draping wires. This weekend I want to start cutting wires to fit and testing circuits.


New jugs came in, 9K on these and no pitting. Painted them up and did a light hone.

[Toasty]

Today... I got a big box in the mail. Hehe







Its ghetto rigged right now but tomorrow the bearing kit is coming, and in a few weeks I can bolt on the wheels for real.

[Bonehead]

Yea man definitely! We need to organize another big GS meet. Btw have you started up a build thread on your 650?

Oh yeah Check it out. Just got some sexy looking Ape SuperPro Filters and man they look good haha. Thank god I just got my tax refund... Hello parts heaven

[Toasty]

It's looking good! I really dig the blue/white paint scheme.


Btw, UPS must be idiots... My bearings land an hour north of here in San Pablo early yesterday morning. Then they send them to freakin Albuquerque NM because of "weather conditions" and they just got back to San Pablo again this afternoon... wtf UPS.



Makes no sense

[Bonehead]

It's looking good! I really dig the blue/white paint scheme.


Btw, UPS must be idiots... My bearings land an hour north of here in San Pablo early yesterday morning. Then they send them to freakin Albuquerque NM because of "weather conditions" and they just got back to San Pablo again this afternoon... wtf UPS.



Makes no sense

Woah... And I was kind of mad that the filters were delivered a little after 530. What the the hell are they thinking

[Flipr78]

I love this build! subscribed. I am doing a 77 GS750 but the motor is solid and doesnt need any work.
I snatched up a set of Bandit 1200 forks, I need to swap my original steering stem, new races bearings, Bandit axel with new custom bearings on my original spoked wheel. Does that sound like the front end is sorted or is there something I am missing?

Awesome build, nice attention to detail. All the work done in your garage using hand tools. Fantastic.

[Toasty]

Thanks! I don't really have any specialized fabricating tools so I'm trying to make do with what I can.

I don't know much about the Bandit swaps, I've heard of people doing them though and I know that the steering stem needs to be machined down because it's too long. Or have the GS stem pressed in if it will fit. Your wheels may just swap in with a bearing swap if the calipers mount to the fork legs if it matches up with the offset from the rotors.

[Toasty]

I had some family stuff this weekend on Easter Sunday so I only had Saturday to really get any work done on the bike. Luckily I had enough cash to get my wiring harness stuff from Frys on Friday.

Btw the clean cut nylon sleeving they sell is really high quality for the price. It's much better than the Techflex stuff, you can stuff more wires in it before the colors show though and it's less prone to fraying on the ends (before you heat shrink the ends).

I got a bunch of the sleeving, some larger heat shrink with the glue lining (it's only 2:1, I'd like 3:1 though but no luck). I picked up a little butane torch/soldering iron too, they're pretty handy because you can adjust the heat and you don't need to drag around a cord.




Saturday was a looooong day, I got home at noon and spent 9 hours straight working on the harness.

Starting off working front to back, from the hand controls


I didn't take many pictures as I was working on it, it was mostly just routing, soldering and heat shrinking. Once I'm done with this I shouldn't have any more wiring issues. Btw if you're gonna solder get good rosin solder and flux!

I tried to use the Western Union Splice as much as I could


Apply some melted solder (not too much, not too little) onto the joint with flux, then apply heat with the soldering iron and you'll see the flux start to quickly bubble and solder will get instantly sucked into the fibers. I think they came out pretty good. I had some good Sumitube glue heat shrink I picked up from Eastern Beaver to put over the soldered joints. They should be totally solid.


I got about 75% of the harness done by Saturday night. I still need to run the power to the front and rear brake switches, ignitor, r/r, wire up the battery/RFID stuff and finish up wiring the fuse box.







On Sunday morning I wired up the Acewell/accessory circuit but I need some good crimp connectors for the tail light and turn signals.