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The Grinder
My name is Max and I’ve been lurking on this site for a long while so I guess it’s time to introduce myself through my project THE GRINDER.My normal road bike The Dirty Old Pig is a 1979 Suzuki GS1000 and The Grinder is being built out of the spares I have lying around.The name comes from the fact that everything I do seems to involve either an angle grinder,a bench grinder or a die grinder.My plan is to do and make as much as I’m able to and so it’ll be a fair while before it’s finished.My inspiration comes from The 6 Day Wonder a Honda 750 built by Gary Littlejohn back in 1980.I’ve had that magazine for over 30 years so I guess I’m settled with my plans.
Although The 6 Day Wonder is my inspiration everything I do seems to end up different.I want it low but still rideable so I have settled on a 5” ground clearance and I have lowered the seat section of the frame to give a low seat height while still retaining rear suspension.The rear rim is a 15” steel rim laced with stainless spokes to a widened Triumph hub which was fitted with different bearings to allow fitting to the Suzuki axle.The standard Triumph disc was used along with a Suzuki trailbike caliper.I made a spacer out of stainless steel to push the Triumph sprocket into line with the front sprocket,made a couple of axle spacers and the back wheel is finished.The Ikon factory is just up the road and they made me a set of lowered shocks which bolt to the original mounts.The front suspension is off a GSXR750 and with a minor neck rake leaves the bottom frame rail level and the sump 5” off the ground.
With the ride height set I was able to make the handlebars,levers and forward controls.The forward controls are made from stainless and the curve of the levers was decided by the diameter of my bench grinder wheel.I tried flat bars but they were uncomfortable so I spent hours making the middle set of bars that looked so good in my imagination but which looked terrible when they were finished and fitted to the bike so I went and found the top pair of bars that were really comfy and copied the angles in stainless.The levers weren’t too hard to make although they were very time consuming but the clutch perch took 11 little pieces and some fiddly welding to make in stainless.My mate does all the beautiful welding.
The front wheel is a standard 18” GS wheel which fits perfectly with some new spacers.I bought a modern drilled front disc but it looked out of place so I fitted a plain old standard disc and caliper and it looks just right.The turnbuckles are setting the rear to minimum suspension length so that I can check the clearances when I make the battery box,wiring box and seat.I’m working on my wiring loom at the moment,so that should keep me upset and confused for a while.
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