1981 GS850G preparing for road trip

[LeT]

I think the header pipes are made of doubled skinned thick pipe so are unlikely to cause you problems. The rest as you say will just be a sorry rusting mess, despite your inventive welding fix. When they next blow through, I think your best bet would be to cut off the silencers and use some after market universal replacements.

I love what you are doing. I wanted to ride to Rome in my fortieth year. I'm 54 now, still haven't got to Rome. Good luck with your plan.

[Juke Nukem]

Is the €1000 exhaust original? If I could get that for mine Id be thrilled.

I think I saw something like that in ebay when looking for GS850 exhausts, but can't find it anymore. The cmsnl.com seems to list some items as "imperfect alternative" whatever that means... Not original of course.

https://www.cmsnl.com/products/imperfect/muffler-assembly_OC-0001.1924/#.Xx_Nlp4zZaQ

[Juke Nukem]

I think the header pipes are made of doubled skinned thick pipe so are unlikely to cause you problems. The rest as you say will just be a sorry rusting mess, despite your inventive welding fix. When they next blow through, I think your best bet would be to cut off the silencers and use some after market universal replacements.

I love what you are doing. I wanted to ride to Rome in my fortieth year. I'm 54 now, still haven't got to Rome. Good luck with your plan.

Yeah, I'm just hoping the chromed outer skins hold together for the duration of the trip. My budget is minimal
Thanks for the encouragement! For your 55th you should definitely ride to Rome

[Juke Nukem]

Does anybody know where to get a new steering column lock? It isn't quite the standard style which has a brass tab. This one has what looks like a round steel bar.
steering lock.jpg

[Juke Nukem]

Bought a pair of old Craven side boxes for the bike for 55€. Made in England. They are nice and slim so they don't stick too much out sideways and they have locks (must!). They may outdate the actual bike by a decade or two but I like the classic look. Plan is to make a mounting bracket for them which will extend back and make a grille on top of the rear fairing for a tent and other stuff. Then paint boxes to bike colour.

craven_bag.jpg

[Grimly]

Bought a pair of old Craven side boxes for the bike for 55€. Made in England. They are nice and slim so they don't stick too much out sideways and they have locks (must!). They may outdate the actual bike by a decade or two but I like the classic look. Plan is to make a mounting bracket for them which will extend back and make a grille on top of the rear fairing for a tent and other stuff. Then paint boxes to bike colour.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]61481[/ATTACH]

Those are classics.
I had a pair on an ex-Police BMW, and was grateful for their slimness through the traffic. You can get a surprising amount of stuff in them, too.

[Steve]

Does anybody know where to get a new steering column lock? It isn't quite the standard style which has a brass tab. This one has what looks like a round steel bar.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]61431[/ATTACH]

You must have a lock that is different than what we have here in the USA.

Our steering lock is incorporated into the ignition lock.

.

[Juke Nukem]

You must have a lock that is different than what we have here in the USA.

Our steering lock is incorporated into the ignition lock.

.

That's interesting. Well there are always these small differences between Europe & US.

Yeah these work so that the handlebar is turned to extreme right and then that whole thing pushes in to a slot in the steering axle and then it's locked. Apparently with enough force it breaks though but may discourage some potential bike thieves.

[Noreg]

I think I saw something like that in ebay when looking for GS850 exhausts, but can't find it anymore. The cmsnl.com seems to list some items as "imperfect alternative" whatever that means... Not original of course.

https://www.cmsnl.com/products/imper.../#.Xx_Nlp4zZaQ

It says it has dents, its in the picture. They are fairly minor.

[Juke Nukem]

Today I started to diagnose the charging system more closely as per the instructions in my manual. I made a new grounding directly from the R/R to battery negative - no effect. Then did the no-load test and measured the AC voltage between the different disconnected cables from the stator. At 5000rpm all were well over the 75V limit mentioned in the manual so the stator seems fine! Will install a new R/R next.

[Juke Nukem]

I bought a really cheap Chinese R/R from ebay (did I mention my budget is close to zero). Its cables are pretty good looking (thicker gauge than in the original) and the potting looks very good. I didn't want to start cutting the wire harness of the bike, so I took the connectors from the old R/R along with a length of cable, and soldered them carefully to the new unit. I also extended the ground to go directly to battery negative. Lo and behold, charging now works! Voltages are according to manual. This is excellent, fixing the charging was worrying me a lot. Hope the cheapo unit lasts.
rr.jpg

[Big T]

Well, since you went cheap, you might want to obtain a handlebar mounted volt meter to monitor the charging. You can find them with USB outlets to charge your phone, or run a Go Pro,etc

[Juke Nukem]

Well, since you went cheap, you might want to obtain a handlebar mounted volt meter to monitor the charging. You can find them with USB outlets to charge your phone, or run a Go Pro,etc

Thanks, I had a plan to rig a sat nav to the handlebar and that could also provide power for it.

[Juke Nukem]

Twice now has the leaky fuel petcock (and flooding carb) filled my engine with petrol. The local well equipped bike parts shop had a TourMax brand replacement petcock in stock. It was 39€ and immediately available so I went for it. First thing I noticed was that it is missing the selector lever completely. On closer inspection the bolt spacing is also wrong, 50mm instead of 44mm. Double fail, super annoying. I would really like to get rid of the vacuum system, so maybe I'll try to do that right away instead of trying to fix the existing system first. I know about the Pingel replacement. It's a bit expensive but it might be I'll have to get it anyway.
petcock.jpg

[cowboyup3371]

Why get rid of something that works very well? Buy a new petcock from Suzuki and be done with it