What are the common fixes or upgrades for the GS1100GK?

[Guest]

Hi All,

I am about to buy my first GS, a 1984 GS1100GK. Like any bike, I assume it has its share of weaknesses and I'm wondering if y'all have any recommendations concerning fixes or upgrades of the standard components?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

[Phred]

To start with I would install braided stainless steel brake lines as an upgrade. The old rubber ones were supposed to be changed every two years according to the manuals. Shocks and springs - there are some really good progressive or sonic springs on the market that will give you a better ride. Gas shocks were not available in the day. Look the bike over and post some pics. Get it running right first and get a feel for it. The rest will fall into place. With some pics, I am sure that we can all help you diagnose the rest. Are you doing your own wrenching? Good luck with it, it is a nice bike, lots of power.

[LarryJ]

'84 is a great year. They have a great final drive ratio for touring/highway travel. I have an '82 GK. They're a good strong bike. How does your's run now? The only thing that I would emphasize is to clean all the electrical connectors, especially the two nine-pin connectors under the tank, directly over the engine. Those, eventually, distorted & melted on me, due to a slow build up of connection resistances & voltage drop.

[Shannon]

Thanks for the advice Larry / Phred. It is early days yet. I will be inspecting the bike this Saturday. Brakes, suspension, and electrics will be top of the list. If it is what the owner describes it as, I will be buying it. Pic below.

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I do expect to do my own wrenching, however, that always depends on the amount of time I have. Riding is always the first priority!

Stay tuned.

[Phred]

Wow! Nice looking ride Shannon. As LarryJ said, the electrics might need some looking into. I replaced a lot of the bullet connectors with waterproof blade connectors on my 850. I also cut a piece of inner tube and mounted it to the tank bolts so that water would not run off the tank and get in to the connectors in this area.Visit Bikecliff's website and check out all the maintenance issues, valves etc. to get it running right. Some excellent tutorials on carbs, valves and tons of other info.

[Brendan W]

Electrics electrics electrics. Check the battery voltage and then see what drops you have at the headlight plug the ign switch return at the fusebox and the coil supply plugs.Clean kill switch, ignition switch, fusebox, ignitor plugs, coil plugs. As a minimum this gives you a fair shot a being able to start it reliably and start diagnosing other issues

[rustybronco]

A series Reg/Rec

[Shannon]

Hi All,

Update: I bought the wee beastie. Checked the electrics. Nothing concerning there. The suspension has already been upgraded with Ikon products - http://www.ikonsuspension.com.au . Brakes are fine but, as advised, braided lines or even a beef up of the fronts might be in order. Seems like a fair amount of mechanical restoration work was carried out on it approximately a year ago but I'll need to go through it all to really know what's what.

Overall, it rides sweet. Handles better than expected. Plenty of grunt with no knocking etc. Oh, and it came with the original top box and mounting frame. The mounting frame has be chopped off so that needs to be attended to. And the standard pipes baffles have been halved so some decent after market or original pipes are in order, I think. Any suggestions regarding this?

[Phred]

Congratulations! Your bike is sounding better with every post. Not sure about the 1100 but when I was rebuilding my 850 an unscrupulous scrap metal dealer stole the exhaust system off my back deck at 5AM. Try and find a new set, Ha! And the headers were gone as well. What I ended up doing was I went to a MC junkyard and found a set but the pipes were shot. The baffles were not removable so I cut the pipes off and had a sleeve welded on. I then bought a set of Mac slip ons. There are a number of slipons available but this set had a sliding bracket and looked very close to the original. Had to do some McGuivering to get it all to fit as the originals were dimpled to accommodate the rear axle castle nuts.But they fit within 1/4" of the nuts and look original. The baffles are removable and replaceable and I have had no problems over the past 3 years. The slipons cost about $59 each CDN. and the welding was another hundred or so. While I was at the junkyard I found a pair of the heat shields, had them re- chromed, installed the pipes and had the nut brackets spot welded to them. The other option would have been to purchase a Vance&Hines 4 into 1 system but I wanted it to look original. Besides the V&H are only single walled and would discolor.

[Charlie G]

Nice looking bike. I've installed Hagon adjustable shocks on the rear of my 1100g as well as progressives springs and a "Tarozzi" fork brace. I would like to also install cartridge emulators in the forks to help prevent sudden diving in a hard turn.

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This is an 1100g which a member named JimmyR in Western Australia put together a few years ago. He installed some special carbs and had custom pipes made by someone in Australia. He stated it really gave it more HP. He had a build thread here at one time. I'd get some advice from some of your country men concerning the exhaust, as I remember there some fabricators down under that do nice work and the bits in the junk yards are hard to find. Welcome.

cg

[Shannon]

Thanks Phred / CG,

I have been looking at the MAC products and they seem like the way to go - apart from going down the custom route. Original parts for the GS series are definitely hard to find down here!

Thanks for all the advice. I'll post a pic or two once I've sorted the pipes out and got the rear top box and frame repaired, remounted and re-chromed.