What front ends swap most easily?

[Black Adder]

Could one of you guys who knows about front ends and suspension advise me on which set of forks I could use to upgrade my 81 GS 450 to dual discs and better handling?

Hmm, I swapped my 450 front end to USD. First I tried a B-King forks on, looked quite good but the forks were from a wrecked bike and to have them repaired... ...too much dineros. So I had another frontend lying at my garage (it was actually reserved for another project but you know - friday, couple of beers, good company etc...) so it ended up in to the old GS.

The forks and triples are from -02 gsxr 1000 if I remember correctly and wheel is from tl 1000s. Dont know about the spindle it was laying in one of my part boxes - needs a custom spacer to get it alinged (you really want a "whole set" including rim, spindle, spacers, brakedisks and -calibers at least, and a suitable brakehandle assembly wont hurt either - if you dont have a big pile of unused parts where to choose from, it might, and will be a bugger to find all parts that actually fits together).

Then you need a good bearing shop to mate the frontend to the bike - most of the headstock bearings are standard sizes and the GS kingpin is quite thin - I used a bearing that fitted to the gsxr triples and a spacer between the kingpin and the bearing (you need something to heat up the spacer and freeze the kingpin to get the spacer in place, very, VERY tight fit).

Thats my .02$.

Oh the pics:

http://mustasurma.pictures.fi/kuvat/Project+Cafe/

1st try with the B-King front (that was FUBAR)




2nd try with gsxr front end and current state of the bike



Now this bike is a long term project that I pay attention when I have time: lots of ideas, some of them outrageous but a couple of thoughts that I have in mind: monoshock rear with 5,5" rim, "keyless" RFID ignition lock (allready have it), very minimal amount of cables and wires to be seen (ie. internal throttle assy. (got that one as well), hydraulic drivetrain (erm, not likely to happen but...) LED lights, a bit of carbon here and there... ...you get the point. LONG TERM