johnr

its vital. you might not want to go out in the rain but you cant help it sometimes, and any water that gets into the filleer cap recess if it cant get away down the drain will sit in the filler recess till you open the tank, then it will just fall into thee tank and contaminate the fuel and rust its way out the bottom of the tank.

every days a schoolday, never heard of the 750g.

assuming youve checked the usual, flywheel nut, starter clutch 3 bolts and probably most common, carb balance causing the clutch to rattle. does the knock go away when you pull in the clutch?

750g? if its a shafty theen surly its either a 650 or an 850?

sprung saddle? tbh the stresses on that frame and swingarm must be immense, when you think about it, both those rear wheels will move up and down at once, a bump under one wheel will lift both because the axle cant move independently for either wheel. something is going to have to give, either the frame or the arm will break. looks like a reliant axle, but in the car it will be able to flex because the leaf springs and the tie arms are made to let it flex. but that arm and frame have no movement for independent suspension movement. it would be better hardtailed from a frame strength point of view, id strutt it, fit fatter tyres at lower pressures and fit sprung saddles.

i wonder if thy will go in a set of gs750 or 850 liners? i might be interested in them if the price was right? i need to measure some stuff in the shed.

kat 1000 engine numbers all begin with 'GS10X' 1100's are GS110X.

carbs in that pic aree also kat 1000

yeah, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the flipside is that there are still plenty of gsxr clocks out there.

ok, ive some experience of this, albeit on katana clocks which as you imagine are considerably trickier to source. first of all, forget glueing the needle. it broke because the plastic became degraded and embrittled by ultraviolt light (sunshine) glue it and it will just break somewhere else. next, dont try pulling the centre off. the pin its fixed to is bafflingly fragile, if you pry it, 8 times out of 10 it will snap and then youre fucked. so, what to do. you can carefully remove as much as you can of the needle and then replace it with something. coffee stirrers will do, and make sure you put aside a day in 3 months to do it again. thats not the sort of plastic designed to last a long time as you can guess. ive seen cocktail sticks used, my fave was (remember this was on a katana) a playmobil pirates sword! anyhow, you can buy very similar needles on Eblag, they come up occasionally for sale. keep an eye open for early mitsubishi shogun or pajero speedo needles. they use the same pattern needles albeit a bit too long so you need to trim them down, theres a breaker called mitzibits that sells on there but he doesnt have as many now as he used to have. clearly in a car they arent exposed to sunlight the same way so dont get too badly damaged by it. alternatively other jap bikes use similar profile needles (dare i say 1100 g o l d w i n g) if you decide to swap the whole needle with the bezel, get a piece of cardboard and cut a slot in it with a knife, then slide it under the needle with the spindle through the slot you cut to protect the clock face, then grind away the bezel with a dremmel. in its centre is a brass knurled ring that slides over the spindle, carefully grind one side of this brass to release its grip on the spindle so you can remove it from the clocks, to secure th new one, use a tiny bit of araldite to bond it to the spindle. you need a steady hand and nerves of steel to tackle this though, its nervous stuff.

guy in the kat club did this, fitted a 600 bandit motor into his wifes 550 katana. reasonably simple conversion he recconed. nice looking bike afterwards too, looked like it was designed to be like that from the factory.

also the carb spacer bracket appears to have been cut in half (bottom of the pic) and had a bit added to bridge the gap. i wonder if someone has tried to make these fit an engine with different port spacings and then just connected the choke to two carbs. bodgery of the highest order! im guessing that theres something similar on the other side where the other bracket to hold them all together lives.

though the reality is that per pound speent, an improvement in times on the track is more likely to be achieved by a good set of tyres and a couple of track days than a load of engine work. not that anyone wants to hear that.

ive three barrela left from an 1166 or 1170 i cant remember, yoshimura engine that i threw a rod on years ago. it took out the number 2 bore, barrels, piston, rod, crank etc etc, but the other bores are all ok. if i can get my hands on it and drop a liner out i will let you have it. let me know precisely the bore you have now to make sure its the correct size.

havent you got a spare kidney you can sell?

id expect a gs550 to be returning in the region of 50mpg. what are your plugs like.

i dont think they actually stick in the casting. i think the corrosion of the stud where it passes up through the barrels is what locks it in place. its just the luck of the draw, ive had them where ive had to cut them off and ive also had them wind straight out.

front crankcase studs in the centre tend to just seize in place to the barrels. ive actually cut the studs with a dremmel before now and pulled the barrels off before setting too with an extractor, but have you thought about using a stud extractor to remove the studs whilst the barrels are still on and then getting new studs. might be easier than risking the delicate ally fins.

i wonder if th slide carb head you have is off a gs1000g which is based o the 850g as theyre both shaftys. i recall years ago helping a mate with a 1000g swap a leaky base gasket and the one we were sent didnt fit, we were later told it was from a chain drive 1000. i guess the man to ask is @wraith as he has much more experience building shafty gs bikes and he knows what will swap and what wont.

im sure there is some comedic value to be had from the only component on the bike that isnt bright and shiney is the bloody headlight.....

its like crocodlie fucking dundee... 'call that a build.... naah mate, THIS is a build.....' ;-)

I've had melted alts and dead reg rec's but never a melted switch! Something else to look forwards to then!

its a weird electical cul de sac that suzuki came up with in the 70's and 80's not realising i think how it would work in th long term. the wiring goes to the light switch, but doesnt power the lights. the alternator charges the battery using two of its three phases sent through the reg rec, and th third phase is also connected to the reg rec but via this loop of cable through the light switch. thee idea supposedly being that whn you put the light on and needed more power, the third phase of the alternator would then come in to play giving the battery all three phases worth of output. im assuming that the katana came about after the electrical design guy was sliced up ceremonially with one to punish him for this fuck up....

mk1 or mk2?

one of them arms is from a mk1 impulse, horrible little steel flimsy monoshock arm, make sure you buy the mk2 one, and thats a good price. when i got mine, i had to buy the whole bike and break it to get an arm! there are 2 listed in japan for silly money