1983 GL1100 muscle bob

Hey all!

A friend and I have picked up a couple GL1100's to do some stuff with. The first one will be a bobber type, and the second will be more of a cafe style.

For the bobber, ill be imitating something along the lines of a hotrod. heres a quick sketch:


Im planning on painting the faux tank, rear fender, ans sidecovers matte black. The seat, valve covers, wheels, and some other small components will be red. The pipes will be wrapped and have slash cut tips. I plan on keeping the cross pipe on the exhaust for performance and ease of tuning. Ill also be keeping the stock airbox and just jetting the carbs if necessary.

So heres where it was at when i got it home:




First things first, i removed the fairings:




These fairings and bags were incredibly heavy!

Im trying to decide if i want to modify the front fender to run as the rear, or just shift the rear fender forward. Not sure yet. Here is where i sit right now:



I need to change out the fork seals, which will happen in the next couple of days. Once thats done ill be mounting the forks back and getting a 6 1/4in headlight mounted. Ive already drilled out the gauge bracket bolts, and mounted it below the triple tree mount (i also tweaked the angle) that way they are just a hair lower. Once the front is back together, ill see if they need to be lowered anymore.

So thats were im at today. Hopefully ill have the first coat of paint on the wheels today!

Have a look at these for inspiration.

dont forget to do the timing belts in these

Ive got a folder with tons of pictures in it for inspiration. I like to title them by what i like about the build. Theres a few pictures titled things like stance1 and stance2, or tail1a, things like that. I forgot to mention, im using stock Suzuki GT750 handlebars on it. The pull back, and rise is perfect for what i want.

Timing belt will be coming soon for this bike too! thanks for reminding me

Fork seals replaced and wheels have paint on them! moving right along

here my daily 83 they are a blast naked and stripped

May I suggest a different seat color, like brown or maybe more of an "oxblood" type red? Bright red seats have never done it for me, and I can't think of one time that it has contributed positively to the aesthetics of a build. Otherwise, I dig it

I did a similar build not too long ago on a yamaha maxim in the same color pattern. The key to having it look good is finding a red that matches the wheels.

Did some mocking up today. Drilled mounting holes in the rear fender, and drilled out an existing hole in the frame to mount it. Quick coat of paint on the faux tank and placed it on the frame to see what it looks like with the other stuff. I cut the stock seat pan to see how it looked. Im thinking ill actually use it instead of fabbing one up.

Seat pan:




Heres where we are at:





I checked the timing belts, and they look really good! the teeth arent rounded, theres no frays, and no cracks anywhere. Im thinking the belts were replaced recently

you cant tell a thing about the age of the belts by looking at them

they are 44 a set of 2 from gates

it is an interference motor you break a belt you trash the motor

they should be changed every 5 years or 50k miles if you dont know when they were done do them it is easy

Fair enough. Will do

gates t 274

you need 2 belts

cxman said:

you cant tell a thing about the age of the belts by looking at them

they are 44 a set of 2 from gates

it is an interference motor you break a belt you trash the motor

they should be changed every 5 years or 50k miles if you dont know when they were done do them it is easy

Click to expand...

Agree 10000% do the belts and then you know when they need done next. Love N'ked wings and www.ngwclub.com has a full write up with pics and tricks to do the belts. also Randaak's cycle shack has a lot of info and parts etc. Cheers and welcome to the Nudiewing club. Lifes more fun N'ked

I love the nekkid wings too! My 76 is a naked wing, and will someday be on the road again

Heres where i ended today. I feel like it was a productive couple of days!

Got the seat back from the upholsterer today. Also was able to wrap the pipes and paint them up a few days ago. I ultimately decided to forgo the straight pipes for a few different reasons, and instead modified the stock pipes. This is a quick mock up today





I think it would benefit from white wall tires

Akastus said:

I think it would benefit from white wall tires

Click to expand...

Agreed, sir

Did some more work to the wing yesterday. Went to fire it up and it was a no go. So i start checking everything and find out that i have really REALLY weak spark. Its so weak that i can put a screwdriver into the spark plug cap, grab the metal part of the screwdriver and crank the engine. I can feel the electricity tingle, but its nowhere near enough to make my let go. Ive done the same trick on other bikes (not usually on purpose) and theres a HUGE difference. Thankfully, each plug has the same super weak spark.

So far ive done:

New battery
checked the plug on the pulse generator (within specs ~530ohms)
checked wires going into the coils (blk/wht=12.3v)
checked the ohms from cap through to cap (within specs ~25k)

any thoughts?

check your coil voltage during cranking

this write up is cx500 specific how ever it is basically the same ti system in the gl1100

so i am hoping it may be useful to you

http://www.genebitsystems.com/david/MotorcycleElectrical/IgnitionProblems.htm

also if you have a severe coil voltage drop during cranking you may want to do the coil relay mod

everything checks out. still really weak spark. I have a second GL1100, i suppose ill start swapping parts until it works... First, i'll clean up all the connections