GR650......starting over for the last time

This showed up today:



Bandit 1200 wheel with a 120/70-17 tire. I need to check the rotors to see if I can use them, and the bearings & tire will be replaced before I ride it, but I can mock up some other stuff now.
 
Hey rich when you get time can you give me the axle size for that wheel ? I'm looking to put GSXR wheels on the FJ and was told a bandit wheel is the same . I think the rotors are 320mm and that it has a mechanical speedo drive correct ?
 
DreadRock said:
Hey rich when you get time can you give me the axle size for that wheel ? I'm looking to put GSXR wheels on the FJ and was told a bandit wheel is the same . I think the rotors are 320mm and that it has a mechanical speedo drive correct ?

Axle should be 20mm.
 
Yep, 20mm axle. Here's a good link for rotor info:

http://metalgear.com.au/mgear-brake-disc-front-gold-centre-p-11076.html

As far as the wheels go: the pre-2001 Bandit 1200 and RF900 (all years) have identical front wheels with mechanical speedo drives. Starting in 2001, they went to electronic pickups. I can't remember exactly why, but I think GSXR wheels are different because of something else......
 
Got the rear wheel in today, and got both of them mounted up:



The rear wheel is from a 2001 Katana 750. Now I have to figure out the spacing for everything. The front wheel is kind of odd......when using the supposed proper axle spacers, the wheel is offset by about 6mm. It's almost like the solid spacer on the left side is 2mm too wide.
 
Thanks man!

I lowered the bike down so it's sitting on it's own 2 feet again, and took the fairing off because it is kinda just in the way for now:

 
Got a little more done last night. Here's the upper fairing mount on the backbone:



I made an "L" shaped tab, drilled to match the tab on the frame. Dug up a solid 3/8" rod, and cut a slit so the "L" tab would slide in, and welded them together. After that picture was taken, I heated up and bent the rod forwards, but forgot to take another picture .....oops.

And here are some lower fairing mounts:



They are directly in front of the engine, and slightly below the exhaust ports.
 
Something odd I noticed about the Bandit forks is that there's no proper brace (Danejurrous, can you confirm that?). The stock fender is solid plastic, and the fork mounts are really high up (above the tire, actually):



So I bought some stainless allen bolts, and 6mm coupler nuts, and tightened them to the forks. Made a cardboard template to rest on top of the coupler nuts:

 
Cut a .100" steel plate in the shape of the cardboard template, and tack welded it to the coupler nuts:



And here's the whole thing with some more welds:

 
Later Bandits and RF900's had vertical bolts and fork braces, so don't know, maybe yours is an early one. And maybe back then they thought the fender was enough? At any rate, make sure you get some vertical section welded across there (maybe some .100" x 1/2" flat bar in an "X" pattern between the hex spacers), otherwise just having that plate across won't do much, it will just flex.
 
Joe Suzuki said:
Later Bandits and RF900's had vertical bolts and fork braces, so don't know, maybe yours is an early one. And maybe back then they thought the fender was enough? At any rate, make sure you get some vertical section welded across there (maybe some .100" x 1/2" flat bar in an "X" pattern between the hex spacers), otherwise just having that plate across won't do much, it will just flex.

I brought this up to Rich in another forum post.I run Bandit fenders on my Katana front ends on my GS500s.I have never seen a bandit fork set with this style of fender mounting.It kind of seems like the VX800 had these forks.
 
Joe, do you mean the early Bandits and RF900's? Because all the info I've read stated that early Bandit 1200 forks were identical except for extra length. And I've seen the vertical mounts w/ braces on the RF900 ..... so I was really surprised when I couldn't find an actual brace in the later Bandits.

And thanks for the tip! I was going to add more material, but was unsure how to go about it. Maybe once I figure out some type of splash guard, I'll add some material then.....
 
Here ya go Ben:

http://www.partzilla.com/parts/search/Suzuki/Motorcycle/2001/GSF1200/FRONT+DAMPER/parts.html

I can't remember the years, but I think it was from 01-05 they used these forks on the Bandit 1200.
 
Oh! Just some more info I'd like to get on the internet - I think I figured out the front wheel spacing issue I had. The talk about early / late Bandit parts reminded me.....

I've read a couple spots around the net saying that RF900 and GSF12 front ends are very interchangeable, with the differences being fork length, top clamp shape, and steering stem length. So I assumed that because I have an RF900 triple tree, GSF12 wheel, and LATE model GSF12 forks, I'd be in the clear......wrong. Somebody on a Bandit forum had an early Bandit 1200 and they damaged their top clamp or something. When they asked if a later clamp would work, somebody said the fork spacing was different. The only thing I can think of is that the later Bandit forks have more material at the axle area - so that the wider fork spacing uses the same axle spacers.

I ended up trimming the axle spacer on the left side (later Bandits use a digital speedo pickup, doing away with the geared speedo drive). I only took off about 3mm off the spacer, and now the brake rotors are spaced evenly on each side from the forks. Still not sure what that will affect once I get calipers though.....
 
Nice work so far Rich, I would do something like this on the brace.
 

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Big Rich said:
Here ya go Ben:

http://www.partzilla.com/parts/search/Suzuki/Motorcycle/2001/GSF1200/FRONT+DAMPER/parts.html

I can't remember the years, but I think it was from 01-05 they used these forks on the Bandit 1200.

Ok cool.I never seen that style fork on a Bandit.
 
So here's where I'm at with the upper fairing mount - I bent it forward a little bit and installed the fairing to see exactly where it needs to go. Might be much, but it's progress....

 
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