Project "Hurst" - '82 GL500 - Almost Road Worthy

First, I'll just Introduce myself, name's Andy and I'm 18 and from the suburbs south of Minneapolis/St. Paul. I've been perusing the site here for the past two months and can't believe the knowledge and bikes I've seen here. It all got me thinking of crazy ideas for mine, but with a tight budget consisting of saving for college in 8 months, and only being able to work 20 hours a week while still in high school, I've decided to keep it simple.

Ok, so heres the story. I got this 1982 GL500 back in August for nothing from a good friend of my boss. It has spent the past 13 years in a barn after having a wheel bearing freeze up destroying everything after the drive shaft. I was able to get it running in September after new plugs, oil, carb clean, and a battery and have since gotten the parts to make it complete (Have not been able to ride it yet though)
Differential
Rear Wheel
Rear Brake Assembly
Rear Wheel Bearings
Gas Tank (Old one was in pretty rough shape, most of the lower 2 inches was nearly gone from rust and the inside had mountains of rust)

Now that it's nice and cold outside I've started collecting new parts in my basement to change it up from stock. Heres what I've collected so far.
Head Light Mounting Brackets (JC Whitney)
Jet Kit
Headlight (Yamaha DT125)
Superbike Bars
Bar End mirrors
Fork Seals
Lots more on the Ebay list!

Now my plans are just to make it clean. I have some left over paint from painting my friends BMW and his dad is a painter so It will been dark metallic green (BMW Iceland Metallic Green) with everything else blacked out. For my seat/tail I plan on building a fiberglass pan with the factory cowl and nice flat vinyl cover seat.

Heres some photos of her:
First Day Home:


And About 5 Minutes After Arrival:


And Then Heres The Parts Table:

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

Welcome to DTT! Interesting bike to start with man. Dont see too many of them around these parts. Dont let that stop you though! Its all about doing something different right? Keep the updates coming!

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

Dude if I had a bike like that near the Twin Cities I'd turn it into the purple rain bike!

Lookin' good so far though, keep us posted

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

Nice bike man, it will be a fun project. My uncle totally made fun of mine when I first got it calling it the Garbagewagon and every time I'd go over to his house he'd sing "Purple Rain, Purple Raaaiiiiiiiinnnnnn!" Mine is a 1980 CX500 Custom, there are quite a few on this site surprisingly and a wealth of info. If you need anything just holler. And if it only took you 5min to get that fairing off you must be a rather knowledgable mechaninc haha, it took me about 30mins, and was secured with heavy duty angle iron and about 10 bolts including the 4 main engine bolts in front. What a pain for something soo hideous haha.

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

CUNNINGHAMMER said:

Nice bike man, it will be a fun project. My uncle totally made fun of mine when I first got it calling it the Garbagewagon and every time I'd go over to his house he'd sing "Purple Rain, Purple Raaaiiiiiiiinnnnnn!" Mine is a 1980 CX500 Custom, there are quite a few on this site surprisingly and a wealth of info. If you need anything just holler. And if it only took you 5min to get that fairing off you must be a rather knowledgable mechaninc haha, it took me about 30mins, and was secured with heavy duty angle iron and about 10 bolts including the 4 main engine bolts in front. What a pain for something soo hideous haha.

Click to expand...

Oh mine still has that nasty angle iron on it, I just took that ugly wind plow off of her. Compliments on your project there Cunninghammer, I love that front end, I'd think about doing something crazy like that this winter but mine is stuck in its home between my work bench and my car and four wheeler and all that junk.

Here's a small update (very small) : Ordered some new rubber, Shinko 712's front (100-90-19) and rear (130-90-16). Now the question is, how hard is mounting motorcycle tires? I have access to a bead breaker (work at a Precision Tune Auto Care) but is there any other special tools I would need?

Figured I would make a to do list to motivate myself after this nuts blizzard we had today (8 inches give or take and it's still coming down!)
Mount Both Tires
Paint Comstars Black
Figure out seat solution
Fork Seals
Find an appropriate new rear shock
Install/Rebuild Brake System (GS425 master cylinder, S.S. line, rebuild caliper)
New wheel bearings F&R
Chop front fender
Kreem liner on tank
Install new headlight/bars/etc.
Rejet Carbs
Pod Filters
Make a new H-Pipe
Inspect Clutch
Modify Gauges
Create a rear hugger style fender

I'm sure more stuff will come along

Just thought I'd add a little more about myself. Currently I'm a senior in high school, I work at a Precision Tune Auto Care as a Lube Tech/Mechanic. In 9 months I plan on going to college at the Milwaukee School of Engineering and plan to major in Mechanical Engineering. This is my first motorcycle, but I have experience working on ATV's, they can't be much different? I also have some experience rebuilding engines, I've rebuilt my current DD, a '97 Saturn SC2, incredibly fun car to drive (5 Speed/DOHC/lightweight). Then a dreaded '01 Dodge Intrepid with the "wonderful" 2.7 liter (long gone now though).

Hopefully I'll get some progress done this week, I plan to tear apart the rear half and determine what other rear shocks are the right size, and can handle the weight of this pig.

Andy

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

cool! another gl/cx

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

Hey Andy that looks like a pretty good todo list. I'm soo glad it doesn't snow here in Mesa AZ, although it does get 115 degrees in summer ,one thing I wanted to say is that I've heard bad things about Kreem liner and I have found out that the POR15 stuff is the way to go. I can't say for myself as I haven't had to coat a tank yet, but read into it. Kind of funny, I'm 23 years of age, work for Orbital Sciences (satellite launch systems and missile defense systems), I'm in school headed toward an eventual Electrical Engineering degree and my g/f drives a '99 Saturn SC2 haha. I just found that funny, and it is fun to drive, I enjoy driving it much more than my '03 Nissan Frontier (4cyl) which is why I NEED to get my bike on the road!

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

Welcome to DTT Andy!
Nice project you got goin on! I got the bigger sister to your Baby GL and another forum I am on (ngwclub.com) has a Silverwing section, I might be able to research some stuff there for you. Also look up Staffy here on DTT, he has been into the CX's pretty deep.

Here is a little eye candy for you, I think it is somebody's here, maybe one of the members who already welcomed you :

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

Not much of an update yet, this harsh Minnesota winter (over 3 ft of snow in the past 3 weeks) has definetly slowed my progress. My current project is putting together a front brake system. I've gotten myself a caliper rebuild kit and a fresh master off of a Suzuki GS425 and now I'm looking for a S.S. brake hose. What's the best source out there for a do it yourself line kit or custom set up?

Hopefully this next week while I'm off school I can get some more torn down so I can figure a new rear shock and complete my brake system.

P.S. Any suspension experts here know of a monoshock bike that weighs around 450-500 lbs that will be the suitable replacement shock for my GL?

Andy

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

check denniskirk.com and od course Dime City for brake parts.

I was actually looking for a replacement mono shock for a bike and a member called Hillsy had a link to a good list. The whole discussion was in the 1800cafehelp section somewhere.....

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

Not much to update here, now that winter is over and I'm seeing bikes all over the place. I got the motivation to get this project finished just to have it ridable and enjoyable. The winter was uneventful for this project, all I did was part collect, work and school kept me busy enough, but now that my senior year is approaching it's end I've got the time to finish this thing up.

I just got home from my friendly neighborhood DMV (they actually are very helpful and the process was painless), I now have it titled and I am ready to get repairing. For the time being I'm just going to replace the tires and fork seals, rebuild the front caliper, clean/coat the tank, and give her a quick black paint job.

More updates to follow in the next few days, I sure am impatient to get riding!

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser


Interesting project, mate!

Just curious about your screen name, though. Are you a sledder?

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

Thanks t71ford, the screen name is just an inside joke with my friends, for the longest time I drove my little 4 banger Saturn without a muffler or cat and it was loud and annoying! So the joke stuck around and I made it my screnname. No sleds for me though, I do have an ATV though and it's always a blast to rip it up on an ATV.

Andy

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

Well got some bad news, I have to wait about 60 days or so for my title application to be processed. So no riding for now, I plan on building a seat and doing a paint job for now and figure 60 days will be enough time to do it right. For my color scheme I'm going to use an Olds Hurst 442 scheme:



I plan on removing the forks this week and removing all the extra junk for the seat. Expect updates at the end of the week.

Andy

Re: GL500-Cafe/Resto/Cruiser

Cool.. projects are always fun and I wish you best of luck in yours sir.. looking forward to seeing how it progresses..

Re: GL500-Hurst Edition

Well, got bad news this morning, I dropped my dad's CX500 on my foot yesterday morning and fractured it in 3 places. So no riding for me at the moment but hopefully I can use this time to get this project finished up whilst I wait for a title.

Andy

Re: GL500-Hurst Edition

Which foot? If its the right, you can still ride... Hahah.

Get well soon man.

Re: GL500-Hurst Edition

It was the left, I've got one of those huge boots on too, so I can't drive my manual car either! It's going to be a long four weeks.

Re: GL500-Hurst Edition

Nothing exciting, still hobbling around these stupid crutches, but I took a weekend trip to Palm Springs to see Metallica, and on the plane I managed to put my thoughts into an archaic drawing:

Just where I plan on going with this. I've decided to give her the full cafe treatment now that I have another bike I can ride.

Oh and some more good news, received the title in the mail from the DMV yesterday (much sooner then I hoped). So progress will begin once I can comfortably stand on my foot.

Andy

Re: GL500-Hurst Edition

Nothing exciting to report once again, picked up some fiberglass materials today. Hope to make copy's of the original side covers and begin shaping a seat. Still need to decide on some paint, anyone know of a good metallic gold spray paint? Went around to a few places today, (O'Reilly's, Home Depot, and Ace Hardware), all I could find was Rustoleum Universal Metallic Gold, but it was a primer and paint in one and I wasn't too keen on a 2 in 1 paint.

Foot is finally feeling better so I can walk on it enough to get around the garage, maybe some progress can be made if I can get time away from the girlfriend the latter part of the week.

Andy