78' GS750: Budget Cafe (ON THE ROAD!!! 99.99% done!)

DannyMotor

Blood, sweat and beers.
Alright... picked this pile up for next to nothing. I've had it for about a month... So far, progress is:

Frame Painted
Carbs Rebuilt, bench-balanced
Engine Painted
Wiring Harness Fixed
GS1000L Front-End Swap
GS1000 Cast Wheels
4-into-1 exhaust (needs paint)
TONS of polishing... I almost fear too much.
Lots of little bits, seals, o-rings, gaskets, etc... all on order.

This bike is none-the-less a basket-case. The motor is sound though... valves all look great, intake and exhaust ports are gorgeous, shims/cam lobes look like new, except for one that may have gotten a bit hot at one point.

Some of the worry-some things are Carb #4 was missing it's o-rings... Probably caused rich condition causing the heat in cylinder 4 to go up, causing a bit of of discoloration on the exhaust port cam lobe. The entire electrical system was hacked into, with multiple melted grounds... which was fun to hack up and re-work. The knuckle-head installed a HID headlight... what a moron, and was also running JUST down-pipes... poor valves... It was also missing multiple motor mounts, thus causing me to think that this motor was swapped in at some point from another bike.

The Title matches the frame, but the mileage doesn't match the VIN... meaning it's either been run for years with a broken speedo cable, or the motor or speedo has been swapped.

In all honesty, who knows... as long as everything is in spec... I don't care. It should run.


SO... here's when I got her :(...

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Re: 78' GS750E Restomod/Cafe-ish.

Now, here's the fun stuff ... :)

CARBS Before:

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CARBS After:

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MOTOR Before:

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MOTOR: After/Kinda still during...

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FRAME Before:

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FRAME After (Those are water droplets, not paint bubbles):

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Re: 78' GS750E Restomod/Cafe-ish.

And some little mock-up and 'during construction' pics... More to come. These are mainly mock-up of GS1000 rear tire, and front end... then, I got a little over-zealous and wanted to see the current look... because I need motivation.

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Re: 78' GS750E Restomod/Cafe-ish.

Alrighty, so... spent most of the day finishing up all the polishing bits:

Top Triple
Mag Cover
Points Cover
Clutch Cover
Clutch Case
Cam Breather

I think that's it... total!

I ended up using wrinkle-black paint on the chain cover, due to it being a gross area and honestly thinking that it'd be TOO shiny... which I don't really want. Once I get the new emblems for the motor it should tone down the polishing by a lot.

Finished up with the carburetors finally... Thanks to CycleORings for the bolts and all the o-rings needed to get the boots and carbs back into operational order.

Did a bench-balance on all of the carbs.. so now they all "click" shut at the same time... of course that doesn't matter once the idle screw was re-installed, but it's a better starting point.

I had my AF screws set at 1.5 turns out, and the larger "SET FROM FACTORY DO NOT TOUCH" screw by the bottom bowls set to 2 full turns out. So... they're balanced as much as possible before gas gets to them.

Started more prep and paint today. Got all of the polished bits coated in 3 coats of lacquer and have the exhaust stripped very near to bare metal. Battery box, and engine brackets are next as well as front discs as they're already off the hubs.

So, here's the plan for the rest of the chassis:

Fork Seals, Lower forks painted flat black.
Exhaust painted flat black.
Battery Box painted gloss black.
Air-Box painted flat black.
Front and Rear disc centers painted gold.
Engine brackets painted gold.
Lower triple tree painted gold.
Rear swingarm painted aluminum.
Rear brake stay painted black.
Front and rear brakes gloss black.
Wheels... on the fence.
Sprocket, aluminum (cleaned up).
Rear shocks... either clean up what I've got or invest in new... on the fence.
Headlight, kick-stand, center-stand - gloss black.
Gauge cluster, peg mounts, flat black.

Then it should be the home stretch and I can focus on rolling chassis, getting it turned over, and working on the tins.

Things left to buy:
- Rear Motor Mount (located)
- GS750L, or other leading-fork axle (unknown)
- Marker lights (something aftermarket)
- Bolts... lots and lots of bolts.
- Paint.
- Possibly tires... but what I have are OK for now.

I'm so excited to finally see the bike taking shape. Each little bit I bolt on puts a bigger and bigger smile on my face. It's not perfect... and it won't win any shows... but it's saved... unless it doesn't start or I cant locate a title... in which case I'll have one hell of a lawn-ornament.... maybe I'll invest in lawn gnomes.
 
Re: 78' GS750E Restomod/Cafe-ish.



Finalization on the motor cases :)... you don't really need a 'before'.

AFTER:

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Wiring.

BEFORE:

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AFTER:

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Wiring and gauge makeover (not the faces yet...)

BEFORE:

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AFTER:

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Rear shocks

BEFORE:

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AFTER:

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Exhaust...

BEFORE:

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AFTER:

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And this is where it stands right now:

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Some of the awesome things that happened.

1. Spare airbox had a brand new, un-oiled KnN filter hiding inside it.
2. The bike turns over (which it didn't do when I got it)
3. The bike has spark!!!!

So hopefully in the next 2 weeks, I'll be able to run it. I'm currently waiting on case bolts and a rear motor mount... then it's turning the key and pushing the button and seeing what happens.

It at least gives me time to finish up some of the loose ends...

Currently, working on these... we'll see how they turn out...

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Re: 78' GS750: Budget Cafe Build

Wow man, you're doing some killer work on this. Moving right along........
 
Re: 78' GS750: Budget Cafe Build

Thanks man! It's super fun. This is my first "road bike" build... I'm used to doing old mopeds and dirtbikes... so it's a bit of a learning curve, but at the same time it's one of those... "AHA!" moments in Japanese engineering for me... haha.

More to come!
 
Re: 78' GS750: Budget Cafe Build

Finished up the exhaust tonight...

I can't remember where I saw this, but I've seen these old 4 into 1 exhausts with a red tip/cap on the baffle and it just screamed 70's cafe racer... so I went for it.

Came out alright. Picture does it justice... even though it looks orange-ish.

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Don't mind the absolute trash my workshop is in right now... haha.
 
Re: 78' GS750: Budget Cafe Build

THE BIKE FREAKIN' RUNS A MINT!

Fired right up after filling the bowls... which, mind you, caused a huge leak when I forgot to screw back in the bowl nut and well, there goes the nice clear-coat on my clutch cover... (rats). And I had just filled the damn thing with oil. Now I'm going to have to salvage it on the bike. OH well!

IT RUNS!!!!

Sounds pretty good, had it on PRI for a minute or two, then on RES and it calmed down a bit, no popping, but it doesn't like to be blipped right now, probably the rings need freeing up a bit and the fact that there's no airbox on it..

But I am friggen psyched. Checked the electrical while running and it seems the mount screw (ground) on the rectifier (the one on the side of the battery box) was getting warm... so I may have to doublecheck the ground... but other than that... the thing's a freakin' beast.

Now I'm in love... and now I can start fine-tuning the theme, paint, and start covering up some of the nicks and dings I made during mock-up. I'm still waiting on a few things to make it 100% done chassis wise... but the good news is...

NOW I CAN PAINT THE TINS!!!!

Video uploading... probably an hour from now.
 
Re: 78' GS750: Budget Cafe Build

Congrats man! The r/r is supposed to get warm - that means it's doing it's job. It can however, over heat so there are testing procedures in the service manual (and online).
 
Re: 78' GS750: Budget Cafe Build (IT RUNS! Video within :))

Love this. Glad to see a Suzuki too! Charge on.
 
Re: 78' GS750: Budget Cafe Build, rear end

Alrighty... so movin' on up in the world.

Rebuilt the master cylinders
Painted the side covers
Finished up the air-box
Finished the rear fender and tail light mount
Final-mounted the swingarm
Test-mounted the rear wheel
Finished paint and polish on the rear wheel

Next steps... finish the paint, figure out some mods to the steering lock, *GS1000 forks are JUST touching the tank... thinking of JB welding a couple washers to the lock points as spacers.

Other than that... She's got another couple of weeks of work.

Still waiting on the correct fork seals and spacers (which were impossible to find) and painting the headlight, forks and gas tank... Then... Graphics, emblems, and clear-coat... not necessarily in that order. :D


Started with this:
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And, now I have this:

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Some pics of the redone controls:

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And the finished air-box with the 'lucky find' K&N filter, freshly oiled with new upper gasket...

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Also, some of the paint prep...

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As you can tell, I'm going with Titanium blue... the graphics will wait til the end.

This is what I started with...

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Notice the 'brushed on house-paint' appearance on the tail section.... gross.
 
Re: 78' GS750: Budget Cafe Build (WHEELS DONE)

OH, and here's an update.

-New blinkers... and blinker unit.
-Painted the downtubes.
-Painted the brakes.
-Painted the plastics.
-Painted the tank.

Ordered:
-Stainless brake lines.
-Petcock rebuild kit.
-Fork seals.
-Brake rebuild do-dads
-530 chain conversion kit (chain and sprox)

Not much left to do...
-Drill and tap broken peg shaft bolt.
-Drill and tap steering stops to insert bolts (so the forks don't hit the tank)
-Figure out the headlight mount.
-Repaint top triple tree

... I can't think of much else... I'm sure there's loads more.. or more that I'll find once I start to really nut-and-bolt everything during final assembly.

OH... totally changed the color too... now it's Sonic Blue Pearl. It looks almost 'blurple' in the dark (or when the parts are inside) but in the sun (or florescent lighting) it looks close to WRX blue. Which is sick.

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Couple more coats and then some 2x Urethane clear on all the paint and she'll be good to go!
 
Re: 78' GS750: Budget Cafe (IT'S BLUE)

So, got my steering stem sorted...

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Got my new R/R installed...

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Got my fork seals and finished my forks.... then I grabbed the 1/2 finished gas-tank... all the plastics... and started gloating to myself in my garage... It looks like a freakin' WRX... and that makes me happy! Still a LONG way to go.

Just ordered up my 530 sprocket conversion, stainless brake lines, petcock rebuild kit, brake rebuild kits, and fork gaiters. SOON... VERY SOON!!!!

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Re: 78' GS750: Budget Cafe (IT'S BLUE)

Got a lovely little package in the mail today:

Stainless brake line kit
Fork boots (for Rancho truck shocks $3 each)
Emblems for side covers
Sprox and chain (530 conversion kit)

That, and I figured out how to do a time-lapse with my GoPro... so maybe there will be a build montage. Who knows.

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Re: 78' GS750: Budget Cafe (IT'S BLUE)

Hokay...

The "Done" List:

- Brake lines.
- Fork Boots.
- Chain and Sprockets
- Engine mounts
- Left-side peg fix/install (drill and tap snapped bolt)

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Sooo close.

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