86 GS550 cafe fighter

lets begin....

I bought the bike last monday from Erik "Dirtygunn" from Cretins LA chapter

its basically a mid 80's piece of shit thats been neglected and ignored since 1991 when it was last registered

there are a lot of good things though: a nice Vance & Hines pipe, a functional motor, wheels & tires that hold air, three disc brakes, and a full floater rear end

besides, for the 250 I paid for it, I could probably part it out for a lot more if it looked like too much work

another thing; this is my first bike, and I didn't really want to get something totally rad just to wreck it


when I picked up the bike, it had no master cylinder, was disgustingly dirty, had a fucked to hell choke cable, and all the fairing were off. All of the bolts that hold the fairing on were also missing, but I didn't really want to run any of that boxy looking crap anyways...


I got it home, drained the tank, did some cleaning, added fresh gas, and it fired right up

it sounds healthy

two days go by...

then I got new grips, a master cylinder, bar end mirrors, and a set of clip-on's

got all that installed when I got home from the parts store, also lowered the forks about an inch

I ordered the choke cable, and I should have it in two days

I'm not completely sure about what to do with the headlight or with the seat

I'm thinking of making a cafe style seat for it, and just running cheapo driving lights for now,
kind of like a mix of cafe and fighter style

oh, and the asian guy on the ugly GS750 is my buddy jesse

he knows absolutly shit about anything mechanical, so I'm building that bike for him ;D
(one more thing, thats his rad vespa in the backround)

That looks like a great start. Some of the stock parts should start to fall off and the clip ons turned upside down--just my opinion. But overall, I think you could have done much worse for $250. Keep us updated as you progress, and make as many cool cafe parts as you can.

--Chris

chrisf said:

That looks like a great start. Some of the stock parts should start to fall off and the clip ons turned upside down--just my opinion. But overall, I think you could have done much worse for $250. Keep us updated as you progress, and make as many cool cafe parts as you can.
--Chris

Click to expand...

I agree.. Its definately got some potential!..
Have you thought of turning that baby into a Street Fighter?

haha

I thought of turning the clip-ons upside down, but then I tried it and realized that they wouldn't fit,
I almost mounted them under the tripple trees last night, but my better judgement prevailed;
I plan on doing a LOT of long rides

oh, also, the clip-ons that are on the bike aren't the ones that you see in the pics,
those are stock, and way to tall

the ones on there are about 4 inches shorter, and I also dropped the front end an inch and a half


and yeah, street fighter is something thats been floating around in my head for a while,
I think what I'm going to do though is make a custom tail section that looks something like this:


shamelessly stolen from a fellow dotheton member,
but I really think it looks cool,
and I'm thinking of painting the whole thing army air corps colors,
olive drab with the red white and blue star on either side of the seat

something like this:

or maybe something with a rising sun in it ;D
I always liked japanese things, hot kinky girls, JDM cars, and that one movie Battle Royale

today I got some super-duper ghetto driving lights from autozone and hooked them all up

I can see!

I bled the brakes; the old fluid looked like good beer

tomorrow I'm picking up the choke cable, and one of those sweet hjc carbon helmets

So let's see some newer pics. Looks like you guys are having fun with the build.

--Chris

This is why my bike isn't done yet...

jesse's bike is an utter piece of shit,
and needs more work than my racecar

I'm making a seat for it thats going to look somethingh like this:


heres some pics of a days worth of work on jesse's bike in my garage

Seanslides said:

Click to expand...

Is that Jesse? If so he looks like a huge help. I mean seriously, I spend so much time going to get my own beer! Thats what I need, someone to get beer and tools, and put the tools away. That would be perfect.

yepp

and actually,
thats his beer

freakin PBR drinkin bastard...

This is interesting I have the same bike (86 GS550) that I bot for 150$. It will run but only on 2 cylinders. Spark is good all across 4 and compression too. I've had the carbs apart for a good cleaning more than once but still think its a carb issue. Does your have the twin dual carb setup? I'm not sure what the real name would be but it has two carbs each with twin slides and venturis.

I've been thinking it could be a good platform for cafe or street fighter.

A japanese inline 4 that redlines north of 10 grand!!!!! I'd love to get it running on all 4 and wring it out some.

that would be twin two barrels

hmm....

good compression across all four

and spark?

are the cables hooked up right? if its blowing big ass flames out the carbs, firing order could be the issue
my suggestion would be to make a friend that knows what he doing around a set of carbs, and have him take a look at it

or, just take it to a shop and pay them to make it run right

where are you located at?

Should take your Buddys Vespa and put a cafe twist on it. ;D

haha

that vespa already has about a thousand bucks worth of factory accessories on it

he's got seven freakin headlights!
and chrome everything!

you should see what were doing to his gs750

hehe

that bike is gonna be sweet

some updates

I rebuilt the carbs late last night and the bike fired right up this morning

all four slides were frozen

I rode it today, and it runs fine

the next step is registration, and then a seat & paint

Excellent.

so its time for tires,
and this being my first bike, I'm totally stumped

I'm looking for the meattiest, grippiest, most track/canyon oriented tires available

something like a DOT race tire would be nice

and also something that wont rape my wallet


anybody have any ideas?

sizes are 120/80-16 front 120/90-18 rear

whats cheap and grippy?

Well no offense but in those sizes nothing is "Meaty".

And those sizes are going to seriously limit your choices. Avon has a couple of tires that look pretty tough and aren't to expensive. I like the Roadrider AM26. Chaparral has your sizes for about $80 a piece. If that is out of your range your probably going to have to check out Kenda or Chen Shin. They'd probably have something in your sizes for under $60 a piece.

Oh and I wouldn't worry to much about getting the "Grippiest" either. If it's your first bike you can probably put mountain bike tires on it and it will be able to out perform your abilities.

Good luck.

I tried Maxxis Promaxx. It cost me about $140 for the pair, so they were pretty cheap. I'm used to paying big $ for sportbike tires, so that for me is a steal.

Aint nothing ugly bout that 750 (cept that ugly 16v motor) GSs handle like butter. Great platforms for cafes IMO. If your buddy needs, i may have some 750 parts left over in the shed and basement from an 80 750 parts bike i had. Also have a motor with a cooked top end, but the bottom end is ok, if ya need anythingthere.