84 GR650 frankencycle (2nd time around El Tempter)

[axe]

Re: 84 GR650 Frankencycle

Very inspiring build!!!!

I'm currently finalizing my bobber project parts list... Like you i am a canuck, with a small budget, and not a lot of experience... I'm humming and hawing between getting parts from Blue collar bobbers, or chopping up my stock parts...

 

[Onion Man]

Re: 84 GR650 Frankencycle

IT"S ALIVE!!!!!

So apparently I suck at keeping up at build threads...sorry... It has been a long spring full of trial and error and more error but today I finally hit the switch and with a sigh of relief, it ran like a very very loud top!! so here are some photos of the trasformation at various stages.. it is done for now but i might upgrade the exhaust, add some pipe wrap and rubbers on the forks later in the summer.. But for now it's time to get out there and ride.. I still need to find the little screws that hold the suzuki badging on so you will have to imagine them for now..

Once the wiring was finished I moved on to the Cutting it apart stage

Then it was time to start learning how to paint

testing some sissy bar ideas

Then it was on to learning how to and how not to weld and fab up a battery box...( just because it looks like it will fit doesnt mean it will)

Next I started working on the skateboard seat... I mounted a tail light on it, painted it black, spray glued on some yoga foam and covered it in marine pleather..

Then came the biggest meanest tire I could find

Made a throttle cable out of a lawnmower choke and two sockets

Lastly I made a side plate mount, threw on some mini gauges, small sigs, pod filters, clip ons and removed the ignition and... voila El Tentador

 

[Big R]

Re: 84 GR650 Frankencycle

Nice! Have you had a chance to run around on it yet?

 

[Onion Man]

Re: 84 GR650 Frankencycle

Yeah I had it out all afternoon.. I re jetted the carbs, hollowed out the pipes and put on the pods and the thing flys!! I will post some pics of me riding it so you can get an idea of just how small the bike is now and see the stance.. It handles so well and has so muck more power that it is hard to believe i am riding the same bike..

 

[Big R]

Re: 84 GR650 Frankencycle

Ha! Please do. I was curious as to how......ergonomic it is now. What jetting did you go with too?

 

[CresentSon]

Re: 84 GR650 Frankencycle

Well executed bike. Very nice job on the seat.

 

[pablohoney]

Re: 84 GR650 Frankencycle

I really dig that thing, it is bad ass! Very unique.

 

[Onion Man]

Re: 84 GR650 Frankencycle

Ha! Please do. I was curious as to how......ergonomic it is now. What jetting did you go with too?

ergonomic she is not... but what El Tentador lacks in posture she more than makes up for in pure ass kicking badassness!! and in the end i didn't set out to build a long haul rider.. its fast and fun and that is exactly what I was going for.. As for the jetting I went with one size bigger then the stock mains and it is running a little lean still.. I will let you know what the exact setup I end up with is when I get all perfect and synched.

 

[Big R]

Re: 84 GR650 Frankencycle

Cool man, I wasn't trying to bust chops. Just curious about how you feel on it.

My 175 wasn't very comfortable, but I rode the heck out of it too!

 

[Onion Man]

After Two seasons on the first incarnation of El Tempter it is time to tear it down and do it up right!! I am fortunate enough to have a good friend with an entire industrial machine shop that just so happens to have a loft with room for two bikes.. The shop is massive with an industrial sandblaster, metal lathe, benders, presses and every tool under the sun, we have loaded my gr650 and his reicent score ( a running 71 bas lightning chopper he got for $1500!!!) annd its time to roll up the sleevs and do this right!


I havn't done much other than ride the bike since my last update but I did find out lots about what I like and don't like about it.

I think the direction is going to be somewhere between a cafe racer and a brat. I am planning to tear the engine down and rebuild the whole bike from the ground up. so where to start????

Heres the shopping list for now.

New front end - the seals in the stock front end are all shot and the bottom of the left fork tube is cracked so im going to replace the whole front end with something that will perform better. Which brings me to my first question. fitting a new front end?? if the fork tube size is the same can you straight swap the whole front end?? or do you need to replace the tripple trees??

rear sets - after one two many leg cramps rear sets are a must this time!

spokes - so i want to switch to spoked rims, i know the gr650 x came with spoked rims so i am going to try to find a rear rim online and I am hoping to run a 16" fromt rim with a large tire to mach.. SO ideally I would like to find a front end that would fit a common 16" spoked rim so I can kill two birds with one stone (hopefully)

seat - I am going for a tuck and roll brat style seat but i have yet to find one for sale online that i like so any seat builder recommendation would be tons of help

other than that its gonna be a lot of figuring out as i go and this time I am going to keep the blog up to date as I go. Here is how she sits as of today and some pics of us loading the bikes into the loft with a forklift!!! and some insperation pics too

 

[Big R]

Good to see you back at it man. As far as the front end goes - if you swap out just the forks, you would be extremely lucky if everything just "bolted up". The GR triple trees have a pretty unique fork spacing as far as I've found. It would be FAR easier to get a complete front end from another Suzuki GS (or even one of the older GT's).

Aside from maybe a modern Harley (and I'm even guessing about that) - 16" front wheels are not the norm. Suzuki experimented with running a 16" on their early sport bikes, but that was eventually ditched for modern 17" wheels. There are a couple things to look at when considering a 16" front wheel - fork spacing, rolling diameter compared to stock, low speed maneuvering, etc. The further you get from the stock 100/90-19 wheel, the more that front end is going to be lowered. Personally I wouldn't run anything smaller that an 18" front wheel.

 

[Onion Man]

thanks for the input rich, I am looking into all my options and trying to decide what direction to go with the front end.. But on a high note I gor a smokin deal on a 61 Jawa tank and headlight so im pretty stoked about that

 

[Onion Man]

Re: 84 GR650 frankencycle 2nd time around El Tempter (tank and mock up)

So tonight was an eventful evening..

Began by fitting the new jawa tank to see if it was the look i was going for.. which obviously led to removing the entire wiring harness to get a sense of what the bike was going to look like when it was all cleaned up.. which obviously led to the next logical step... cutting all non essential frame away to se what I was really working with haha.. Once that was done I was able to see that I do in fact really like the tank and i am more stoked than ever to move forward with this project..

Starting this build I really wanted to go towards the wrenchmonkeys/bratstyle look (although not everyones cup of tea) The only problem is that once I removed all the extra frame in the tail section it really opened up the options as far as the direction of the build was concerned..

So here are some mock ups i did in illustrator of a few ideas, still leaning towards the brat look but my friend who is building a 71 bas lightning bobber is pushing me to hard tail it and now that the mono shock is exposed the cafe idea isnt looking like a bad idea either.. Feel free to weigh in on what configuration you think is gonna look best!

The next step is welding up the new back end, finding a new front end and starting to tear down the engine!!

 

[DivingDane]

BRAT! For sure check out the bike that ellaspede in Australia has just finished a very nice example of a GR650 with some cool simple changes.

 

[Tuner Automotive]

Skateboard seat is INGENIOUS! As a lifelong skater I have plenty of old decks for seats now