L-ski's '78 GS550

L-ski

L-ski

Active Member
Well, I sold my previous bikes (cb175 and cb400 hawk) over the winter and have pretty much been absent from DTT. This is no longer the case now, due to my recent find, haha.


1978 Suzuki gs550
Pretty much tip top condition for being 33 years old which is posing the question.... cafe or not to cafe
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? I would hate to hack this bike up. I feel like it deserves to be done right seeing how clean it has been kept for so long. But I have been wanting to build a cafe style bike for a while.


If anyone had any good pics or links of cafe'd gs550's I'd be interested in seeing them!


On to the pics!




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Just remember, when the birth of the cafe racer came about back in the 50's, racers were cutting up brand new, not a single scratch or mile on the bike and turning them into racers. :D Go Git'em!
 
Haha, thanks guys. I think I'm going to start looking for some cheap-ish clip-ons and see what happens from there.
 
in that mint condition, do you really expect to improve on anything by hacking it up? Leave it be. If it were uglier, I would say otherwise, but unless you really know what you're doing, you're going to ruin a perfectly nice bike.
 
Well I think it's your bike now and you should be able to do whatever you want with it. That is not a super rare bike. It is just in nice shape. It will be no loss to the history of motorcycling if there is one less bone stock GS550 in the world. Frankly, I don't know why people who feel otherwise are even on this site.
 
Whoa- that is one pretty bike. I'll throw in my $.02 though. "IF" it were mine, I wouldn't go nuts on it- no cutting tabs, no grinding parts off the frame, no hammering knee dents in the tank, nothing like that. Maybe add some drag bars or adjustable clubmans (GS tanks are known for being wide), upgrade the brakes and suspension, Raask rear sets (I think Omars has them), and swapping out the massive instrument cluster. Nothing that can't be un-done.
 
Wow that is gorgeous. Looks just like my dad's old bike. I would agree on a mild cafe or just slight revision. Then again, it would be nice to start a project on an almost totally clean slate so really this post probably isn't any help at all.
 
To add to what I said earlier, I personally would keep that bike stock. Being a recent college grad (i.e. POOR), I would appreciate that bike for what it is-a mint condition UJM. Taking a sawzall to it would instantly lower its value, unless I poured a lot more cash I would expect to get out of it. If money didn't matter and I was looking for a cafe donor, that GS would serve excellently assuming it requires no mechanical work. In that case, go for it ;)
 
Haha, thanks everyone. I am currently in college, so the main thing right now is to finish my last exam tomorrow and get home and RIDE the bike! I bought it, rode it around the block, put it in my garage (2 hours away) under a blanket and drove my car back to school to finish the semester. Its been driving me crazy that I haven't been able to ride it!

That being said, I like the idea of modifying lightly and still being able to go back to stock.
Plans for now:
1) Ride
2) Ride some more
3) Find some "college budget" bars. I really like clip ons, but my wallet likes clubmans.
4) Get the scoop on the rear sets that Big Rich mentioned.
 
Welp, seems like I'm having trouble shifting from 1st to 2nd. All of the other gears are fine once I get into second. Just wondering, if the bike isn't fully "warmed up", would this potentially cause shifting issues? Maybe the type of oil that was used from the previous owner? I just took it on a 30+ mile ride 2 days ago and had absolutely no issues with shifting. Clutch lever seems fine... I'm going to mess around with it more tomorrow, just trying to get ideas of what it could be.
 
Could it be a bent/abused shifter fork? I think if it was clutch related it would do it all the time.
 
It does look like that is often the cause of poor shifting from what I've read online. I have noticed that it is pretty hard to find neutral though ( not sure if this is relevant). I'm hoping it's something simple, haha. Will the shift fork be right behind the cover plate where the shift lever goes into the trans generally?
 
I drove around for an hour today and it seems like shifting at lower RPM's and waiting for the bike to get hot really helps that second gear shift...Which is great, no repair at this time haha.
 
Well I've since ridden this bike from Detroit to Warsaw Indiana 2 times now.... 880ish miles total for 2 round trips. Over 200 miles of city driving/ mini trips.

Point is, it's time to start.

If anyone has some old clubmans (or new) that they aren't using and wouldn't mind getting rid of cheap, I'll take em'.
 
What size are your forks L? If they are 35mm I have some clip ons I'm looking to sell. I also have a set of adjustable clubmans as well- not as cheap as normal clubmans but you don't have to worry about banging your tank up.
 
Wow..nice 550! I think the only thing I would do besides the bars, is modify the seat. That's not the original cover anyways. Suzuki's stock seats were hideous to say the least. Too big for the bikes. I have a '79 GS1000S and did that and it made a..pardon.."huge" difference in the way it looked. A nice clean stock bike can be easily made even nicer with a couple of small changes.

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