my latest build. 2 stroke GT185 cafe racer.

peteGS said:
Keen to follow along here, being a bit of a Suzuki nut and all :)

I gotta say one thing I love with your previous builds is how you integrate the seat and tank. Too many builds I've seen over the years that haven't done that and either just don't look right with gaps or (worse still) leave testicle tearing bolts and metal edges between the seat and tank. I wince just looking at them!

Love your previous builds you've posted, really looking forward to seeing this one come to life!
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some people say that I over analyze everything. It took me forever to plan out the seat and tank on this bike.
 
teazer said:
Nice work as always. Those tanks look great but as you pointed out are a PIA to fit and are not good with a single tap. On an RD Yamaha, or CB160 frame the fuel tap set up fouls the frame rails and has to be moved.

Would you mind sharing what modifications you had to make? We often see things that people have done and want to copy the idea and have no idea how to actually pull it off. It might be both educational and inspirational for people to learn how things are done.
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Hey Teazer, nice to be back. Are you going to make it up to Brewtown Rumble this summer? If so, you will see this GT185 and my Suzuki S32-2 Olympian that I restored. I am going to enter both in the bike show this year- assuming I finish the GT185. I doubt I will have a problem finishing them both. I will take your advice and post some pics with more details.
 
So here is the tank bottom. The tank came with a single threaded bung welded into it for the petcock. The petcock that came with the tank was absolute crap. It was really small and cheap. As you can see in the pics, I removed the threaded bung, tapped the hole and screwed in a cap head screw. My welder guy then welded that cap screw to the tank.

Also, notice the two 1/8 NPT threaded bungs that I got from Bung Kings. Those were also welded in place and 90 degree 1/8 NPT to 1/4" threaded barb adapters were threaded into the tank. These will serve as a crossover tube, so gas can equally distribute between sides. Otherwise, because the tank tunnel is so high, a lot of gas would stay on the opposite side of the petcock and range would be significantly diminished.

Finally, notice the 3/8 NPT bung that was welded in place. That will serve as the new petcock mount for the pingel style 1/4" petcock that I will use.

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next up was mounting that actual tank. The tank came with a rear mounting tab that extended straight out from the back of the tank. This would have extended into my seat, so I bent that tab at a 90 degrees downward angle and had it welded for reinforcement. I put a rubber grommet inside and now it mounted to a separate tab that I welded into the frame.

IMG_7137.jpeg
 
then came mounting the front of the tank to the frame. The stock frame pucks did not match up. I recycled an extra honda CB swingarm adjuster arm by cutting them apart and welding each side of the swingarm adjuster pieces to the frame. I had some extra 1/2" bar stock laying around that I ran thru the swingarm adjusters to hold the tank. Its hard to explain but hopefully the pic makes sense.

you will notice the stock tank brackets on the frame by the green masking tape.


ignore the ugly ass welds. I haven't cleaned those up yet.

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here is a pic of the bike and pipes mounted up as I try and sort out the clearance issues.

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Here is the front end. The fork lowers are powder coated grey. The caliper was rebuilt and powder coated a bronze metallic color. These forks are pretty tiny (30mm). The fork tubes were corroded and rather than spending $400 on new fork tubes, I sourced some gaiters from ebay. Normally I don't care for the look of gaiters, but I wanted to save a little money on this project.

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and here is the AVon rear tire, waiting to be mounted. I have a matching front in 2.75-18 size.

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Thanks for posting the tank details. That should help a lot of us to work out what's involved in fitting one of those tanks.

I find that most parts for a small bike are not much cheaper than the same parts for a bigger bike, but those AVON AV83 tires are a bargain and rated up to 112mph is a bonus. Looks like they would work well on CB350/260 sized bikes as well.

Brewtown Rumble www.brewtownrumble.com/ on May 31 in Milwaukee is now on my calendar. Thanks for the reminder.
 
teazer said:
Thanks for posting the tank details. That should help a lot of us to work out what's involved in fitting one of those tanks.

I find that most parts for a small bike are not much cheaper than the same parts for a bigger bike, but those AVON AV83 tires are a bargain and rated up to 112mph is a bonus. Looks like they would work well on CB350/260 sized bikes as well.

Brewtown Rumble www.brewtownrumble.com/ on May 31 in Milwaukee is now on my calendar. Thanks for the reminder.
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no problem. The day before, on the 30th, is superbikes and rockerbox at road america. They got rid of the vintage races and moved rockerbox to superbikes on saturday.
 
Thanks for the heads up on Road America. Haven't been to the AHRMA races for years and didn't realize they had moved to Blackhawk. So it's now MotoAmerica superbikes that weekend at RA with their new Heritage class plus Rockerbox on Saturday followed by Brewtown Rumble on Sunday in Milwaukee. That's cramming the calendar. Did I get that right?

No. The Rockerbox page says it's July 17-19 and Vintage Motofest is May 30-31. I'm confused...
 
teazer said:
Thanks for the heads up on Road America. Haven't been to the AHRMA races for years and didn't realize they had moved to Blackhawk. So it's now MotoAmerica superbikes that weekend at RA with their new Heritage class plus Rockerbox on Saturday followed by Brewtown Rumble on Sunday in Milwaukee. That's cramming the calendar. Did I get that right?

No. The Rockerbox page says it's July 17-19 and Vintage Motofest is May 30-31. I'm confused...
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You might be looking at last years schedule?. If you look at the road America calendar you will see that motoamerica superbike series and vintage motofest are on the same weekend may 29-31 and the rockerbox show is specifically the 30th. Confusing, I know
Here’s the link
https://www.roadamerica.com/buy-tickets/motoamerica-superbike-doubleheader.html
 
Nice progress! Gotta love skinny tyres too! Mind you I thought my GS450's were skinny but the 90/90-18 on the front makes your 2.75 front look even skinnier :D
 
peteGS said:
Nice progress! Gotta love skinny tyres too! Mind you I thought my GS450's were skinny but the 90/90-18 on the front makes your 2.75 front look even skinnier :D
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thanks. Its a work in progress.

I toyed with the idea of bigger tires, but its only a 185cc bike. The rims are only 1.65 and the forks are tiny. No sense cramming giant tires in there. According to most true manufacturers, the maximum tire size on a 1.65 rim, is 3.00 .

Plus, larger tires probably wouldn't look right. As an added bonus, these little tires are damn cheap. I paid less than $100 for both tires and a pair of tubes!
 
For skinny rims like our small bikes, fatter tires look out of place. WM1 (1.6") the recommended size is 2.50" or 2.75 IIRC. 3.00 is already on the large size.

The rims could be swapped for say 1.85" (wm2) or even 2.15" (WM3) at the rear and those tires you bought would still work according to AVON UK. That's about as wide as street 500 twins and 650s ran back in the day. Sub 200cc bikes don't need fat tires. We ran 80/90 front and 90/90 rear on our race CB160s

TD3 race bikes had a WMO (1.5") front rim IIRC and they raced at Daytona at 140 mph on those.
 
Yeah +1 on the wider tyre comments, and from my experience trying a 100/90-18 on the front of the 450 it just made cornering horrible with a weird tip in experience which is no fun at all!
 
nothing overly exciting to report at this time. Unfortunately I will be in a holding pattern for a couple weeks. My aluminum seat pan was shipped to Oregon for upholstery work. That might take a month or so. Evidently she is very busy because she also has my Suzuki S32 seat since November, and still shows no sign of completing it anytime soon.

Anyway, I need the seat to be finished before I move on to getting the seat pan and tank powder coated. Still unsure on a color choice for those yet. I am going for a monotone scheme.

The frame, swingarm, fork lowers, triples trees, footpeg brackets, side and center stands, license bracket, and hubs are all going to be a grey with a faint metallic.

The side covers, rims, and caliper are a dark bronze/black color that is matte finish. Finally the spokes are gloss black.

I can't decide if I want to stick with monotone and do black or grey bodywork (possibly with a metal flake clear top coat), or if I want to go a little more bold with a color (possibly a candy red or blue). Either way, I will save a crap-ton of money by not having to paint the tins on this build, which is why I went with the chinese knock-off tank. Its brand new and can be powder coated.
 
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