Recent content by duckdog28

after a long time... finished project.

Gauges and new idiot lights are now mounted. Controls are on the bars. Wiring nearly complete. Next task, reconnect fuel system....

Yes, I believe the Suzuki bandit 1200 shock is a linkage setup although much stouter than the one that came from the factory on the GPZ. I've got both dirt and paved roads around my house so I decided on an aggressive tire. A cafe bike isnt just for the street anymore :)

I had thought about painting that bottom edge of the tank black, but we'll see... Here are some better shots of the top mount when it was tack welded in place. It has been finish welded since these photos were taken:

Re: GPZ 550 Build Next steps will be to get the old gauges and idiot lights off of the triple tree and mounted lower between the forks and headlight. This will likely require a custom bracket so it'll go back to the machine shop in a week or two to see what they can dream up for me. I also...

Re: GPZ 550 Build Next it was time to tackle some electronics. Electricity is black magic to me, and I am lucky enough to have a buddy who is a ninja with such things. :D He was able to help me with extending the wiring harness and relocating the battery, fusebox, ignition and such;

Re: GPZ 550 Build The guys said they could weld the shock mount to the swingarm but that the weld they'd do with the spool gun wouldnt look great, so it was off to find someone to TIG weld it for me. After a bit of a search, I was able to find a welder. Next it was time to get that dual...

Re: GPZ 550 Build Now it was time to find another shop who could help with the installation of the Suzuki shock. Luckily I found a couple of guys from my home state of Indiana who had just opened a machine shop nearby. They were up for the challenge and had the shock installed with a pretty...

Re: GPZ 550 Build The guy who was helping me out with the fab work wasnt excited about my plans for the new shock. I dont know if he didnt like the idea of welding the aluminum, but he wanted to either build a new swingarm out of steel, or leave the factory suspension in place. He just wasnt...

Re: GPZ 550 Build I'm pretty mechanically inclined, but I dont have any fab. equipment, so I knew I'd need to find some help with welding some tubing. The guys in my area are chopper guys, but I was able to find someone cool enough to work on a cafe project. Next, I bought a shock on...

Re: GPZ 550 Build So, with the new tank on it was time to get it running. With a little help, a carb rebuild, some new tires, and a new chain, I was able to ride her a few miles down the road;

Re: GPZ 550 Build The bike would have looked like this in 1984 But I didnt like the tank so the next task was to find a tank from an '82 or '83 on ebay. I found one for about $120 and bought it.

Re: GPZ 550 Build So I started researching the GPZ and found that in 1984 the swingarm was changed to aluminum and got a little bigger, which I liked, but the tank changed and I didnt like it as much. So I started searching craigslist and found my bike. A 1984 GPZ 550 without a tank. It had...

Re: GPZ 550 Build But, I wasnt in love with the original suspension, or the battery and electronics on the gpz so I photo-shopped my "ideal bike" and ended up with this (See attachment - ideal cafe bike) for what I wanted to try to build

Re: GPZ 550 Build But, I didnt have the cash to do an amazing bike like Robs and I didnt want to have to replace the whole swingarm/tire/suspension because of the cost and time required to do so. So, I started looking for bikes that already had a similar swingarm set up and found the GPZ550...