oh y'know, just another build thread.

[Ne0n]

I really dig the look of the brownish rims!
Tho I don't like your new clip-ons, loved the cross bike bar you had on there before.

[iamhiding]

Looks awesome man!

Love the double headlights.  If you want to change things up a bit, check out what I did with my Harley lights.

thanks man  couple of finished pics coming up shortly 

yeah i've seen yours, i don't normally like twins as they usually look 'stuck on' and out of place but i do really like yours and it's one of the few exceptionally well mounted ones i've seen. i would've loved to mount something nice and shallow like yours but yours are like fog lamps or running lights arent they? i'm sure i read that. either way they wouldn't pass an mot here for having incorrect beam pattern haha damn it. from the look of your gs i'd say we have very similar tastes  i will mount something shallow eventually

[iamhiding]

thanks neon    i'm not really sure about the clip-ons either man, i like my big dirty motocross bars haha just thought i'd try something a little different, fear not the big bars will return at some point, definitely in time for winter and the knobblies going back on. 

on the plus side i'm not likely to get pulled over for doing wheelies with the clip-ons haha the big bars and gearing are a bad influence 

I really dig the look of the brownish rims!
Tho I don't like your new clip-ons, loved the cross bike bar you had on there before.

[iamhiding]

so... when fitting tyres make sure they're warm and you've got a couple of big G-clamps sitting in case they decide to be stubborn haha lesson learned.



also don't get caught warming tyres in the bath hahaha 

after fitting the front tyre and discovering bead sealant can bleach paint  but hey thats what touch ups are for right  anyway i noticed the valve was ripped on the rear!  had to wait a day till i could get another and i could only get a long one but needs must so i've fitted it.



going to be dead awkward every time i need to put air in.



tyre clearance on the already bent out torque arm



chain clearance, spaced out 3mm on the sprocket like before and 2mm on the front, which is'nt as good as being spot on but it's within the 1.27mm 'safe' tolerance.



front sprocket spaced and the new groove circlipped.



rear sprocket with spacer, replaced a sprocket bolt with a cap screw and bolt as it stripped on me. clearance on the swing arm is tight but its allll gooood haha



and here we go...    well happy with how the bronze wheels came out. even if i bought the paint 8 months ago with the best of intentions haha better late than never.

[ShowBizWolf]

Better late than never indeed!!! Don't like repeating myself but whatever... always love your updates and the overall look/geometry of your GS is eye candy

[Ne0n]

on the plus side i'm not likely to get pulled over for doing wheelies with the clip-ons haha the big bars and gearing are a bad influence 

You're able to do wheelies with your gs?
Are you using the clutch real heavy, or did you just get a super short gearing?

Wheelies are really one of the things I miss the most about my previous bike...

[iamhiding]

Better late than never indeed!!! Don't like repeating myself but whatever... always love your updates and the overall look/geometry of your GS is eye candy

repeated or not it's always appreciated and hey it's good to see people keeping the forum alive 

[iamhiding]

on the plus side i'm not likely to get pulled over for doing wheelies with the clip-ons haha the big bars and gearing are a bad influence 

You're able to do wheelies with your gs?
Are you using the clutch real heavy, or did you just get a super short gearing?

Wheelies are really one of the things I miss the most about my previous bike...

wheelies? nope wasnt me officer, you cant wheelie a gs haha  

i'm not really the person to be giving wheelie advise but yeah it wheelies and for the record i advise against them  believe it or not people can wheelie them in stock form  . it's all about body position and the right technique for the bike i reckon but i had the super raised wide mx bars so obviously that puts your weight backwards a bit, the gearing and the tune. sitting i could clutch it right up in 3rd at 30 on the 14/44 & 13/44 or power wheelie it in 1st & 2nd. standing i could bounce it and clutch it up in 4th on flat. standing at 30-80 mph it would come up well on crests etc with a pop of the clutch. but yeah it was getting silly, i was just popping wheelies every opportunity i got. just begging to get in trouble really, i got pulled over a couple of weeks back for accelerating too hard out of a junction in a 30mph zone, the officer was saying he could see it threatening to lift up, i was just banging it up to speed. yeah the bike just beckons to razzed about, its always on power. they still wheelie very well with a tune and geared with -2 on the front or up 5 on the rear like i am at the moment and even without the gearing change the gs is quite punchy with a exhaust, filter and tune,

what was the last bike anyway neon?

[iamhiding]

wee update.

so i noticed some wear on the inside of the chain, pulled it apart and discovered that the clutch cable holder was fowling the chain.





it's minor but not ideal, think its a combination of the new offset and smaller front sprockets i've been running. i've bent it back out the way slightly, cleaned it up and gave it a lick of bright yellow paint so that if it rubs again i'll be able to see wear on it.



made a couple of quick & dirty allow brackets up for the front indicators now that i'm not using the headlight to mount them. been scheming this up for a while and made them pretty easily. they're not as bright as they could be but i've used worse indicators in the past. they'll do the job either way and they're crazy small and not an obtrusion.











narrowly avoided a bit of death and learned an important lesson that might seem obvious but it genuinely never crossed my mind.

so before i posted a pic of the tight clearance on the bolt i had to use on the rear sprocket when an old one stripped. what i had done was modified a nut to sit in the key on the inside of the sprocket carrier, no biggie. i didn't have a locking nut to hand so i used a normal nut and loctite (left to set) which should of done the job. now there's a reason that the nuts are located on the outer side of the sprocket rather than inside.

if the nut comes loose on the standard item and falls off it's not going to be a direct hazard whereas on mine i had the nut on the inside which means there is a long bolt that can potentially slip out and lock the wheel against the swingarm.

it must have slipped out enough to hit the swingarm when riding as the bolt is heavy bent! i however didnt notice it until returning to the bike bike after parking it on the side stand and the bolt had slipped enough to sit on the swingarm, preventing me from rolling the bike. imagine that had locked up on a left hander, i would've been lucky to escape unscathed.

i suspect i forgot to torque the bolts back up but either way i thought this would be a really important thing to share for those who work on their own bikes. it's something someone might even have done in the past to your bike if a bolt stripped rather than buying the right parts. theres a very good reason the nuts are on the outside!

[iamhiding]

on recommendation of Johnno i think it was, who found the DJ128 mains to work best on his stage3 setup on dyno, i've ordered the mikuni equivalent up which is 120 mains to play about with the dynojet parts i've got sitting. we shall see but either way it'll get me a base tune in the right ballpark. maybe one day i'll be 100% happy with the tune haha

an observation, due to the lesser rolling resistance with being back on road tyres and possibly the larger diameter with them being less worn i've gained a bit of top end speed. speedo read just over 115 last time out whereas it was seeing 105ish on the tkc80s. so i expect to be seeing slightly better fuel economy as well. need to gps verify it but i wasn't expecting to see a change there

[ShowBizWolf]

Whooooo-weee! GLAD you are OK!!!! For sure I learned something from reading this today.

I very much enjoy your turn signals

Every time my mom sees my bike, she says she wants my signals to be as big as stop-signs LOL and I'm like, "Mommm... you should SEE the teeny-weeny ones people use nowadays!" lolololol

Have you ever had any issues with the charging system keeping up with those headlights? I remember doing all my math when trying to figure out if I could run the H4 and an H7 in my gixxer headlight swap I did recently. Didn't want to risk it so I went with a stock H4 and an LED H7. Just curious how those dual headlights work.

This is probably one of my favorite threads ever

[Ne0n]

wheelies? nope wasnt me officer, you cant wheelie a gs haha  

they still wheelie very well with a tune and geared with -2 on the front or up 5 on the rear like i am at the moment and even without the gearing change the gs is quite punchy with a exhaust, filter and tune,

Well, I already have an after market exhaust, so maybe I'll try some changes with the gearing and we'll see if I can pop the wheel
I guess 14-41 will be the shortest gearing you can get with the stock 110 chain, but maybe I'll try 15-41 first.

what was the last bike anyway neon?

Yamaha XT600 43F '84.
Sadly the motor didn't want to continue his work, so I needed to buy a cheap new bike, and here I am, almost 2 years later, still riding the GS.

[crackin]

Those blinkers are wicked my man, gonna have ta get some like that for my bike too 

[iamhiding]

Whooooo-weee! GLAD you are OK!!!! For sure I learned something from reading this today.

I very much enjoy your turn signals

Every time my mom sees my bike, she says she wants my signals to be as big as stop-signs LOL and I'm like, "Mommm... you should SEE the teeny-weeny ones people use nowadays!" lolololol

Have you ever had any issues with the charging system keeping up with those headlights? I remember doing all my math when trying to figure out if I could run the H4 and an H7 in my gixxer headlight swap I did recently. Didn't want to risk it so I went with a stock H4 and an LED H7. Just curious how those dual headlights work.

This is probably one of my favorite threads ever

yeah showbiz it's a scary one to think about and theres a left hander i take at 100 before coming into my village with nasty walls and a bridge... i cant believe i got away with it not locking up. every time i think about it i'm just in total disbelief. i've been off at over 100 before and it's not enjoyable. might save someone's life reading about my silly mistake though so at least theres a couple of positives to be taken. definitely take care when dealing with rotating parts.

haha thats brilliant ''but muuuuuuummm''  there's definitely two sides to it isn't there, my argument is always that people don't see you either way so i ride with that in mind, expecting people to pull out on you. i think running with headlights on during the day is probably one of the safest things you can do in terms of visibility. for the record my little indicators are faaaar too small.

cant say i've really looked into how much load they take up showbiz, dual h4 is quite a common mod so it didn't
cross my mind but a very valid point, i'll check what kind of output the R/R has when under full beam load at some point and post it up though  i've never looked into how much extra juice H7 needs, is it quite a bit more?

''This is probably one of my favorite threads ever'' D'aww shucks   

[iamhiding]

an old XT600! aww man  yasss love it NeOn. before i had i license i used to fart about on an armstrong mt500, it was a mid 80s military rotax single thumper, think i would have have rather had an xt600 though. i've had/have a few big road bikes since but i think i'm on year 5 or gs ownership haha love the thing.

it will have been said hundreds of times over but after an exhaust the best thing you can do for the gs is rejet it to suit or better yet get a higher flowing filter or filters and once again jet it. completely transforms the bike. i wouldn't of expected a gs to run particularly well with just the exhaust done as they are already on the lean side of things.

in terms of gearing i've always thought that in terms of bang for buck a 14t front sprocket is the way to go, like once you start going shorter that that you really do lose cruising ability. shorter is sooooo much fun but when the bike cant do 100mph anymore it's tough to keep up with people on a run. i guess it depends on what kind of riding you do, in a city or on slowish tight backroads and short trips the shorter gearing is a riot  gearingcommander.com is a great tool if you're looking mess about with gearing.

[iamhiding]

Those blinkers are wicked my man, gonna have ta get some like that for my bike too 

one of a kind haha yeah i had never seen anything as small as that in the aftermarket when i first made one but i have since and they ain't cheap  i had another micro set, i'll have to see if i can find a pic for you.



http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-6-LED-Motorcycle-Bike-Mini-Turn-Signal-Indicators-Light-Universal-Black-J25/131621702115?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D43782%26meid%3D827876f013b9472ca50e673d822414a5%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D311335772489

not the listing i bought them from, think i paid double that which is still cheap but £3.38 with free delivery from china is hard to contend with. dirt cheap and they're pretty good.

[ShowBizWolf]

i'll check what kind of output the R/R has when under full beam load at some point and post it up though 

That'd be great! I'm sure everything is fine because you're totally right... the dual headlights is a pretty common mod. I also took into consideration that I have led bulbs in the tail lights and my dash so those all help as well.

From what I've found through searches, the H7 is the same as the H4, even though it's a single filament. Still pulls 55W/4.6A

My notes and numbers are kinda messy on this note I have here but IIRC, I determined that if I had ALL stock bulbs and also ran a standard H7 bulb, and with the shorter trips I make on the bike, I'd be handicapping the charging system. Just more of a reason to buy new things and swap to fancy LED bulbs 

Also, did you end up settling on which shock you wanted? Or are you still thinkin' about swapping that swingarm?

[qcbaker]

Wheelies on a stock GS? Video or it didnt happen lol.

[iamhiding]

i'll check what kind of output the R/R has when under full beam load at some point and post it up though 

That'd be great! I'm sure everything is fine because you're totally right... the dual headlights is a pretty common mod. I also took into consideration that I have led bulbs in the tail lights and my dash so those all help as well.

From what I've found through searches, the H7 is the same as the H4, even though it's a single filament. Still pulls 55W/4.6A

My notes and numbers are kinda messy on this note I have here but IIRC, I determined that if I had ALL stock bulbs and also ran a standard H7 bulb, and with the shorter trips I make on the bike, I'd be handicapping the charging system. Just more of a reason to buy new things and swap to fancy LED bulbs 

Also, did you end up settling on which shock you wanted? Or are you still thinkin' about swapping that swingarm?

by the sounds of things i wouldn't be overly concerned with dual h7 if it's the same load and just different connectors but hey its interesting stuff to read into just a thought, the only time it would really be under any added stress should be when on full beam.

shock situation has been put on the backburner, the shock i'm wanting to use is in another bike still (cbr6 f3) i've got a spare cbr6 one sitting but i'd only put the old ratty one thats in the other bike on the gs haha ideally i'd like to throw an alloy sv650 swingarm on but the shock mounts are offset so there would be quite a bit of work to take on, i've got access to gsxf750 swingarm as well which would basically be a drop in part i think but it would lengthen the wheelbase quite a bit, i'm not too sure i want to stretch the bike as it's not my kinda thing, either way with both sv and gsxf arms the wheels, spacers and brake carrier are all interchangeable parts so it'll make for very little work. too big a job to start on my daily without other transport on the road unfortunately. i could always just make a blandtit 12 swinger work and sling in a 180 but... it's just too much added rotational weight and tyre for the bike, i'm all about function over form. also have access to a vfr750 single sider but they are crazy heavy i will say i've got the preload wound right up on the gs shock and it's not doing too bad but theres room for improvement.

so many plans and thoughts that i'll get round to eventually

[iamhiding]

Wheelies on a stock GS? Video or it didnt happen lol.

that was my first thought, something i never tried when mines was a stocker but i've seen it on youtube so it must be true... right everything wheelies if you get your weight in the right place