Someone stole my GS, I got it back, but what to do with the damaged bike?

[Zombified_Cheeseburgers]

Yesterday in the span of just 7 hours my bike got stolen, reported, investigated, and found. By the end of the day I was riding it back to my place with a police escort. The guy who did it admitted to it and has been charged. One less motorcycle thief on the streets. The whole thing was a surreal experience - seeing the guy caught on the surveillance cameras around my apartment building tinkering with it over several days to prep it for theft felt weird. What was even weirder was the crime scene in the parking garage that looked like something out of LA Noire; the thief left behind a hat, a glove, a battery, two battery wires, a bottle of stopleak, and a used needle. Even the cop found it kind of amusing.

The end result is the wiring has been cut in several places including the ignition, the battery wires have been zip-tied onto the battery terminals, the seat lock has been completely destroyed, and the right side fairing was cut off it's mount. I'll get a chance to fill out a victim impact statement in which I'll be able to give my estimate of the damages.

So as of right now I have a project bike I guess.

One of things that I always hated about my bike was the rear fairings. I much prefer the older style, I feel the newer version is just much too wide, making the rear tire look disproportionately narrow. Since these now need to be replaced, this leads me to wonder if it would be possible to fit the older fairings to the newer bike? Seems like a good opportunity to do it.

Also I feel like since the wiring needs to be fixed, this might be a good opportunity to wire in some "upgrades". Anyone know of anything, any cool gadgets?

I'm going to have to replace the chain because it rusted over the winter. I'm also tempted to upgrade to stainless headers since the ones I have are a rusted pile of crap that I feel are probably detracting from the value of the bike. $250 canadian bones doesn't feel like much of a big deal considering how much better they look with stainless pipes. I'm probably also going to buy the jetting kit.

Not sure what other mods to do though. Any suggestions? It's a 2007 GS500E.

[Endopotential]

Man, so sorry for your headache.  I thought everyone in Canada was supposed to be super nice???

Mine's a 2007 also.  Weren't they all F models by that year?

Cool electrical gadgets?  How about an electric fence for future would-be thieves?

And if you don't like the tail, how about chopping it completely off? 

[Matty206]

I had the same thing happen to me. Its actually pretty easy to splice in your own wiring on these bikes. I ran my own wires with connectors to the clutch safety switch. Get yourself one of those nice wire crimpers that pulls off the insulation while also measuring out and taking off the right amount. Get the right size wire and connectors which can be found in the electrical aisle at Autozone and do some splicing. Get yourself a wiring diagram for the GS500 too. Its on Google and its not too complicated.

[gsJack]

Mine's a 2007 also.  Weren't they all F models by that year?

No naked GSs were sold in US after 2002, only F models.  But naked GSs were still sold in other countries after 02 including Canada.

[gregjet]

Although I completely disagree with you about the rear shell width, and the bike looking too narrow ( I like the narrower the better), I can see the attraction on the contemporary lust for "cafe Racer", "scrambler"  and "cruiser" style statements.
The GS500 has a very old rear chassis design. It is dead easy to make a narrow usable seat for it. Plenty of attachment points and easy to make stable. Plenty of good and not so good attempts in the modding and projects thread home here.

[ShowBizWolf]

Ugh I feel both sad and mad to hear about your bike getting stolen... so violating!!! Super glad you got it back though and good luck with your project. I'll be following along 

[Zombified_Cheeseburgers]

Although I completely disagree with you about the rear shell width, and the bike looking too narrow ( I like the narrower the better), I can see the attraction on the contemporary lust for "cafe Racer", "scrambler"  and "cruiser" style statements.
The GS500 has a very old rear chassis design. It is dead easy to make a narrow usable seat for it. Plenty of attachment points and easy to make stable. Plenty of good and not so good attempts in the modding and projects thread home here.

You misread my post. I said I find the '05+ tail fairings to be too wide. My bike is an '07. I'd like to install the narrower fairings from the older model years (like maybe a '95 or something?) but I'm not sure if they'd fit. Also to people not aware, I'm in Canada where the naked GS was available past '02.

Anyways I've decided that rather than spending $300+ on decent security for the bike, it'd make more sense to spend the same money over a few months to put it in a secure storage unit. That way it's safer than any lock will make it, and I'll actually have a place where I can work on it and take it apart. Might be kinda fun to just strip the thing down to the bare bones and see how many horses I can squeeze out of it with things like ported heads, ignition advance, jetting, etc.

Before I can do any of that though I'll take it to a motorcycle shop to have someone remove the corroded header bolts and replace them with stainless. I also need to get off my lazy butt and start taking some photos so I have things to show y'all.

Current list of things I'd like to do to her (ooo saucy)

1. Oil and filters.
2. New bearings.
3. New brake pads.
4. Clean, paint, and rebuild brake calipers.
5. Stainless steel brake lines.
6. DID X-ring chain. Gold anodized for extra bling.
7. Katana wheel and GSXR torque arm mod?
8. Valve cover gasket replacement (current one leaks).
9. Find a tank that doesn't have dents in it.
10. New locks.
11. Older model year tail fairings for that really swag retro look.
12. Paint it some kind of groovy colour. I like the silver frames of the older bikes. Maybe red tank and tail?
13. Clean and rejet the carbs.
14. K&N lunchbox.
15. Stainless headers or paint the old ones.
16. DEFINITELY get rid of that stupid fender.
17. Shorten signal stalks.
18. R6 rear shock.
19. Fork spacer mod.
20. New handlebars.

And probably a few other things that I'm forgetting. Maybe get someone to make me a sticker that says "the last guy who stole this bike got jail time". Is a fork brace worth it?

[Zombified_Cheeseburgers]

Alright so I had a little chance to go around to shop for parts today. I was quoted in the ball park of $100-200 to remove the rusty exhaust header bolts. I bought some penetrating oil so that I can give those bolts (and probably others later) a good soak before I hand it over to the tech for that work. Anyone know what size these bolts are so I can buy some stainless steel replacements?

I've found that Fortnine.ca are cheaper for parts than what I was quoted in store. They also happen to have the chrome Bikemaster Superbike bars for 25 bucks, which is a bargain. I'm pretty excited to see how they look and feel. The most expensive thing is the DID gold X ring chain, which comes out at $115. One store quoted me $340 for a replacement OEM lock set - screw that, I'll get a used set from the local bike breaker.

I also took the time today to take some photos so we have some "before" shots showing the whole bike as well as the damage.







Apart from the obvious theft damage, there's also a fair bit of rust that needs to either be rectified or replaced. The whole bike could also use a good clean which it will be wise to do before I put it in storage to start stripping it down.

EDIT: Jesus Christ putting images on this forum is a ballache. No wonder you guys have a lack of pictures, the forum doesn't resize images at all - it can't convert uploaded images to the correct size either. Thank god for imgur's resize options.

[Bluesmudge]

When you put in the image tag [*img*]http://www.yourimage.com/yup[/img] just add the width.

Example  [*img width=720*]http://www.yourimage.com/yup[/img]

The forum will resize the image for you.

Remove the asterisks * when you do it for real. I just put those in so the forum didnt try and actually show a photo.

[Zombified_Cheeseburgers]

Thanks Bluesmudge. I was getting pretty irritated with trying to figure out how to un-bugger my images.

[ShowBizWolf]

I have superbike bars on my GS and I love them. Little bit lower than the stock bars and super comfy (for me, anyway)

I finally recently replaced my exhaust bolts with stainless studs and nuts... the size I used is M8 x 1.25mm.

[Zombified_Cheeseburgers]

I have superbike bars on my GS and I love them. Little bit lower than the stock bars and super comfy (for me, anyway)

I finally recently replaced my exhaust bolts with stainless studs and nuts... the size I used is M8 x 1.25mm.

I don't suppose you remember what length the bolts were when they came out?

[ShowBizWolf]

I have one of my old ones here and it measures 40mm without the head of the bolt and 47mm with it.