I am thinking of restoring a non-running GS500 in a scrambler fashion. I kinda have the opportunity to do a lot from the ground up.
I was wondering if there were any known bikes that made a ready source of suspension parts for the GS.
Like, can you pull the forks, springs, shocks or wheels off a DRZ or other dirt bike and have the parts just bolt right on?
Not much swaps direct from the dirt world. I think the pre-'96 DR650 front end uses the same triple tree bearings, so you may be able to put the entire front end from a pre-96' DR on the GS500 but don't quote me on that. Also the swingarm is very similar and may be a direct swap or at least the rear wheel/brake with minor modifications.
Also off the top of my head, I think the DR350 (but maybe I'm thinking of the Kawi Super Sherpa) forks are only 1mm different in diameter than the GS500 so maybe you could mill 1mm of material off the GS500 fork clamps?
There are other street bike parts that swap in if you search the forum. Nothing as dirt focused but you can at least make some upgrades (like mid '90s Katana shock swap).
Most adventure builds I've seen that try to get front and rear wire wheels with longer suspension seem to die off half way through. Not saying its impossible, but you will need some serious mechanical aptitude and a machine shop will probably be involved for spacers, shims, etc to get wheels and forks to fit.
Most scrambler builds for the GS500 keep the stock wheels and forks and just throw some knobbies on and an upgraded rear shock.
The biggest issue with the GS500 offroad is the peg position. They need to be dropped and moved forward unless you only want to make it a scrambler for looks.
Scrambler style is they new Café Racer and before that the Bobber style motorcycles. Being a cheap and plentiful standard motorcycle, the poor GS500 gets chopped into whatever the trend of the day is. Don't forget that a UJM is always in style and maybe the GS500 doesn't need a brown bench seat and a chopped tail to be a nice motorcycle.
Quote from: Bluesmudge on December 18, 2020, 01:03:57 PM
Scrambler style is they new Café Racer and before that the Bobber style motorcycles. Being a cheap and plentiful standard motorcycle, the poor GS500 gets chopped into whatever the trend of the day is. Don't forget that a UJM is always in style and maybe the GS500 doesn't need a brown bench seat and a chopped tail to be a nice motorcycle.
Hey now! Why go and spoil a super informative post with a dig on my bike? 😁
You're absolutely right about the brown seat and chopped frame. Ugh. It's the 90s Civic with giant exhaust tip and wing of motorcycles. Please stop.
Anyway, all digs aside, functionally a GS500 makes a fine scrambler with the requisite ergonomic fixes, stiffer fork springs and a katana shock. 80/20 tires are optional depending on how much you really ride on bad roads or gravel. But if you are going for an Instagram queen there are a whole lot better starting points with a lot less mechanical frustration when you're trying to match someone else's Pinterest board's idea of a "scrambler". IMHO fix it up like a normal working GS, swap it for a TU250X. Then slap your brown seat, Shinko 244s and teeny front fender on that. No frame mods needed, already has a UJM style tank and midset ergos, you won't ruin the handling, an it looks better on Instagram. AND since it's fuel injected, you won't go nuts trying to sort out 25 year old carbs. Or really all of the other 25 year old stuff.
Oh and there's another important ergonomic thing. A proper scrambler or adventure converted GS is a LOT bigger, not to mention heavier, than a TU250X. If you're not over 5'11" and very comfortable on a motorcycle then you will be very disappointed. I have an adventure converted GS500 in my garage and my dad has a scrambler converted TU250X. I'm 6 ft. He's almost 5'7". His TUX feels like a minibike to me and he can't even easily get on my GS.
Again, be honest with yourself. If this is an aesthetic or image exercise, the GS is a really bad starting point. If it's actually riding on gravel, occasionally crossing the median, handling back roads that haven't been serviced in 50 years, you can make GS work but doing it is not as easy as bolting on brown vinyl and knobby tires. Fabricating new foot peg mounts alone is not trivial and it's the first thing you have to do.
To the OP, it really depends on what you're looking to achieve, a fashion item that you can poodle around on off-road if you wish or something that is a bit more capable. You'd be a bit surprised how capable a road setup bike can be off-road in the dry, biggest issue is ground clearance I'd say. We're lucky with Suzuki being a bit like Lego in terms of cross compatibility but there's no one donor bike you can rob for parts and have it bolt together. Fork swaps are easy but swingarm and/or wheel swaps and getting things lined up is task.
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In essence the gs500 is a scrambler in its standard form if you use it to hill climb etc. It all began with road going bikes hill climbing in the 60s before they started modifying them to be more fit for purpose, it's 20yr newer in design but same principle can apply.
Mines is more scrambler look in that it's really a stripped back retro style ish fighter fast road build built with what I had available and just happens to have knobblies on it right now for a laugh making it more scrambler or tracker in appearance. Whilst I've got better ground clearance it's Far too stiff to really razz about off road but can handle some surprising climbs but as can standard road bikes.
If I were doing it on a budget for looks and a little more capability I'd retain standard wheels, get knobblies, fit upright bars with a stack of risers, lift the front end up as high as the forks allow, grind the swingarm for shock clearance and fit 170-165mm dogbones for a 2 or 3" lift, 14t sprocket, dress it up how you will and enjoy, learn what works and what needs improved.
Adventure bikes and scramblers are very different things. Scramblers are lightly modified to work better off-road but adventure bikes are built for purpose. if you're looking at using drz etc parts you're venturing towards adventure bike and away from classic scrambler looks.
Can appreciate any kind of build done well but like most things, the mark gets missed and Most scrambler builds are absolute flops, littered with cheap tatt from eBay and parts that don't even visually work together never mind be appropriate to the users ergonomics. As such fighters, cafe, bobbers, scramblers and whatever tomorrow's flavour is gets a bad rep.
Sincerely hope you avoid the common pitfalls and come up with something you can really enjoy, I look forward to seeing a build thread if you've got the time :icon_razz:
For cross compatibility there's lots of charts available on community's like custom fighters for shock swap info and head bearing sizes. Get creative and Couple that with cross referencing parts fiches / parts numbers and you can often find things that should fit your purpose. Lot of info out there but it's a lot of work to stitch it together. Often you find that someone's used x part from x bike and made it work but x bike has a fair few alternative parts that could be used and by default should fit yours.