Quote from: mr72 on April 20, 2020, 02:03:21 PM

Quote from: adoptme on April 19, 2020, 11:20:49 AM
Can't wait for the images to be reposted. 

Those pictures are gone for good, but you can see everything you need to see in the picture in this post:
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=71055.msg880846#msg880846

and also in pictures following if you want to see from the side.

Basically I cut the "nose" of the seat off so that it mates correctly with the '04 tank that's on mine. I reupholstered the entire seat. FWIW I also beefed up the foam with some closed-cell foam on the nose of the seat mostly because I was sliding forward too much and just needed to reshape it a bit. But it's very doable.

The '01+ seats will "wrap" around the little edges of the '01+ tank correctly but they are wider than the earlier seats. Also not 100% sure the seat will snap right in to the latch or mate correctly with the so-called "helmet lock" (the hidden hook for helmet D-ring). In all cases the '89-00 parts are much harder to find so that original '92 seat you have is probably worth a lot more than a '01+. I found that '01+ tanks were a dime a dozen, and I sold my dented/bent '92 tank for more than I paid for a mint '04 tank. Anyway, something to consider if only for a moment before you cut up the '92 seat pan. That's an irreversible mod. But I cut mine and have no regrets.

Here's a related anecdote. My Triumph's stock seat was horrid. Couldn't do more than about 45 minutes before I couldn't stand it anymore. I bought a Burton gel seat for it, a $400 custom job that took a couple of months to have made. It looks great and is way, way more comfortable than the stock seat, but still the GS is 2x as comfortable with my modified stock seat. I think it's not just the seat but also the more supple suspension even with my stiff springs. Point is, there's something halfway decent about those old GS500 seats. If I have to do a >3 hr ride I absolutely with ride the GS even with the 7k rpm on the highway and slightly squirelly tires just because the seat is that much more comfortable.

Thank you for this tip. I'm trying to consider whether to go even more extreme and get a 1980's GS125E seat, and place it onto the GS500E 1992 Frame. I like the look of the older seats. Nonetheless, I'm wondering how you were able to fit the OEM breaklight into the mod seat. I saw that you also removed the back/rear cowls. Did you 3D print a part, or just wrangle it onto the frame? Thank you in advance.

Here's detail of how I used off the shelf corner braces to relocate the tail light:

http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=71055.msg871957#msg871957

Also, I flipped the rear fender around and cut off the squarish part (which is now under the seat). I trimmed it to make it symmetric in the rear and mounted the turn signals to it. It's more low-profile than before and still functional.

This is great, would it be possible to get multiple angles of the foot peg lowering brackets and mods done? Very valuable info here, gets confusing because of the two iterations but has the potential to be it's own instructional.

Quote from: mr72 on November 05, 2019, 06:42:51 AM
Right side, test-fit. Still to mount the brake light switch, reroute the brake hoses and find a spot for the brake fluid reservoir.

Is there a reason you kept those two steel plates welded together instead of using the single piece of aluminium?

Quote from: mr72 on November 04, 2019, 03:25:41 PM
well I haven't actually done it yet.

I did, however, get the left side mounted and adjusted:

This left side confuses me. I wonder if there is a better way to do this; would you have done it this way if you had of gone with the closer aluminium plate method first?

Quote from: thatshitcray on June 03, 2020, 11:36:19 PM
This is great, would it be possible to get multiple angles of the foot peg lowering brackets and mods done? Very valuable info here, gets confusing because of the two iterations but has the potential to be it's own instructional.

Yeah, that's a good idea. I also still have the plywood templates. I should make up a dimensioned drawing for them and whip up some instructions with part numbers of parts used etc.

Quote from: thatshitcray on June 04, 2020, 12:52:00 AM
Is there a reason you kept those two steel plates welded together instead of using the single piece of aluminium?

Yes, but not a good one. If I had it to do over again, I'd just make it one piece.

I had initially planned to mount the brake MC directly to the alu plate where the steel bracket is attached. And doing this works but I could find no clearance for the brake switch wiring. Now that I am using a different brake light switch, I might be able to put the MC back where I originally wanted it. It'd be a cleaner install for sure.

The reason I used the steel bracket is because I had it laying around and it solved my initial brake light wiring problem. Also it allowed me to ovalize one of the mounting holes and give me a little more ideal positioning. I didn't design all this with CAD... there are multiple rotational axes and movement of the arcs in this that affect the effectiveness of the brake pushrod, and I didn't calculate all of this. I just kind of rough sketched it on a cardboard template. Having a little slack to adjust in-situ was handy.

Quote
This left side confuses me. I wonder if there is a better way to do this; would you have done it this way if you had of gone with the closer aluminium plate method first?

Yes, this is the best way I have found to do it. You could try mounting the shift lever somehow to its own bracket that hooks to the lower frame hoop and maybe keep the stock (reverse) direction of rotation of the shift lever and perhaps shorten the connecting rod. Also another user here 'nudie' came up with a different method that mounts the new lever essentially directly below (and reverse of) the stock lever and uses a simpler means of actuation that likely has a lot less chance to be affected by flex the way mine was, but it has some other drawbacks that I decided I didn't want. Since this isn't a dedicated off-road or mostly off-road bike I will likely be riding it (and in actuality, always) in normal street clothes so having bolt heads that are going to scrape on the side of my boot toe is a certified bad thing.

What isn't in these pictures is that I changed the mounting bolt that affixes the pivot, again using something I had laying around, a M8 shoulder bolt used as an exhaust hanger bolt on Triumph stock exhaust. It works much better, flexes a lot less and fits perfectly. Plus I reinforced the bracket with a bolt straight into the frame. If the frame cracks, it cracks. I think the chances are virtually zero. But it's not like I'm going to rack up 100K of dirt roads on this thing, it gets sparse use and I can get my welder friend to fix and beef up whatever comes.

I wouldn't call this an ideal way to do this. But it is an effective way to do it and it certainly works.

One note that's not in any of this is how important it is to put blue Loctite on all of these fasteners, especially stuff that pivots. I nearly lost the shift linkage or shift lever more than once before I finally learned my lesson. All those gear shifts rotate the parts just a teeny bit every time you use it and it'll back those bolts right out. And since there are multiple fasteners holding the brake MC, more than stock, I felt it prudent to lock them down too. For the fixing bolts to hold the plates to the frame, I don't know the stock torque spec (didn't look it up), but i recommend "real frikin tight". And use the stock bolts with the very large flanges, that helps spread the load and makes the whole thing more solid.

Can't ride for at least another week or so, but I can take a picture. This is with the  vintage flat track number plates.

I got worried that my Triumph might experience the same kind of meltdown that my GS did due to the crappy shunt regulator-rectifier, so I went looking in my purchase history to see what part I got for the GS. It was an FH012 regulator from a Kawasaki ZX-6R and it's been brilliant in the GS. I paid $17 for it!

Looking on ebay, I found several available with BIN under $30 and bought another one for my Triumph to do the same conversion project. This one was $18. Inflation I guess. It has been two years. You guys should go jump on one of the others on there. Cheap upgrade.

The Triumph is a bigger project to upgrade because the reg/rect stock is located in the fork below the headlight with a half a mile of wiring that is taped up in a loom, and to swap it I will have to remove all that wiring from the loom and relocate the reg/rect under a side cover. Triumph put the shunt regulator up between the fork legs to try to improve cooling and forestall failure, but the MOSFET unit won't have this problem so I can shorten those wires and improve charging.

The Triumph has been giving me issues with starting occasionally after short trips so I know the charging system needs an overhaul. Here we go!

Great idea and thanks for the heads up. 

FYI here's the post where I discussed putting that regulator/rectifier on:

http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php/topic,71055.msg872895.html#msg872895

I had to look it up myself because I am about 90% of the way done putting the exact same type of reg/rect on my Triumph, but in this case I was also relocating it from the stock location between the fork legs to under the tank out of sight, since the MOSFET part doesn't require nearly as much airflow.

Just a reminder here, this is a good mod and has been one of the best things I did to my GS.

Snapped this picture for the picture game, but we'll put it here too just to bring the project up to speed.



I finally was able to ride yesterday and decided first to run out and do a test ride of the GS, evaluating my last modifications trying to fix what was a misguided carb jetting adventure. TL,DR on that is there was 9500 rpm cutout that I thought might have been an ignition problem, chased it as if it was running too lean and wound up with way too big jets that caused single digit mpg and a crankcase full of gasoline before nearly leaving me stranded blocks from my house. The latest fix was to go back to 125 main jets and put two washers to shim the needle, and I was to test-ride yesterday.

Well, the bike runs pretty much perfect. I still have the feeling that maybe it has a touch of hesitation coming off cruise to accelerate but it's less than before and not worth cracking open. Next time the carbs are off I might add another washer and see if this improves a little. For that matter, maybe pilot mixture a touch richer would fix it too.

But it pulls hard right up to redline. It's quick and fun and even though I had only planned to do like  15 minute test ride and then come back and switch for the Triumph for a longer ride, I wound up riding it for an hour! And it was glorious and lovely! Did absolutely nothing wrong and everything right. The Shinko 705s are scrubbing in nicely and the feel is improving.

One interesting note, the local PD put one of those radar speed signs in my neighborhood and I rode by it on my way home yesterday, and noticed that with the 120/70 front Shinko tire the speedo reads slow by probably 10% or more. I had it on 30 right on the money (speed limit on this street) and it told me I was going 34. Next time I passed it I tried to stick the speedo on 25 and it was reading more like 27 and the sign said 30. Which means when I am revving along at 6.5k rpm on the highway and the speedo reads 60mph I'm probably actually going more like 68. I thought the bike felt a lot quicker than the speedo was saying it was.

OK, so what else is there to do on this bike? Umm... I think one of the gauge lights is out, probably just loose in the socket (it's an LED). But besides that, this thing is DONE!! Dialed in and working brilliantly. The conversion to soft roader is complete and I wouldn't hesitate to ride it on a 500 mile trip right now. It's comfortable and capable on the road as long as you don't want to spend a ton of time at >60mph sustained speeds just because it's revving pretty good and loud, but it handles on the road well and handles any road you put under it whether gravel or pavement or potholes or urban street construction. I think I have successfully resurrected it from exile after I bought the Bonneville.

I'm about to go ride again this morning, and I think I'm gonna take the red renegade, ol number 72. The Bonneville might collect more dust than it should for a while.

Power demand problems are usually too rich. You may have one washer too many under the needle, not one too few.
Cool.
Buddha.

Could be. It was hesitating worse with zero washers. Today's ride it was nearly perfect. I doubt it could get any better truthfully.

It has been a long time since I have been on this forum. Like mr72, I really appreciate my GS500. Every time I take it out I end up going for a longer ride than I had anticipated--except for going to work, of course.

Well I have to admit, if I had left it as stock as it was when I got the Triumph, I don't think I'd be riding it nearly as much.

The cold, hard reality is that my GS was a $900 motorcycle and even with lots of work and money dumped into it compared with the original cost, it was still very old and cheap. Even though it's in a happy spot at the moment, it has not proven reliable yet. On the contrary, up until days before my last ride, I wouldn't have trusted it to get me to and from the grocery store just two miles away. Sure, if I had a 2007 model, one half the age of my GS, it might be reliable without having to dump a ton of work into it, but at nearly three decades of age, a GS500 is just not reliable and usable as a daily rider unless you refurbish the entire thing, and for most people it is false economy to refurbish a bike like this. If you're going to dump a couple of $k and a couple of years worth of the odd weekend into a project bike, there are a lot of candidates that are probably more worth it.

And in the same way, the Triumph is just a better motorcycle and a far better value even at over 4-5x the cost. My Triumph has not been 100% trouble free, but it has been close. It had a designed-in, annoying starting issue that I solved with modification to the wiring to eliminate a low-voltage starting cutout. I just did a regulator-rectifier replacement and relocation not because the stock one was failing but it was a time bomb just like it was on my GS and I didn't want it to ever leave me stranded so I did this mod proactively. And I did a bunch of modifications to the Triumph to make it right for me just like I did for the GS... seat, exhaust, handlebars, LED lighting, shocks, fork springs, etc., but in most cases the Triumph didn't absolutely NEED this stuff to be usable while the GS really did mostly because those mods were more repairs. But I did wind up spending $1500 or more over what I paid for the Triumph to make it right just like I did with the GS. But in the end, the Triumph is a 20 years newer motorcycle. The engine is a better design. The fuel injection is brilliant. It just flat out works 100% of the time. It's way easier to tune and dial in. The wiring is far superior, no sub-par or undersized wires or melting connectors anywhere. Every single part is more refined, looks better, works better, is more durable, etc. I mean, my GS had 21k miles on it when it needed a top end rebuild and everything else on the bike needed a good hard look if not flat out replacement. And my Triumph has 13K on it right now and you couldn't tell it was not brand new off the showroom floor. I expect the Triumph will go 100K before it needs the kind of work that the GS needed at 20K. Sure it cost 5x as much but it really is 5x as good.

Now, through a deliberate and laborious transformation focused entirely on usability and function, not at all on aesthetics or instagram cred like most folks doing the "scrambler" mods, I have turned my GS into a hilariously fun second bike. I want to ride it, even when the far superior Triumph is right there waiting. I even have to move the Triumph out of the way in the garage to get to the GS and I do it on purpose. But this was not without cost, not even close. The GS is a lot like a classic custom bike, it's kind of like a Baja Bug or a Myers Manx, you know? Something that one day when it was young was cheap and usable transportation but then when it was old and kind of useless had new life breathed into it through great effort making it into something far more special and just useful enough to be worth it. But the fact remains that whenever I get on my Triumph, I never have a single though at all about whether it's going to complete the trip without issue. But on the GS it's like every ride is somewhat of a test ride. What's going to break down this time? Is the latest modification or repair going to hold up? It's exciting and fun because you have a sense of accomplishment and escape at the end of the ride when it arrives home with everything still working and having done what you asked of it. And that's really half of the fun, the surprise that comes with pulling off the ride. And that's kind of cool, because a mundane thing like running to the store for a few things turns into an adventure when you are not absolutely sure you'll make it. To make this complete, the trip itself is a joy because while it's working, the GS is just a hoot to be on.

If you had to have only one motorcycle, this is not the one. It will end in heartbreak way too often and you will curse it just as I did before I bought the Triumph. I was ready to push this thing off a cliff back then. I'm not really sure you can have this kind of fun with something that has to be reliable, because that reliability takes away some of the adventure that makes it fun. I am planning a 400 or so mile trip soon to see one of the few remaining suspension bridges on a country road in the middle of nowhere Central TX soon and I'll take the GS and when it happens (BTW this won't happen in summer while it's 100 degrees plus) it will be one of those ride reports that you are like, hey look what I did, ON MY GS500!! Because doing a trip like that on a 28 year old econo-bike made soft roader that was partly built by the unskilled hand of an inexperienced hobbyist is a noteworthy accomplishment. But if I rode there on my Triumph it'd be no big deal. Besides my ability too tolerate so many hours in the saddle, nobody would be impressed if my Bonnie made a trip from here to Key West and back. But even the guys over on advrider would be knocked out if I made it to South Padre and back on my GS. That really says something.

Anyway, so much rambling. I need the adventure in my life that the GS gives me. I also need the reliability and do-all-things-right of the Triumph to make room for the adventure I get with the GS. So while I absolutely do not regret buying the Triumph and I'd do it over again 100 times, I would have regretted it had I sold the GS and I'm very glad I stuck it out and made it what it is. Those of you looking to "upgrade" maybe take note. I'm sure a 20-teens SV650 or MT-07 or ER-6N are all way better motorcycles and will do everything your old clunky GS will do better, more reliably, and for a lot longer time. But that's half the fun sometimes, and may be worth more to you than the $1500 you would get by selling the GS.

I loved reading that, Josh. Thanks for putting the GS500 thing into perspective. While I completely agree with the GS being a cheap commuter, prone to break down and not last very long, I'm also grateful that I have not had such bad luck with my 2004 model. It only acted up once due to fuel starvation on a longish flat-out trip, bearing in mind that I live at 1300m altitude where IC engines have 16% less power than at sea level, and flat-out is seldom close to 160 km/h or 100mph. A new fuel filter fixed the fuel starvation problem, though.

So, I have quite a reliable GS500 and knowing that, I have decided to throw money (lots of it) into doing a restoring and modifying job. I hope the end result will turn out to be what I'm expecting; something to be proud of and enjoy - not because of it's inherent value as a motorcycle, but because of it's uniqueness as a modified MC. I'm looking forward to just owning it and riding when I feel like it.

As a 22-year old, I owned a 650cc Bonneville and know exactly what you mean by it being a better bike. But now I love my GS!

Comparing the new Bonneville to the old ones is not really fair to the new ones at all.

The thing is, when the reinvented Hinkley Triumph began putting the new Bonneville on the drawing board prior to its introduction in 2001, they were unencumbered by history. They had an opportunity with a blank sheet of paper to design and build an all new motorcycle, with the goal of carrying over the aesthetic and feel of the old bikes without a continuous evolutionary path. This is a two sided coin, but it forced them to build something new and sort of bespoke in most ways for the target market. They didn't adapt an existing design or provide a veneer of "classic" onto something existing from the catalog like virtually all of the rest of the market were doing, in part because they didn't have the option. As a result they designed it on the whole for its intended market and for the current time and market.

The GS500 was very different. Suzuki had a long history of this GS line of bikes and had been slowly evolving them where necessary for decades before taking a big departure on the frame but really fitting what was only a slightly updated engine from the GS4xx bikes to a simple down-revved and cheap version of a chassis they had already been developing for years. Given it was intended to be an entry level or basic/inexpensive/economy bike, they had every cause to recycle or adapt as many parts as they could to realize economies of scale and produce a low margin, high volume product. It's an entirely different formula from what Triumph did with the new Bonneville (air cooled) and that more than anything explains why the Triumph is just a flat out better product regardless of price. Particularly in the used market, a 2009 EFI Bonneville is going to be a far better motorcycle than a 2009 GS500 with the same mileage, or even one at the same price. There's just no way around the result of design efficiencies that Suzuki took advantage of compared with Triumph.

Even today if Suzuki makes something new, it is going to involve using a bunch of previously available parts or very slightly adapted parts. My dad's 2011 TU250X is a great example. Sure, it has a UJM looking tank and twin shocks but the frame is largely the same as a DR350/400. Sure, it has a 250cc air cooled engine that's not really available on any other Suzuki (that I know of) but it's nearly identical to a DR350 engine. Before designing anything brand new, they look in the parts bin and see if something already in production, already tested, already automated and compliant with regulations etc., can be used. But on my Bonneville, the handlebar is even unique to that one specific model of Bonneville. The handlebar risers are not even the same between a T100, Thruxton and Scrambler. The triples are different on different models and the fork legs are different lengths across the Bonneville lines because they dialed in the handling and feel for the different sized stock wheels and tires. For the first 10 years of production of these bikes, the Thruxton and Bonnevilles had different compression ratio and trough all the years the Scrambler had a 270 degree crank while the others had a 360, because feel and fit for purpose matters more than economies of scale. But when you are only building a few thousand a year vs. a few hundred thousand a year those differences are easier to manage. Triumph is a boutique manufacturer, Suzuki is not. So Suzuki is induced to come up with a formula that will sell and work in practical use while minimizing upfront NRE costs but for the boutiques like Triumph, Moto Guzzi, Ducati, Husqvarna, and to an extent even KTM, NRE is a much bigger built-in cost of making anything since they simply don't have a huge array of Legos to choose from like Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki and Yamaha.

I think this all adds up to explain why a GS500 with 26Kmi on it like mine can be a dodgy occasional use bike that requires a lot of home mechanicking to make it work while a similarly-aged Triumph or BMW can be reliable as a stone.

Hey friends. Right this minute I m somewhat seriously considering selling my GS. I can probably sort out the current hard idling issue but then I will probably just park it back in the garage and rarely use it, putting it in precisely the same condition again in 6 months. It needs to be ridden regularly to stay happy.

Now that my Bonneville is back from the dead, I have lost most of my motivation to fiddle with the GS. It's now a chore waiting to be done and taking up garage space. It's a blast to ride and potentially a great bike for this purpose, but the fact remains that I just don't need it. If I could get $2k for it, I'd do it. Then I'd buy something else, something with fuel injection, maybe a Ducati scrambler. Something I'd ride more than once a month.

I got $500!  That's be a great ride from Austin to Houston,... woop woop!
I'd have to dance like,...



but, why not keep?  I really enjoy riding a different bike everyday.

you'd have a heck of an adventure getting this thing all the way to Houston. Might run once it was on I10.

I'm sure my grumpiness will pass and I'll fix it and ride it. Still planning a gravel roads trip to see a suspension bridge up by Lampasas this spring. But I would trade it straight across for a DR650 right now, and might even put money with it for a vanvan. Talk about a bike I would never use!