Another suzuki gs1000 chop

[jmlcolorado]

I figured I'd start a build thread here, cause this is my favorite forum

I'm helping out an friend chop up his 1981 GS1000. He's been sporting it for a while till he decided what he wanted to do to it.
He decided to tear it down this winter and I duping urged he better haul it to my garage so I can knock out the fab work before I get more busy.
So here goes nothing:







Here's how I got it. He did the PITA work of removing all the parts and pieces. Kinda nice to start this way, gotta say!




And now for me to do my thing.


We decided to do a 3" stretch on the swingarm. It will be hard tailed, and the neck raked. It IS a chopper after all
So off comes the swingarm and a million measurements taken so assure it's all square once I weld it back together.




I like how the factory installed the adapter pate for the....uh.....thingy a ma bobber. Not sure what it's called. Final drive?
So I cut the factory weld to reuse it.

[jmlcolorado]

Inserted a sleeve, and then 2.5" DOM.




Looks pretty square. Not bad considering it was cut with a reciprocating saw.





My attempt at making sure the axle lines match up. The photo makes it look like the pointer is not square, but it really is.


Half way done, ish.

[jmlcolorado]

Onto the other side. This side won't be as easy since it is curved. No sleeping and calling it done :/


I decided the best way was to remove the axle mount, re-fish mouth the tube back to a better angle, then sleeve it. This seemed like an easier option than just trying to get a sleeve bent to the exact right angle to match the axle mount.




I had to laugh at the size difference in the factory tube and the DOM I'm using. It's .020". Might be a little overkill, but oh well.


Before fish mouth


After fish mouth. (I'm pretty proud of this fish mouth. Did it with a 4.5" angle grinder.) I bend the crap out of my arbor for the tubing saw in the drill press :/

You might note the heat marks on the sleeve. I did have to bend it ever so slightly to line everything up.



Did an 8" sleeve to get a good solid 2.5" on each end.



I also did a number of holes for rosette welds to add more strength.

I had a tire clearance issue on the other side and figured I better fix that before welding up this side.
I also noticed the 3" stretched driveshaft had clearance issues inside too, so I cut the whole flat mess out and added plate to add 1/8" inside and provide clearance for the tire outside.

[jmlcolorado]

Apparently I forgot to take pictures of the plate welded up.
Here it is finished.




Tire clearance is still tight, but at least it doesn't touch. Might have to heat and tap in a little down the road. We'll see.


Back to the other side.

[jmlcolorado]

My buddy has asked if I can fill I. The smaller tube on the right side to make it look more factory. I kinda liked the look myself, but it's his ride. I'll tackle that later.

[soltz]

Looks good. I did the same thing with a VN750 Kaw. I slugged the right side then just filled in around it to get it the same size as stock. Here's a link to how I did it if it will help.

http://s1054.photobucket.com/user/ss...w%20Driveshaft

keep us up to date with pix.

Here's the finished project. This was a build for my son in law.

[Dirtyrat]

That is a nice job extending the final drive/swing arm! Now I see where the tire was, the clearance in the arm stayed, and the middle was extended, the factory had to narrow that area where the tire was originally to make it clear too =)

[racer93]

Cool thread, noticed your shop stool.

Love creative cool **** like that!

[earthman]

.................

[jmlcolorado]

I asked the guy I'm building this bike for (we'll call him Shawn, since that's his name ) to bring the engine over so I could get it in the frame to get weight on the front forks. That way I can make sure the bike sits paraell to the ground when we rake his neck.
He also brought an '80 gs1000 rear wheel. This wheel is 1" larger, making it a 17" wheel vs his 16" wheel that came on the '81.
We tossed it on the newly stretched swingarm and found the tire to be offset to the left of the bike an extra 1/2"

Hard to see well in this photo, but the tire tread at the bottom of the picture that has chalk in it is the center of the tire.


I pulled a factory '80 swingarm I had laying around and put it on the bike with his '80 rear wheel. That one lined it all up fine.
THIS means I can't use this swingarm I just stretched
So he found another '80 swingarm locally (can't use the one I have since it's off another buddy's chop project).
So I suppose the first one was just practice. Never hurts to have practice I suppose.

We also made a deal that he would grab me a JD2 model 3 tubing bender and a set of 1" dies for the work I'm doing to his bike

Pretty happy about that deal. I REALLY need a tubing bender with the stuff I'm getting into now days.