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Project Ground Pounder: 77 GS750

54K views 233 replies 51 participants last post by  Sinister Imaging 
#1 ·
I've had this one laying in wait for little while. I've actually had plans for it even befor I took proper ownership of it. I bought the bike back in September right befor I made the move to Atlanta. But I first found the bike 3 years ago when I first moved to Charleston and started working at the salvage yard. It belonged to our best customer and friend. Guy has 13 or so fully built metric choppers. evrything from 10 foot long cb750's that he originaly built back in the early 70's to brand new $40K Road Star customs.

This one was more of a budget lowrider. He rode it for a few years back in the 80's and somewhere along the lines the motor developed a problem. It got parked out behind the shop and forgoten about for a good 20 years and scavanged for parts here and there. One day I was out back looking for some odd part off a spare CB750 we were building for him and found this on under the tarp next to it. Completely forgeting why I came out there in the first place I ran back inside and asked him what the deal was with it. He said he had no plans for it, but it had a clean title and I could get it if I wanted. I asked him how much and he made me a deal I couldn't refuse. $100 he said. I said cool. I'll get it to you next week. Well, next week turned into next month and next month turned into next year, etc. I ended up moving on from that job but still kept that bike in the back of my mind. And everytime I stopped back in I would ask him about it again. Every time he would say $100.

Finally the week I was packing up to move I had to make a stop in to grab a brake light switch for my VTR. As always I woundered in to the back to look around and saw it again. Thought about it and figured, "Oh well, it would have been cool." While I was there I had to pick up some tie downs for the truck and in the course of paying for my items I got to talking with everyone and hanging out for a little while. As I reached for my money I started counting out the amount for my purchase and realized I had $100 on me. I looked up at my friend and asked if he would still sell the bike. Yup! $100?, I said. He said, PTL. (Pay the lady) I picked it up that saturday and loaded up in the moving van with the rest of my stuff and headed to Atlanta.

Right now it's sitting in my storage unit, but after the new year I'm hoping to be able to pull it out and start choping it up. Plans are as follows...

Motor gets pulled, disassembled and inspected. See if it's worth rebuilding. It's locked up right now. It could be rusted, it could be catostrofic. Not sure, but the kicker doesn't budge.

If it is good, I'm planning to go for an 855cc big bore and GS 850 head.

It has no carbs at the moment. Thinking a set of early GSXR 750 or Kat 750 carbs will work.

It has an old 4-1 exhaust on it already. I also have another aftermarket 4-1 system that is a split head pipe. So I'm thinking 4-2 with twin supertraps.

Suspension is totally getting changed. Frontend will be swaped with the complete VTR assembely. It's already been resprung with Race Tech 0.95kg springs and emulators. I'm going to lower the frontend internaly a couple inches and move the clip ons way low on the forks.

Rearend is a +9, braced GSXR1100W arm. Rear wheel is 18x6 with a 200 tire, I'm going to make a superbike style caliper mount and use a lazer cut wave rotor out back. still need to get a rear shock for it and make linkages. But it will be lowered as well.

Subframe is getting completley removed and I'll be welding up a stuby drop seat. Frame needs to be mono shocked and rebraced. Have to make new foot controls and linkages along with corosponding frame bosses.

Body work is going to be very minimal. Going to reuse the stock tank which actually looks rust free on the inside. Also has working locks and the stock gas cap and cover. Seat and tail will be made from sheet metal and welded to the tank. So it's going to be a 1 piece monoquoce with quick release. Electrical box will be part of the subframe. Head light is going to be the 5 3/4 bullet I had on my VTR with the cateye lens. Tail light will be an LED mini bullet moulded into the center of the tail. I'm gona get some MOON Disk wheel covers to go on the rims and give it that solid wheel look. And the whole thing is getting sprayed Gloss Black with polished bits.

Here's an idea of what I'm going for. I started with one of my favorite bikes off DBBP.com and turned from an HD into a GS :D



So this is my new years resolution. Get cracking on this project and put 3 years of dreaming and planning to work. Goal is to have it ready for FF09.
 
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#33 ·
Re: Project Ground Pounder: 76 GS750

OK, just to keep this thread going. Picked up a few parts to throw at this thing.

Scored a free set of Mukuni carbs, that are in very usable shape, from a buddy of mine down in Charleston. They were missing a few parts. A quick trip down to Cycle World and Salvage down in Charleston, SC scored the missing pieces. New float assy, 4 needles, springs, 3 new slides, slide vacume cap and a handfull of screws. All for the bargin basment price of $20. :D

I got 2 shocks to use out back. I had a stock Slingshot rear shock and Buck gave me an air adj unit from a Kawi GZ1000. I'm gona try the Kawi unit and see if I can make the air adjust part a bit more adjustable. If that don't work I'll rebuild the GSXR unit and go with that.

I've had a few months to work this project out in my head and looks like I'm gona run RC-51 forks with an early R6 wheel. I have a set of Brembro 4 pots to attach and it looks like I finally got the info I needed to convert the rotors to 320mm.

The last big change in plans is still up in the air, but I'm leaning towards a total engine swap. I have a few oil boilers hanging around that need to be rebuilt, but I'm looking into picking up an 833cc engine from an undisclosed source. See what the future holds...
 
#36 ·
Re: Project Ground Pounder: 76 GS750

DW'ed today. Was some what of a spur of the moment thing that lasted most of the day. I had sold the stock rear hub to vwhammer, so my original intention was to go pull the rear wheel so I could send him his parts. Then I realised, well I need to put a wheel back in it's place so I can roll it in and out of the storage unit. So I decided, while I was there I would swap swingarms.

Just to refresh y'alls memories so you don't have to go back and dig through the thread. Here's where I started.



I loosly mocked up the swingarm. It's +9 over 95 GSXR750. Wheel is 18 inch GSXR. I'm going to have to shave a 1/4" or so off the pivot so I can fit dust caps in there. It's tight but it fits. Stock GS axle fit the wheel and arm perfect. Going to need to get some spacers made up to fit the pivot bolt to the new arm and some wheel spacers to line up the wheel.



Also played around with the shock placment. It's going to be monoshocked. Tossed a slingshot shock in there and it looks like it'll fit up fairly easy. I also tried out the Kawi air shock. I'll need to make dog bones and some spacers to get it to fit right. Not sure if that linkage will reach the frame right either. I'll need to look at it further to make a decission.




And since I was playing around with the shock I need some room to move so I pulled the stock battery box and electrics. Then I poped a temp strut in there so I could roll it around. I found a nice shouldered bolt in the frame that was just the right length for the dog bone to reach. I took it off the center stand to make sure it would hold weight. It's a little lower then I want, but nothing is tight either. Over all, this is close to how low it's going to be. I'll add a few degrees of positive rake to the swingarm and that should put it where it needs to be.



Pretty soon the idea of actually doing work on this thing consumed me and I went for broke. I started stripping everything off the bike. I removed the tank and started pulling wires.



Then I made my way to the front of the bike and pulled the gauges and headlight and all the cables and switches. Many, many, rusted bolts, striped screws, dried out ate up wiring and spider webs. :spyder: Looks 10x better already.



I figured I would stop there, but I was wanting to save some space in the storage unit and start getting measurments for spacers and mounts. So I went for broke and started pulling the motor. Luckly, all the engine bolts broke loose fairly easily. I took this whole bike apart with a cheap socket set and a pair of vise grips :D I was doing pretty good untill I got to the header. Got 4 of the 8 allen head bolts out no problem. The last 4 were striped all to hell and rusted in the head :doh: . The bitch of this storage unit is there are no electrical outlets anywhere... except one right outside the front door that I just happened to stumble across. So I rolled the bike outside and broke out my dremel. I wound up going through 2 cut off wheels and 2 grind stones trying to cut one bolt out. After a half hour of getting sparks in my eyes and swearing at the fucking rusted bolts I gave in and broke out the sawzall. I was really trying not to go this route as it has a decent 4-1 header that looks salvageable. But there was no other way. I only had to chop 2 pipes, and I left enough room that it can be welded back easily. I have no intention of reusing this motor after all so it's not a huge deal, but I may want to reuse the header. That was the only disapointment of the day thankfuly.

But the following was more then gratifying :D




So now it's down to a roller and straped into the back of the VAN. Gona measure up the swingarm for spacers and start looking into what it's going to take to put the GSXR motor in there. See if I can get this moving forward.
 
#38 ·
Re: Project Ground Pounder: 76 GS750

Yeah, you sure got a lot done. Keep it up!!!
-KR
 
#40 ·
Re: Project Ground Pounder: 76 GS750

just gave my brother in law my ole ladies 78 gs850. she bought it for a beginner bike so if she dropped it no big deal-till she needed to pick it up anyway lol. too bad i didnt find this site till i had given it to him. looks like i'll have to show him this place and let his imagination run wild. i'll be watching this build so i can give him some ideas.

later odieoh24
 
#44 ·
Re: Project Ground Pounder: 76 GS750

Finally, getting some work done. Not having internet for a few days gave me an excuse to DW. Not only did I swap bars and fork seals on moms Maxim, but I started cleaning up the chassis on the GS.

Swaped out the rear rotor with my nice wavy disk




I also started cleaning up the swingarm. Out came the Dremel and some cut off wheels and sanding drums. The welds for the extensions were just nasty. Who ever welded up this arm must have been their first day on the job. Big chunky globs of weld and slag all over it. Plus, it looks like the bike it was on befor lowsided at some point. Lot of dings and some ground up spots. So all those needed to be smoothed out. Also, another confusing bit. There's like muffler tape or metal tape on the sides. After I pulled it off, the area where the extensions meet the stock arm was polished. Guess the PO didn't feel like keeping up with the polish so they just taped over to make it all the same shade. I'll say this, it was damn close, LOL. The stupid things people do to motorcycles :doh:

Anyway, Here's what I had to start with.





Misc brackets that need to be removed or cleaned up.





Smoothed out the welds around the brace, extensions and ground down what was left of the old brake bracket.




Also started chopped off the tabs for the brake line. Need to get out the big grinder to finish them off. It was around midnight though. Don't want to piss off the new neighbors just yet :D



Hit the axle adjusters with some scotch brite and cleaned up the bolts a little too. I need to replace the hardware though. They're pretty rusty.




Also poped in some temporary spacers for the swingarm and rear wheel so now it's all set tight and not just floping around loose. Much better. Going to make a torque arm for the caliper and mount it up where the spool is. Need a longer bolt and a spool. Be quick and easy though.




And just some cool random pics. I measured the wheelbase last night. 69 inches :D I love it. Long, low and mean. The birth of a drag fighter begins.




 
#46 ·
Re: Project Ground Pounder: 76 GS750

Lookin good scrappy, let me know if you need spacer done for the swinger. I may be able to help you out
 
#47 ·
Re: Project Ground Pounder: 76 GS750

looks cool with that swinger on it, keep it up
 
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