I suppose I'll put my email up for anyone who feels the need to talk to me about this rediculous project. I've received several emails from the fish 'n chips crowd about my GS550 project so here you go if you want to send me some words or something. email Justin.

The Beginning

Yes! Yet another bike project started without finishing any of the other 5 or 10. Kevin and I picked this bike up about 3yrs ago out of a shed where it sat for 5yrs. It was non-running but had new tires and looked OK. He paid $100 – asshole. We took it back to his place and I washed it.

• The shed we pulled it out of.
• Dug out of the shed,
• And another out of the shed.
• Here's the bike clean.
• And another clean shot.
• Kevin's dumbass on a bike he'd never ride.

Then Kevin neglected it for about a year before I convinced him to sell it to my buddy Aaron.

Aaron fixed some wiring and immediately got the bike running and rode it a few times. Then he neglected it and I ended up buying it.

• Coming home on the 'yota.

Hey, guess what? I neglected it too! It sat around for about a year while I was figuring out what to do with it. I changed the square headlight to a round one, removed the cafe fairing and lowered the front forks 1".

The Goal

Yeah, like it matters cuz I never finish any project. Well this one should be simple. I want to ride this one and get it pretty reliable. So that means no major changes to it. First things first is to stretch the bike. All japanese bikes from this time are dorky looking cuz you are sitting directly above the rear wheel. This is purely asthetic since the 550cc motor is obviously no drag monster that needs a stretched swingarm.

The rest is simple. Fix all of the wiring and paint the bike to look respectable.

The Swingarm

December 2006 – Bought KZ650 Swingarm

I picked up a used KZ650 swingarm from eBay for about $10. The plan is to use the chain adjusters and pivot from this and fabricate the stretched swingarm out of square stock tubing. But I better learn to weld first.

So I started going to welding classes so I could learn to weld instead of burn through metal and make booger globs.

April 2007 – Start Fabrication

Pretty simple - cut up the stock swingarm and only use the pivot and chain adjusters; make the rest. 5" over is what I'm shooting for. I bought 1x2 14ga square tubing off of eBay for dirt cheap for materials.

• Here's what I'm starting with.
• Here are the adjusters being layed out.
• A closer shot of the adjusters. I used a 9 1/4" long tube to simulate the axle span.
• Pie-cut the 1x2 square tubing to fit the axle adjusters. Here is the outside view.
• And the inside view of the pie-cut.
• Here are the arms layed out for measuring.
• 10 degree bend with a pie-cut makes the angle to the pivot. LOTS of measuring to get this right.
• Here is the bend spot welded. I used another 9 1/4" tube to space out the arms.
• Here is the adjuster spot welded.
• Clamps were heavily used in order to keep everything squared up during spot welding.
• It's all coming together.
• And now it's ready for final welding.

Now up until this point I had been spot welding everything with a MIG welder in my class. We thought about MIG welding the entire project but worried about heat warping the entire deal. So after the MIG spot welds were done we TIG welded most of the joints. Most of the TIG welds were capped with a MIG weld a couple days after cooling for added strength.

So the arm is done and it's time to put it together. But heat won the battle. The arm was 3/8" out of square somehow. So putting it on the bike and strapping it to my lift then hammering the shit out of it for 2hrs put it back in line.

• Right after initial fit up.
• Closer view.
• More adjustments and cleaning up all of the arm and welds with a flap wheel. Also had to cut the bike up some more to compensate for the angle of the shocks.
• My dork ass on the bike ready for more work.

July 2007 – Finished Swingarm

So the swingarm project is now done. I chased most of the TIG welds with a MIG welder for added strength. I also took the grinder to some of the areas of the swingarm for cosmetic reason but did not remove any structural support. I've also added some external shock mount supports and captive nuts on the back of the swingarm. I relocated the original brake stay mount and lengthened the brake stay itself.

• Outer shock mount
• Inner shock mount
• Brake stay mount
• Reinforcement
• Swingarm finished and painted

Miscellaneous Fabrication

July 2007 – Making it fit

Well since you end up lengthening the bike 6" and lowering it about 4" some stuff just won't fit anymore. So below are some pix of the rear section that I had to fabricate since the stock had to be cut off and thrown away in order for the swingarm project to work. Krylon rocks!

• Rear Structure angle
• Rear Structure side
• Rear Structure close-up
• Rear Structure inner fender support. You can tell here that I ended up raising the inner fender up about 1".
• Finished Rear Strucure 1
• Finished Rear Strucure 2
• Finished Rear Strucure 3
• Tail installed 1. This shows how the license plate mount fits and the new LED taillamp looks.
• Tail installed 2
• Tail installed 3
• Tail installed 4
• Side shot of it all. I gave the tail a bit of a flip up so that it flows with the seat.

Rust is a bitch. The battery box was crap so I had to make a new one.

• New box
• I can weld!