A GS1100 To Restore

[Nortoon_imp]

I've been tinkering with this old bike doing a bit when I had time. I sent the carbs off to a fellow in Texas for refurbishing as they were beyond my skill to deal with. They came back (4 months later) looking like new and today I connected a temporary fuel bottle and cranked the old bike to life. Adjusted the idle and seems to be running fine; no oil smoke but very loud through the old 4 into 1 system without a muffler. Now I can start acquiring the many running parts needed to finish the project. I'm painting it a light blue similar to the blue on early Suzukis. Still needs the forks rebuilt, new chain, tires and tubes, seat rebuilt, handlebars, grips and rear turn signals and a full exhaust system to name a few.

If you are going to all the trouble of restoring this bike, why not just clean and wax the current paint? It has been my experience that paint never turns out the way you expect it to. Plus it devalues the bike and it's authenticity.

Found the mufflers I needed for my 1971 BSA Lightning restoration at a motorcycle salvage yard. You couldn't see the chrome for the grime. I had to use oven cleaner to remove it. Gave them a final polish with Autosol and they sparkled.

I was a good customer of the last remaining BSA shop in Ottawa. Harry the owner gave me a set of the authentic handlebars when he heard I was restoring the motorcycle.

If you are going to all the trouble of restoring this bike, why not just clean and wax the current paint? It has been my experience that paint never turns out the way you expect it to. Plus it devalues the bike and it's authenticity.

Found the mufflers I needed for my 1971 BSA Lightning restoration at a motorcycle salvage yard. You couldn't see the chrome for the grime. I had to use oven cleaner to remove it. Gave them a final polish with Autosol and they sparkled.

I was a good customer of the last remaining BSA shop in Ottawa. Harry the owner gave me a set of the authentic handlebars when he heard I was restoring the motorcycle.
I'm not really interested in a period correct restoration. Just want the bike to run reliably so that my wife may enjoy riding it. The existing paint may look okay in the photos but in fact there was surface rust and all the decals were beyond help. The right side cover was missing but I was able to make one from the cracked remains of two black side covers I bought cheap on Ebay. I'm doing the paint myself and the results are obvious when seen close up that I'm no expert at this.

I had a similar problem with the second hand 1971 BSA Lightning I bought. The kid had made a quasi-chopper out of it and painted it metal-flake sky blue. Unfortunately the factory paint scheme for that year was also really ugly. So the frame, tank and side panels got painted black. Looked better than either of the two previous paint jobs.