{"id":2165,"date":"2020-03-22T13:00:22","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T17:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/?p=2165"},"modified":"2020-08-09T13:10:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-09T17:10:31","slug":"gt380-round-things-and-rolling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/22\/gt380-round-things-and-rolling\/","title":{"rendered":"GT380 Round Things and Rolling"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>I find lacing (of the wheel variety) to be quite relaxing ever since I stopped using a dial gauge while constantly fretting about the run out, and started just using an old spoke clamped to the wheel building stand. If it rubs – that spot is wrong, and if it rubs all the way around then you are good. I actually use old two spokes – one to measure the side to side, and one for overall roundness. If it is a new rim, then I protect it from being scratched with a bit of tape. On the Takasago rims there is usually such a large bump where the two ends were butted together at the factory and were welded up, that you never can get the wheel perfectly round anyway and I have been told that the factory tolerance was an 1\/8 of an inch in the two axes. which seems like a lot. I don’t know if that is true, but you can get much closer than that just with a old spoke clamped to the side of the stand as an indicator, and when the tire is mounted it all seems to be good. <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve also been asked about the torque setting that I use, and to be honest, I’ve never seen one listed by Suzuki for these bikes or anything else from the early 1960’s and 1970’s. I aim for the same ‘ping’ sound when the spokes are tapped with the spoke wrench and have never had an issue.
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I do a static balance once the tire (or tyre if you prefer) is mounted, and leave the wheels off the bike over night just in case I’ve pinched a tube and have a slow leak. In truth, since I picked up a Mojolever (just do a search for it with your favourite search tool) and a set of his nylon blocks for my tire change stand, I’ve had much better success with not pinching tubes. The next morning I temporarily fitted the newly re-spoked\/re-shod wheels into the frame just so I could more easily move it around. It was a nice day, so I also fitted the tank and frame covers, rolled it outside and took a few photos.<\/p>\n

The bike came with the tank and covers freshly painted, and they are similar to a 1974 colour that was offered. The bike is what we call here a ‘Heinz 57’ or a ‘bitsa’: the frame is a 1975, the date coding on the wheel rims would indicate they are from a 1976, the engine is from a 1977, and the headlamp is from a late 1970’s GS400, so using what looks like 1974 colour sort of fits with the theme.\u00a0😉<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>The wiring checks out, although I do have to rebuild the switchgear, as well as make a couple of small sub-harnesses. I have got the horn working again, and I now think I have enough bits to complete putting the gauges together.<\/p>\n

Next on the agenda is to do something with the engine.\u00a0😎<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I find lacing (of the wheel variety) to be quite relaxing ever since I stopped using a dial gauge while constantly fretting about the run out, and started just using an old spoke clamped to the wheel building stand. If … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[412,406,205,210,242],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Yjgi-yV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2165"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2178,"href":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions\/2178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oldjapanesebikes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}