Jim's 1980 SG Miss September

Hate to say I told ya so, guys, but I told ya so a whole lot of times: Vesrah gaskets and 0-rings are indistinguishable from OE. Athena gaskets are slick, green, and thin, except for the head gasket, which is .013" thicker than OE measured on the compressed fire ring, and please, please don't even hint that the extra thickness makes no difference 'cause y'all know better than that.
 
Was lookin' at the pics and just noticed.... you can see in one of the housing holes where the gasket had worked it's way out toward the edge.
My cylinder base gasket has done the same. Although it's not leaking... it doesn't exactly give me warm fuzzy's.


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That crappy green Athena cardboard (I don't want to call it gasket paper, as I suspect a cornflakes box would have done a better job) was also responsible for much wailing and gnashing of teeth when it was used a base gasket in the Athena sets for the GS 850.
Pretty effing annoying, having to totally strip the entire top off because the base gasket's buggered itself within a few hundred miles.
 
Over the winter I replaced the buckhorns. I'd meant to document it here but forgot until Tom pointed 'em out today.

Ebay el cheepo's... they were advertised as Honda CB bars. Iirc the ad said 28" wide. They weren't... they were 26" and too narrow. The brake master literally covered part of the tach.... and touched it when I angled it where I wanted the lever.



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And even at that the throttle tube still hung out some. Suppose I could have flogged the guy and got a refund, but I do enjoy a challenge. ;)
I cut two 1.5" extensions off a wrecked set of bars and welded 'em on the ends. That gave me 29" wide bars. "Vee'd" the ends for good weld penetration, sliced a tube lengthwise to jig the extension, safety wired that in place and tacked the extension(s) on.




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Welded all the way around and ground it down smooth...



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Much better.



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Finally got to try 'em out this spring. Wasn't happy with 'em. Don't get me wrong, low speed handling was pretty good... better than the buckhorns, but they had me too far forward. Almost like a sport bike tuck... at least it felt that way on my knees. And my aftermarket rt knee weren't havin' none of it.
Kinda late now to bitch at Ebay... crap. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. After some mashup experiments that I didn't get shots of, I settled on 1-1/2" back and 1-1/2" up as being about where my knee was happy.... or should I say... not unhappy. So I fabbed up some risers that are a bit on the ugly side, but strong and functional.



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Cut those down to a oblong shape and JB Welded some washers on the back hole to get me to the 1-1/2" I was shootin' for, and to add some thickness for the cut down bar mounts.




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Cut the shoulder down on a spare set of mounts, then drilled and tapped for a 1/4"-28 bolt.... some Pratt & Whitney engine hardware jus' layin' around. ;)




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A little paint and here we are...



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I like the look, and low speed manners are better than the old bars. My knee's still not real comfortable with 'em... but that's getting better. Now the mirrors are too far in for a good look behind me. I tried some bar end mirrors but didn't like 'em. The hunt continues.

While I had it all apart I went ahead and replaced the rubber isolators in the top triple and stuck some foam grips on the bars. Funny story.... ran it out to around 80mph early in the season and noticed that my feet seemed to be vibrating a fair bit. Finally dawned on me it weren't more in the feet, it was much less in the bars. Even with some very (too) light summer gloves, there was hardly any vibrations in the bars. The mind was playin' tricks.

Well I've officially fried my brain trying to recall all this, so...

Anyway, function and form is nice when you can get there, but I'll take function over form any day.
And cheap never goes outta style. :whistle:
 
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looked back, dual disk NEVER MIND
SOME (not all) V-star mirrors have stems long enough to work well, good vibration free viewing, I like the shape and look.
Madness keeps the stock MC only cuz it's dual disk. Jim's is dual disk also. I really should swap in one from a standard, for the looks if nothing else. I hopped on a very nice Restomod owned by a forum member at Barber, instantly reminded why I HATE that stock brake "feel", Block of wood rather accurate description.
 

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Jim, I used these on my Honda Monkey and they worked a treat when I swapped handlebars. Around $12. Moved them out and up just enough. Also, I have a pair of dirt bars in the bin sitting if you’re interested in trying another pair, just for experimentations sake. I can grab photos and dimensions if interested.
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Jim, I used these on my Honda Monkey and they worked a treat when I swapped handlebars. Around $12. Moved them out and up just enough. Also, I have a pair of dirt bars in the bin sitting if you’re interested in trying another pair, just for experimentations sake. I can grab photos and dimensions if interested.
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Thanks Jessee. Funny... never dawned on me that there's mirror extensions out there. I'll take a look.
 
The ones from Amazon are more but if you sign up for Amazon free 90 trial you get the free shipping and the Amazon ones offer free return
 
Thanks guys. I ordered the Amazon ones. Look to be identical to the Aliex ones. Twice the cost but here in 2 days vs a month for the Aliex ones. Supposed to be some good weather the end of this week and into next.
 
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