83 wheels to 77

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OldWing77$
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83 wheels to 77

#1

Post by OldWing77$ »

I bought a set of 83 wheels, forks, swing arm, for my Gl1000. Has anyone done this? My main concern is the swing arm and final drive, has anyone done this conversion?
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gregforesi
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Re: 83 wheels to 77

#2

Post by gregforesi »

The GL1000 has a 3.4:1 final drive and the GL1100 varied over the production run but is about 3.1:1. About a 10% taller gear and about 10% less engine. It will take a hit coming away from a light.
I did a swap of 77's wheels to my 78 and the front end was a real pain. I should have gone the "whole front end" route as well.
You may have to alter the driveshaft to adapt.
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wingrider
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Re: 83 wheels to 77

#3

Post by wingrider »

Perhaps This link may help you with the 1100 swing arm to the 1000 frame.
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Shadowjack
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Re: 83 wheels to 77

#4

Post by Shadowjack »

I adapted an 1100 swingarm and final drive to my 1000/1200 swap. Big, big PITA and not worth it on a 1000 motor, due to the change in ratio, as stated. With a 1200, it goes pretty good, but if I was to go down that road again, it would be with an 1100 frame to begin with.
You need to do everything in the link above. The final drives have a different mounting bolt pattern so you need the swingarm. The 1100 swingarm is longer, both in the rear shaft and in the front coupling, so you need to swap the short front 1000 coupling to the longer 1100 rear shaft. Takes a new U-joint, and I had to actually saw the 1100 front coupling to get the old cross out; no going back there. Then you have to figure out how to retain the caps after you press out the old ones. I found a machinist who cut grooves in the yokes for the retainers, but he wasn't sure at first if he could actually do it.
There was a lot of screwing around to get the arm to fit between the frame pivots, and get it placed right. The pivot bolts I had made according to the link were not quite right and one side is marginal in length, due to the offset to clear the rear master cylinder. You also need longer shocks because the lower mount is farther back on the swingarm.
Not sure about the front; I swapped a CB900C front end.
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Re: 83 wheels to 77

#5

Post by Sidecar Bob »

I can't comment on the effort required to put an 1100 swingarm into a 1000 frame but I had a '79 GL1000 engine in my '83 1100 for over 20 years. The combination of 1000 transmission and 1100 final drive resulted in gearing about a gear and a half higher than stock. That meant lower RPM on the open road and much better fuel economy at the expense of gearing down sooner coming into towns and on hills. Yes, it didn't pull away as quickly as a stock bike but it will still accelerate better than most other vehicles so unless you are into drag racing that doesn't matter.
I loved that combination on 2 wheels but after I added the sidecar it needed lower gearing, especially for pulling away uphill with a passenger &/or cargo in the sidecar so I eventually changed to an 1100 engine/transmission to fix that.
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