I am finally at the point in my quest for cast wheels that I am comfortable posting where I am at.  I didn't want to post something every week or so and keep everyone waiting.   I know there are other threads covering the topic so some info may not be new, but hopefully this will help someone do this conversion and maybe clarify the process...or at least it will show one way to get cast wheels on your bike.  I apologize for the length of the post...I'm going to try and document the process in it's entirety    

Parts list:

wheels- '80 gs550l  19x2.15 front  16x2.75 rear

rotor- gs 450 machined down to match the OD of the stock rotor

6ea- m8x1.25x35 bolts
24ea-m8 washers (used to space rotor)

tape measure or preferably calipers

assorted paints and abrasives if you intend on painting rotor/wheels etc.

I started by sourcing the wheels and rotor.  From my research multiple years of the gs550 and gs450 wheels will work.  The gs wheels come in two designs, one like I used here and one that is more of a star pattern.

There are no differences I know of that would prevent you from using them interchangeably in this conversion.  These are the closest to a drop in wheel that I found.  I looked into the yamaha xs wheels but rotors and spacing proved to be a hurdle.  The gs wheels require only minimal machine work to the rotor.  As stated before in previous posts, you need a gs450 rotor no matter the bike you source the wheels from.  I accidentally purchased a gs550 slotted rotor before realizing the importance of the solid 450 rotor.  You will need to machine down into the slots of the rotor on the gs550 rotor...which obviously isn't going to work  I took the rotor to a machine shop that used an automotive brake rotor lathe to turn my rotor...so any automotive shop should be able to do this job.  I took the savage rotor and the gs rotor and had him match the two.  The measurement is 10.25 inches.  

Does anyone know what the gs rotors are made of?  The guy said he had not seen anything where where metal came off the lathe golden like this did.  
 

After getting the rotor back home I got it cleaned up and painted.
before:

after:


After mocking up everything in the front I found that four washers per bolt (.23") worked for spacing the rotor.  I am going to make a solid aluminium spacer soon, but for now the spacers will do fine I think.





and the stock axle spacers put me just about dead center in the forks.

clutch side:

brake side:


After taking off the tires and giving the wheels a cleaning with simple green a scrub pad and a wire brush I wiped them down with acetone and got ready to change their color!

Finished:


I used a low gloss engine enamel rattle can.  I found that 1 can was needed for a solid first coat and about 3/4 can did subsequent coats.  

I mounted the new tires after rehabbing the wheels.  I did this with two tire irons and using automotive fuel line split and put on the rim to protect it from the irons.  Getting the tires off was actually more difficult than mounting the new but the new tires( mounted with tubes as I was not sure of the "trueness" of the wheel and due to its age wanted to be safer than sorry) were not holding air.  Feeling defeated I took them to a trusted mechanic. He inspected the wheels and determined the tubes were not needed.  He did not have the correct stem in stock so to get my wheels back faster I went to a local powersports dealer that handles suzuki and gave the wheel specs, was handed the stems, and repeated the wheel specs to be sure I got the right stems.  Guess where this is going.  Dropped them off for the  and he calls back to tell me they will not work.  I tell him the story and he says that he is standing there with his Parts Unlimited rep....he will ask him.  I hear the conversation after the phone was put down where the rep is heard saying that the parts guys where I went don't know sh*t.  The right one were ordered, tires mounted and balanced and here is where I stand $49.00 later.  (I originally was going to go with a internal balancing product but I just want to get back on the road.  Maybe I will try one of those at some point down the road. )

ready for the bike:

With all the sweat that went into unmounting and mounting tires...money well spent I think.  

That is where I am with this, I hope to have the wheels fit today or tomorrow. Part 2 coming soon.  

You're making me feel bad for abandoning my maxim FE project.
That would have given me twin discs too in front.

Sheesh ... maybe I should go back to it. But I was getting tired of having the savage without a working FE (it was on it, but I had to finish the brake spacing etc).

Anyway I never got within a 100 feet of that rear wheel though. I had a brand new tire on the back, I aint swapping out a wheel with a shiny new tire ... Yea yea I can put it on the maxim wheel, but then I lose all the mount and balance $$$ yea I am that frugal. It will be changed when its bald or loses air ... else hell no.

Cool.
Srinath.

So....my rear wheel doesn't exactly fit.  

I learned some new info today after consulting with thegsresources.com....in order to do this swap on the rear without modification to the pulley hub or replacing it with a GS hub, we need a '79-'82 gs550 wheel.  I can't verify that this applies to the 450 wheels, but have been told the second generation of gs550 was '83-'85 and used a different size hub.  So for this swap don't use the rear wheel of a gs550 if it is a second gen year.  

Is that rotor magnetic? Bike rotors are typically made of 400 series stainless(magnetic) but I've never seen gold chips come off like that before. That's what you see when dry-cutting 300 series(non-magnetic). The really high chromium content is what does it.

Yup, 300 series stainless steel then. Didn't know they made brake rotors out of that.

Cavi Mike wrote on 05/01/13 at 05:55:02:



My savage rotor is plenty magnetic.
I dunno what rotor is not. Cos the MZ, GS, GSXR, eliminator, maxim and every other one I had was pretty magnetic.

Cool.
Srinath.

Got back from Mexico and the hub I ordered was waiting or me....only it is the same dimensions as the stock savage hub

I asked the seller to verify the year and he assured me it was from an '85 550l.  So it looks like the problem must be that the wheel is not as it was described.  Machining the two to mate is the new plan. I'm going to remove half the material from the OD of the hub and half from the ID of the wheel.

So where I'm at is that you should really verify the years of the gs parts used since it seems there is more variation than previously thought.

So it looks like this conversion is going to stay half done for now. Before moving forward with any more work I decided to measure everything to verify if I fixed the pulley hub situation it wood be smooth sailing from there. It won't be

The brake side will not work. The wheel opening is a little more than 1 inch larger than the savage and so my brake assembly is much smaller than whatever the bike the wheel came from had.  So I am stopping for now until I can do more research on gs wheels and what years had what dimensions.  And then attack at a later date. I need to get moving on my car project so the bike is being tabled for the foreseeable future.