Dave, There is always some conflict between building a bike to look great (only), and buiding  bike to ride like YOU want and still look good.
I checked the Shinko website and the 230's are
100/90-19 front-26.1" od
130/90-16 rear-25.2" od
And the 250's are
mj90-19 front-25.59" od
mt90-16 rear-25.59" od

The 250's have a modern tread and would be fine for your first set.

No, I am running 230's on mine and am very pleased. But if you don't want  the front to look taller than the back, the 250's are the same size. Unless you ride beside a mirror you won't be able to see them while you're riding anyways! With that big rear fender,(wich I like) and the rear having way more rubber than the front it will be hard to tell the front is a pinch taller than the back.
After static balancing the drive pulley/hub, and tire/rim seperatly I now have 6k on the rear 130/90-16 230 and it is wearing very even, should get 9-10k on it.

One last thing about lowering your forks 1 1/2", when I run my 16" front wheel with a 100/90-16 tire it lowers the front about the same. You know I'm not normaly a peg dragger, but I have noticed the footboards scraping quite often. Keep that in mind when you mount your pegs. Measure your other bikes footpeg height, don't just go with the botton of the frame.,,,,,(unless you WANT to drag your pegs all the time, it always makes it seem like you're going faster)

Hard to believe it has been more than 8 months since I have done anything on this project.  When summer arrives I move on to the yard work that is required, cutting firewood for the coming winter.....and going riding on the bikes that are functional!

I have started working on the bike again now that winter has arrived.  My fork tubes are still at Gordy's Goodworks........more than 8 months and I still haven't got them back.  I have started calling on a regular basis and I keep getting promises that they are the "next" thing on his agenda.  At this point I am told they are shortened and the threading is what will be done next.

I did a bit of work on the rear hub bearing spacer.  In order to install the double pulley bearing I machined the spacer, then machined and soldered on a washer to protect the rubber bearing seal.

Here is the bearing and spacer in the Cafe' bike hub......it will be replated before it is installed permanently.  This is the KZ750 rear pulley from the Cafe' bike, and I will also be putting the double Kawasaki pulley set on this bike.  The gearing change really makes a huge difference......3,500 rpm at 60mph and 4,000 rpm at 70mph really makes for a nice relaxed ride on the highway.

This is what it looks like when mounted.  I didn't have the proper length bolts so please ignore the washers and spacers I needed to use while making the bracket.

I wanted to get the caliper as close to the original position as possible - but the limiting issue was the interference of the inner caliper bolt with the lug on the fork leg.....this is as close as I can get it.

Great work Dave!

Then I machined a stainless cover for use under the nuts - to hide the extra set of holes that had to be drilled in the pulley flange.  Then I got the pulley hub powder coated, the near double bearing installed and mounted the pulley I finished last year.

Armen wrote on 01/06/22 at 11:13:29:


Yep....the bearing location and spacers are the same.  The Kawasaki pulley just has a different offset and bolt circle.  The hub just needs the mounting surface shaved off 0.12" for the pulley to be in alignment.  I also make a bush to fit the larger center hole in the Kawasaki pulley - but it is not really needed.  The Kawasaki pulley needs to have 6 new holes drilled to match the Suzuki bolt circle....and it is easier for me to drill those if the pulley is centered on the Suzuki hub and I can use the existing hub holes to mark where the new holes need to be drilled.