Sorry guys, I’ve been on the road for work a lot the last few days and haven’t had time to get an update together.
The wheel I’m using up front is an OEM Harley narrow glide wheel. If you plan on doing this kind of conversion, it’s important that you find a wheel from a 2000 & later bike as it takes the sealed wheel bearings.
I was hoping to get all tricky and track down an aluminum rim that I could lace to a Harley hub but the pickings were real slim on ebay, and I was getting impatient. I ended up with a box-stock takeoff wheel:
Not as secksy as what I’d originally set out for, but it was a helluva lot cheaper.
Here’s what the bearing bores will look like when you have the right wheel:
I also picked up a set of rotors from a ’04 gsx-r; I figured that being the same year as my front end, I would be OK:
Once both the wheel & rotors showed up though, I discovered that I’d #$%*ed up. I knew that I would need to have the rotors drilled to match the bolt pattern of the Harley hub, but when I got to looking at them, I realized that the slots that were machined into the rotor between each bolt hole were smack bad where the new holes would need to go. These rotors were paperweights.
After doing a bit more research, I found that rotors from a ’99-’07 Hayabusa would be just the ticket. Plenty of meat on there to have them drilled to match the Harley hub:
Since the ‘Busa rotors are 320mm’s in diameter compared to the 300mm diameters rotors that came on the ’04 gsxr-600, I also needed some 10mm spacers so the calipers would clear the rotors:
The next order of business what to figure what would need to be done to make sure that the rotors lined up correctly with the calipers. I knew that the rotor spacing on center on the gsx-r was 132mm’s; mounted up on the Harley hub, the rotor spacing measured out at 130.5mm’s; too narrow on each side by .75mm. I used .030 stainless shims under each rotor to get the correct spacing.
With that solved, it was time to get the wheel mounted up in the forks. The other reason to use the Harley hub is that it accepts a 52mm OD sealed bearing; the same size bearing as the gsx-r uses. For wheel bearings, I had two options:
GSX-R bearings (25x52x15) 
OR,
Harley bearings (25x52x21)
Both options give me a bearing that will fit the hub and accommodate the Suzuki 25mm axle. The only real consideration at this point was if I wanted a wider or narrower bearing. In the end, I went with the Suzuki bearing figuring that narrower would be better to keep the axle from sticking too far out from the fork clamps.
I also sourced the correct 25mm ID crush tube to suit the narrow glide wheel:
And that was it. The true test would be if the spokes would clear the calipers once it was all fitted up and sure as hell, it all fit like it was meant to.
