I have always liked cast wheels but was brought up on spoked wheels so when I bought my C800 I was resigned to the fact it had spokes, but hey why do the Marauders have cast ones not spoked, & I wonder if they'll fit my Intruder???
Well I asked Mr Intruder about this & he said the back one is a direct swap but unsure about the front as there is a problem with the speedo' cable & there may have to be some spacers made?
Well I bided my time & slowly learnt what I could about the bike from the excellent engineers/troubleshooters on the forum, I'd like to thank you all for the information right now if I may take the time so thank you all.
I decided to do the easy bits & then work up to the hard bit's, I did not know at the time that the bike would be my safe place for the last 8 months as it has kept me sane or as near as someone who has had a nervous breakdown & suffered from depression during that time.
The VS1400 diff swap started it all off so with that done I decided to do the wheel swap & bought the wheels from different sources & also bought a front disc to match the front wheel which was a mistake but hey that's life! Anyone want to buy a VZ800 front disc, £25-00 + postage?
The wheels were sent off for powder coating a nice sparkly silver & I bought new bearings from M & P, good service & quick.
Next job was to swap the bearing spacer tube from the back wheel but when I assembled it all there was a problem with a gap between the drive side bearings & the outer fllange of the hub when together, it had not been there before with the old hub but I had made measurements & they all matched so I had to have a spacer made, 4mm, & everything was then spot on.
Only then did I put the wheel drive 'spider' onto the new wheel & offer it up to the drive but it would not fit!
What the hell, try again but it just would not go on! Then it smacked me tween the eyes, bloody powdercoating! Stripped it all off, cleaned the powder off the joint face & put the 'spider' back on & in it went, bugger then elation!!!
So with the back done, on to the front!
In with new bearings after having the wheel powder coated, making sure everything was all ok, I'll say it now though that when you put the bearings in make sure that the speedo' drive side one is flush with the hub centre as it will make the hub too wide if you don't! Don't ask how I know ok!
I had my engineer friend Keith, thanks mate, make me another alloy spacer to the same pattern, top hat, as the original but with no under cut flange section. If you look at your own you will understand what I'm saying.
I then put the almost complete wheel, minus tyre into the forks & measured the aproximate gap between the hub & the fork leg, 24mm against the original steel spacer's 26mm, & cut the excess off the new alloy spacer to make a snug fit tween fork & wheel bearing.
I then stripped the wheel out & fitted the disk from the VZ & refitted the wheel & attempted to fit the brake caliper all to no avail as there was a 20mm gap tween caliper & fork leg mounting bracket!
What to do? The C800 has a 6 bolt fixing pattern but the VZ a 5 bolt, bugger!
Gave up at this stage for a few days as I was'nt up to much head wise & trawled the net for an answer to the problem.
I saw on E-bay an offer for new 96 to 04 disc's from Suzuki direct or via a dealer, maybe this would be the answer as it was dished like the C800 & was a 5 bolt pattern. After words with Redcar Suzuki in Leicester I decided to buy the disk as Redcar said it had the required 20mm dishing I needed YAY!!!
Disc came & I ordered some titanium bolts for the fixing but when I came to offer up the disc it's inner diameter was too small to go over the hub housing!
After ringing my engineer mate he said get it bored out & redrilled to match the hub as the holes did not match up also on the hub & it would be easier & safer to do that than anything else so thats what I had done so the disc fitted onto the shoulder of the hub & the new holes matched up with the original bolt holes. I'll be fitting hole covers when I find some to the old holes for appearance sake later.
I now offered the wheel up into the forks & put the caliper on which fitted spot on, at last success!!!
Next on with the tyre & back in yet again into the forks, spun the wheel to align the caliper, it's an old trick I learnt years ago to align the caliper/s on my BMW that works for most bikes.
With everything tightened up I spun the wheel to make sure everything was ok & then took the caliper bolts out again & fitted the caliper cover I had made myself with the required spacers & longer stainless bolts & re-tightened everything up.
It was not necessary to alter the speedo' cable or drive at all as it all went back almost in the same position as the old set up had & does not look out of place.
I would state now that the rear wheel was from an 04 VZ & the front from an 08 VZ.
To conclude,
I found the experience of changing the spoked wheels for cast ones from the VZ a challenge & it took me about 4 weeks to do overall due to my illness but now it is done it does not look out of place & I think it enhances the bike a bit more & makes it more my bike as nobody else as far as I know has done this modification so I can say it's my bit towards making the Intruder a bit more of a personalised machine.
These are some photo's I took along the way.
The Rear wheel fresh back from the powder coaters
The rear wheel with the bearings and drive spider fitted.
The rear wheel fitted to the bike.
The new 24mm front wheel spacer compared to the old 26mm.
The new wheel fitted in the forks with the new spacer.
The front wheel fitted with the new disc and caliper cover.
A close up picture showing the old holes for fixing the disc and the speedo drive.
The bike all back together sporting alloy wheels and ready to ride.
Subject: Cast wheel conversion mod for 2010 C800 Intruder 
I'll look forward to seeing your bike over the summer 
Well done Peter 
by Mbroom21 Tue Apr 16, 2024 12:54 pm