Editor’s note: If you’re having trouble with that old Suzuki, BSA or BMW, Keith Fellenstein is your guy. From motorcycle tuning tips to detailed motorcycle engine repair, he can draw from a wealth of experience to help guide you to success. Send questions to: Keith’s Garage, Motorcycle Classics, 1503 SW 42nd St., Topeka, KS 66609, or send an e-mail with “Keith’s Garage” as the subject.
Q: Keith, I enjoy reading your responses to questions, and I would like your advice on my 1981 Suzuki GS1000G. I am now retired and hope to make some trips in the Midwest with this bike. I have always been a believer in engine monitoring gauges in my vehicles. From time to time I see an oil pressure gauge added and some older Brit bikes have an ammeter. Gauges on my radar are oil pressure, oil temperature, voltmeter and maybe a cylinder temperature gauge. What is your advice on adding gauges to this bike?
– Dwight Plucker/via email
A: For the most part, the more information you have the better, but there’s a reason these gauges are often derided as “worry” gauges. Your bike has made it to 2019 from 1981 without any accessory gauges fitted. Of the ones you list, I think the oil pressure gauge would be the most informative, and likely to save you major dollars in the event of oil pressure loss. The others would be fun to look at, but would just be more things to take your eyes off the road. Of the bikes in my collection, I only have an added oil pressure gauge on my Trident, because on it the oil pressure warning light is more like an indication that engine damage has already occurred.
