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1982 GS650GL. Loud banging sound. Possible valve problem.

  • Thread starter Thread starter William Groebe
  • Start date Start date
I'm using this bike as my motorcycle school.
Click to expand...

Now that's an attitude I like! My 850GL is my motorcycle school, but so far she's been a much more lenient headmisstress. :)
 
Will, I'd pop that rod cap off and see what the damage is and see if it can be ground and polished back into service, but this will require some measuring calipers. And any good engine machine shop should be able to clean all parts of that motor for you. Otherwise a new crank IS in order and you still need to have the cases cleaned by a machine shop. I would also have the cylinders honed and some new rings fitted, and new bearings of the correct size ordered. Everyone is right when they say that now you assume ALL bearings have failed. Ihad a rod bearing spin on a 79 ranchero I had and drove it for so long that the crank was ccompletely toast and no machine work would have saved it, including all of the other journals. And the wheel thingies in the car world are the crank throw weights that balance the crank and keep it from tearing the motor apart. And the one in your photo looks too precise to have been done by the bad rod. The bad rod would have done more and that rod would either have snapped in half or been ground down
 
Great feedback, fellas. I am going to take my time thinking about what my next steps are.

This is the where I take the fork in the road.
Fix it, or f%$# it.

1 - I could try to fix my current engine, doing a lot more work, spending more money, but learning a lot more about the machine.
2 - I could buy a replacement engine. There is a salvage yard selling a 1982 GS650GL for $100, but then I'd have another whole bike, and I'm not in the ebay bike parts selling business, and my wife has only allotted me so much space in the garage.
3 - I could sell the bike for parts and buy another bike. I like this option the least. I've already done so much with this $300 bike, and would hate to "give up" on her.

I'm leaning towards getting deeper and trying to fix it. Take apart the crank, have the engine cleaned out and do whatever needs to be done. But I'm going to plan my steps, and I'm busy working all day and now watching the World Series at night. Looks like I'm a week out from really doing much with the bike. Maybe Saturday morning I can get a bit done. I"ll keep you all in the loop. And thanks again for all the great advice.
 
I like option 1 myself. And if you go with door number 2, keep what ever spares from the other bike and scrap/craigslist the rest, or put them here in the classifieds. It never hurts to have some spares. Parts go bad, as you are experiencing now, or you might wanna try something out and you can use the spare as the guinea pig! That's what I'm going to do with the other kz tank I have
 
I took the engine to my mechanic. Didn't get a lot of time to chat, but he says it's definitely a bad rod bearing. Apparently it's pretty common (for a mechaninc) to find bad rod bearings and usually he ends up replacing the bearing as well as the rod, depending on if the rod became damaged or not. I haven't had a chance to do any work on it and won't have time until the weekend. I'll let you know what I find once I pull the rod apart.

I also need to do some research on bearings and rods and figuring out what I have to measure to make sure the rod is ok, and to figure out what size bearing I need. Should I go ahead and replace all rod bearings while I'm in there? Back to the manual!
 
I am concerned if the crank pin(s) are bad and worth grinding/polishing (resizing) and whether or not it
is economically better to buy another crank or engine
 
I'd go for low mileage engine (or entire bike), beg for mercy/plead insanity from wife, part out the old one to recoup money. You've invested lots of time in this , but as song goes, best to know when to run away.
 
Ok, so it's been a little while. I was busy watching the Giants win their 3rd World Series in 5 years. Then Halloween weekend I spent building a Haunted House with a friend for the neighborhood kids. And this weekend I'm going away with my wife for her birthday. So no wrenching has been done. Well... maybe a little.

I pulled open the rod to check out the bearings underneath. Here's what I found.




 
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