BanditRE's GS850

[GSX1000E]

You're doing a great job. It's always good to see an old Suzy getting some love.

It was a lucky day for that old bike when you brought it home.

^^^This^^^^
You are doing a fantastic job so far. The end result will be nothing less than GREAT!

 

[BanditRE]

Thanks guys. I'm hoping it turns out well.

GSX - "If Loud pipes save lives imagine what learning to ride that thing could do" - That's funny!

Eil - A SE Michigan meeting? That might work, not too early though, I got to get this old girl rolling and running right first! Its funny, all this time and effort and I've never heard one running, let alone ridden one down the street!

 

[BanditRE]

Work has since moved from the garage to the basement, where its much warmer! I'm currently disassembling and rebuilding the calipers and rear master cylinder. Getting the two pistons out of the rear caliper was an interesting exercise! There has to be a much better way than mine! I had no trouble getting the first one out, but the second proved much more challenging, as it was next to impossible to seal the caliper against air leaks so the compressed air forced out the second piston. I got there eventually with some luck and a bit of know-how, but there has to be a better way! Anyway, they're apart, cleaned up and awaiting reassembly after painting. The rear master cylinder is proving to be way more difficult to get apart,

I got the plunger apart, the hoses off and all that good stuff, but the internal piston, seals, spring etc will not budge. I've tried penetrating oil, and trying to push it out from the top, but I'm afraid to use too much force. The shop manual and this site have cutaway drawings and pictures of the parts disassembled, but from looking at it, I just can't see how the cup at the base of the piston is going to come out the bottom of the MC casting. I was going to soak it in carb cleaner and try again, but I'm getting more concerned the piston may be rusted to the bore of the MC. Any ideas would be welcome. Thanks.

Bottom of MC showing the cup. It appears to be as far up the bore as the brake pedal plunger would allow


Despite seeing pictures of these taken apart, it just seems like the cup ain't coming out of the bore!

 

[eil]

Stick a screwdriver in through the back where the brake line bolt was and whack it out. You probably need a new piston/cup thingy in there anyway, so don't worry about damaging it. It's possible but unlikely that the bore will be damaged by this. You could try soaking it in a solvent like carb cleaner and whatnot. It's probably not rusted in there (the only steel part is the spring), but rather being held in by gummed up crusty old brake fluid.

 

[2BRacing]

Wrap the m/cylinder in a cloth and apply compressed air into the brake line hole. The cloth will prevent the piston from flying across your basement!

 

[BanditRE]

Thanks guys. Tried compressed air but no luck. I hit with a hammer and a small length of brass rod as hard as I dared but still no luck. Soaked it in kerosene for a couple of days and it still wouldn't budge. Gave up on the assumption that I could re-use it and beat the hell out of it with a hammer and screwdriver, and eventually it gave it up. I was surprised how hard it had to be smacked. Seems to be no worse for wear either. That brown goo used to be brake fluid I think......



Bore looks pretty good too



Clean up, paint, and assemble next.

 

[BanditRE]

Been a couple of weeks, nothing terribly exciting happening. I got the parts I needed so the rear caliper and master cylinder are reassembled. The paint looked pretty good until I got brake fluid on it, now not so much. I'll figure out how to reassemble these things without getting fluid on everything one day. Anyway, their full of fluid with some blank bolts installed to keep all the fluid in place until spring.





Just to check.............this is the orientation of the parts I used to put the master cylinder back together. If I have something wrong here, please let me know! If this is right (and I studied the cut-a-way drawing in the shop manual) then I think I may have installed the piston set in the front MC the wrong way..........which sucks.



My old rear brake line was toast and I couldn't find an OEM replacement for it in the 3 or 4 places I looked. This is a new brake line made from parts from Z1. Hopefully it works out ok.





Finally, cleaned up the grungy rear turn signals and replaced the bulbs......Came out looking a lot better, but the corrosion pot marks are there to stay unfortunately.

 

[Higgibaby]

The rear caliper looks great!!

 

[BanditRE]

Thanks. It suffers a little up close.........but its better than it was. I checked out your blog link too, your 1000 restoration looks a lot like mine although I never tore it down to the frame. I've had small hiccups along the way, but the biggest pain I've had so far was a stuck cylinder head fastener. Lost weeks to that little gem. Your first 850 project turned out great, good luck with the latest endeavor.

 

[eil]

Brake lines are one of the few things that it's a bad idea to go OEM on. That Z1 braided stainless steel and teflon line is much higher quality than an OEM rubber line. Swap out the front lines too! There's a seller on eBay called Rennsport that sells excellent and cheap SS brake lines.

 

[BanditRE]

Hi All,

Spring has finally come to Michigan. Its been a very nice week here and I was lucky enough to have booked it off work. I got a chance to work on the bike again after a long winter break. I got a lot of the parts cleaned up that came off the rear end, had new tires put on the rims and installed the cleaned up rear rotor. The new shocks went on too.

Front end. Finally got the brakes to feel firm. I thought I'd installed the cup in the piston the wrong way round, but after dis-assembly everything looked fine. Reassembled and now it works fine. I assume I must have got an air bubble stuck the master cylinder.



Rear wheel installed, new rotor and new Hagon shock. Its coming together finally.





Rear brakes are up next.

 

[canuckxxx]

Other than the missing OE headlight, it looks like an unmollested original...which is nice to find. Nice looking seat, paint. Have you got it to turn over yet?

Brian

 

[BanditRE]

Its in much better cosmetic shape than I thought when I brought it home. After a decade or so of junk was cleaned off, the paint, chrome and plastic looks pretty darn good. I have bought a headlight bucket and the mounting hardware, together with the turn signals for the front. I'll be waiting to install those until later though, once its running properly.

I heard it run briefly when I bought it, as it wouldn't run on its own without starting fluid. I've turned it over to check compression since I've had it but as yet, it has not run on its own. That moment is approaching though, hopefully within a couple of months here.

 

[BanditRE]

Not too much exciting to report. The rear brakes, lines and cylinder have been installed and are now working properly. I had a challenge with the rear MC or what I thought was the master cylinder anyway. I'd push the brake lever down trying to bleed the system, but the lever wouldn't return. I thought to begin with that there was just a lot of air in the system, but after pumping fluid through for a while with no bubbles, I figured something else was wrong. Disconnected the lever from the MC and the rear brake switch and the lever still wouldn't return on its own. Knocked out the lever pivot from the frame together with 30 years of crud, cleaned it all up and re-greased it - now works like a charm! Batteries back in too, lights are working at the rear anyway.....its getting there. I'm getting dangerously close to attempting to start this thing and synching the carbs! Maybe there's a video post here soon!



Rear end all cleaned up now.



Rear brakes, cleaned installed and working!

 

[cowboyup3371]

Very pretty

 

[BanditRE]

Well, today was the day. Points checked and deemed pretty crappy but probably useable for its first start in 14 years. Timing checked visually, deemed good enough. Temporary gas tank hooked up. Turned on the fuel tap...........no gas spewing on the floor so the floats are ok. The Moment of Truth. Thumb the starter..........nothing. Crap. Panic, double check everything.......oh yeah, you got the pull the clutch in. Deep breath, thumb the starter, it turns, catches and dies. A few attempts, a few more tweaks, until.......

http://vid30.photobucket.com/albums...ject/20-Start Up Day/MVI_1477_zpsmpj8qse9.mp4

Hopefully the video worked. The video that shows it firing up initially was too large to upload. It backfired through the carbs a few times, blew some smoke as I'd squirted oil down the carbs over the winter. After about 30 seconds of rough idle, it smoothed out and I set the idle back down to around 1100. Messed around with the air screws which were in a good place as it was. YEAH!



Both of us have a moment......



Check the timing.....



Feeling good about it



I still have ignition problems, particularly with one set of points. I'm not sure the battery is charging yet, I'll recharge it and check again in the morning. We restarted it a few times after the first go and it starts right up now, and the kickstarter is unbelievably light compared to the Enfield. A good day! Thanks for everyone's help on the forum and thanks to those of you who've written up the many how-to's on CliffBike's page. Awesome.

 

[eil]

Too cool! I'm familiar with the "yay, it's running!" happy dance. That thing is going to be a blast to ride. I was out and about this evening on my 850 just before the rain came.

 

[BanditRE]

The dance represented quite a relief! All this time and money and the bike had never ran up until the weekend. It only ran on 2 cylinders, as on one of the coils is bad, but I planned on replacing the points with a dyna s system so adding new coils isn't so bad. The stator and rectifier appear to be doing their job so that's good news. Its getting close now! Replace the ignition and get the gas tank cleaned up and this thing should be almost done.

I almost took the Enfield out last night but I'd been in the garage all weekend with that heavy humidity and I just wanted some time in the AC! Hope you didn't get caught in the rain.

 

[JTGS850GL]

Good Job!! It sure is a good feeling the first time they fire up.

I'm at work now with my GS850L sitting in the parking lot. HUGE rain storm so looks like a wet ride home. Still any ride is a good ride.

 

[BanditRE]

So I after I had it running for the first time, I ordered the ignition parts I needed. But it took a long while before the order processed and they got it shipped. Close to three weeks before I knew the parts would be here. When you're itching to get it running properly, you have OCD and three weeks to "spare", something has to give. The various engine covers on the 850 are not the best looking due to a loss of clear coat and a fair amount of oxidation. So with some time before ignition work can begin......why not try to make these look better.

Clutch cover was the worst, but they were all past their best. I stripped the remaining clear cost with aircraft strip, and then sanded, sanded, sanded some more, used steel wool, polished, polished again etc. Until I was happy with the results. Here's the before and after for the clutch cover. Same thing was done for the alternator cover, secondary cover and points cover.


After all that work....


I didn't have good results with spraying clear coat over the covers. I heard about this stuff online. You use their cleaner after you're done refinishing, and then wipe on a liquid that is supposed to stop the aluminum from oxidizing again. It went on nicely, I'll try and remember to do a product write up after its been on a while. Its called Classic Trim Coat. $40 for the kit.


When all said and done, the covers all turned out pretty good. I got it all reassembled a few days before the ignition parts arrived.




It was incredibly boring work, but they did turn out well. On to ignition.....