• Required reading for all forum users!!!

    Welcome!
    Register to access the full functionality of the GSResources forum. Until you register and activate your account you will not have full forum access, nor will you be able to post or reply to messages.

    A note to new registrants...
    All new forum registrations must be activated via email before you have full access to the forum.

    A Special Note about Email accounts!
    DO NOT SIGN UP USING hotmail, outlook, gmx, sbcglobal, att, bellsouth or email.com. They delete our forum signup emails.

    A note to old forum members...
    I receive numerous requests from people who can no longer log in because their accounts were deleted. As mentioned in the forum FAQ, user accounts are deleted if you haven't logged in for the past 6 months. If you can't log in, then create a new forum account. If you don't get an error message, then check your email account for an activation message. If you get a message stating that the email address is already in use, then your account still exists so follow the instructions in the forum FAQ for resetting your password.

    Have you forgotten your password or have a new email address? Then read the forum FAQ for details on how to reset it.

    Any email requests for "can't log in anymore" problems or "lost my password" problems will be deleted. Read the forum FAQ and follow the instructions there - that's what we have one for...

  • Returning Visitors

    If you are a returning visitor who never received your confirmation email, then odds are your email provider is blockinig emails from our server. The only thing that can be done to get around this is you will have to try creating another forum account using an email address from another domain.

    If you are a returning visitor to the forum and can't log in using your old forum name and password but used to be able to then chances are your account is deleted. Purges of the databases are done regularly. You will have to create a new forum account and you should be all set.

head gasket pics

  • Thread starter Thread starter kevmalvarez
  • Start date Start date
K

kevmalvarez

Guest
hey guys i lifted the heads off my gs650gl today expecting to find a completely destroyed head gasket, but the gasket itself actually doesn't look terrible. everything around it is covered in oily/metallic/gravely crap. so i'm looking for opinions, do you think its the head gasket, or something else?

thank you all in advance for all of your help, ive never been into an engine before and i'm feeling like this is way out of my league.

IMG_0085.jpg


IMG_0084.jpg
^^^This is the #4 cylinder and it looks worse than the others. the bike was firing out lots of blue smoke only out of the right side exhaust....

IMG_0083.jpg


IMG_0082.jpg
 
What is the problem you are trying to solve by removing the head?
 
Looks like the head gasket was leaking across the front where all that sludge has built up. Replace it with a new OEM one. They are multilayered steel and should last forever.
 
basically what happened is that the bike developed a petcock leak that i didnt immediately detect. so the crankcase was full of gas and oil. i rode the bike like that for about 5 mins until it died on me and wouldnt start back up. i replaced the petcock and now the bike would start and idle but it wouldn't rev or pull. it also developed an oil leak and would blow lots of blue smoke out of the right exhaust pipe. so my initial thoughts were head gasket...

here's what the outside of the engine looked like before i pulled it apart.
IMG_0063.jpg


and here's what the plugs look like in order from left to right (1,2,3,4)
IMG_0065.jpg
 
Well oil (particularly a thin oil/gas mixture) can get past gaps where there appears to be no damage. It seems almost certain that the head gasket was leaking. Now that you've removed the head, you cannot be certain if you've disturbed the base gasket or not, so it's a good idea to pull the cylinders and replace that too and its o-rings. That gives you an opportunity to check your ring gaps and free end gap. Do you know if the head gasket was replaced before, and when?

Check also for leaks around the cam chain tensioner. It would be convenient to rebuild now, and the parts to do so are probably all of $10 or so...
 
That engine is drawing through lots of oil past the rings. It's coming up mainly on the inlet side of the piston and is leaving that nice shinny clean surface on the piston tops. This may be due to high mileage, or the results of a barn find restart.

You need to inspect the bores for signs of grooving/gouges. This often occurs when a bike has sat for years, and is started up before using penetrating oil to beak any rusting points between the top rings and the bores. If oil is not used, part of the rings break away from the bores and start gouging grooves into the bore surface, allowing oil to bypass the rings. However, I think that the cause is probably due to high mileage, or a serious overheating of the engine at some time. I say this, because all the bores show some degree of oil bypassing the rings. Usually a barn find start up will only mark 1 or 2 bores, not all of them. Either way, you will need to tear it down to fix the problem.
 
Was this bike running well last summer, before this years "italian tune up" episode ? Hard to believe that sludge just appeared/forced out by gas in crankcase problem. What's your mileage?
Anyways, you got some work to do - show pic of valves please.
 
Last edited:
The gasoline dilluted oil in the crankcase "washes'' the pistons, rings and cyliders "clean" instead of lubricating them. The dilluted oil just doesn't have the necessary viscosity to lubricate and seal the pistons and rings to the cylinder walls and subsequently blows past the rings and into the combustion chamber. This can be a real engine killer if it isn't detected in time. Hopefully you caught it in time before it could do serious damage to your engine.

Clean it up the best you can WITHOUT working the pistons over too much otherwise you will get too much "junk" down between the pistons and cylinders which lead to future problems. Carefully inspect your cylinder walls to make sure there isn't any scoring from the lack of proper lubrication. Put a new head-gasket on it and reassemble and adjust the engine as necessary. Put some fresh spark-plugs in it and drain and refill the crankcase with a high quality oil. Start it up. With any luck it will only smoke for a little bit as it burns off the residual oil and you can get back out on the road.

Good luck!
 
tom203 said:
Was this bike running well last summer, before this years "italian tune up" episode ? Hard to believe that sludge just appeared/forced out by gas in crankcase problem. What's your mileage?
Anyways, you got some work to do - show pic of valves please.
Click to expand...

yes the bike was running well last summer. its always been a bit testy when cold, but once warm could run all day. it only has 13,000 miles on it, give or take a few hundred... about the valves though, the manual I have says i need a valve spring compressor tool, which i don't have access to... so i need to get one or find a buddy to borrow one from. (please forgive my ignorance, before this the most i'd done to this bike was the carb rebuild)
 
i just removed the block itself and took these pics, the problem is that this being very new to this i'm not really sure what i'm looking for because nothing appears obviously broken... btw the inside of the cylinders are pristine, no gouges etc.

IMG_0087.jpg


IMG_0091.jpg


IMG_0090.jpg


^^this is the piston from the 4th cylinder, the one that looked the worst
 
All looks ok - I would put that piston cleaning down to the petrol in the oil. You have a job on your hands there to make sure that none of that crap gets down inside the sump.
 
might be cheaper and easier to have a machine shop lapp the valves , they can put new valve seals on and check the springs a lot easier, since they have the tools in house
other than that it looks ok just re ring it i have a almost complete "made in japan" gasket kit on ebay now cheap cause it was the wrong year on my 83 , stick some rags in the piston/rod area and clean all that crap off the stud area,also follow the directions on the PISTON RING END GAP POSITIONS" this is very important when you assemble it ok the openings are spaced 45 degrees apart or so, check your manual
 
Ok, I'm gonna carefully clean everything now and then work on trying to find parts. So right now I'm planning on replacing:
-gasket between cam and head
-head gasket
-base gasket
-piston rings
-the various o-rings

In addition I'm gonna look into getting my valves checked by a shop. Anything else you guys can think of? I know I'm lookin at a couple hundred bucks but I wanna get everything done while its torn down. Thank you all SO much for your input and advice. Hopefully I'm learning enough so I can help others who have similar problems
 
You were posting about the fuel contaminated oil while I was posting, so I never read it until now. That is the cause of your oil burning problem alright.

Just make sure that you check the head and the cylinder surfaces for warps. You may need to have them machined true. There has been a lot of crap passing through that head/cylinder gasket joint for some reason.
 
Hmmmm? Now that you pulled the cylinder block off your project just got a lot bigger, more time consuming and a lot more expen$ive! :eek: Not having a lot of experience "inside" the engine I would have put it back together as described in my previous post and seen how it ran. If it didn't work out, you always could have taken it apart again and dived in a little deeper. But now that you're "in", go slow and take your time checking and completing each step of the rebuild. It's real easy to screw something up by getting in a rush - I know 'cause I've been there and done that myself. Good luck and give a shout out if you get stuck.
 
OldSkool said:
Hmmmm? Now that you pulled the cylinder block off your project just got a lot bigger, more time consuming and a lot more expen$ive! :eek: Not having a lot of experience "inside" the engine I would have put it back together as described in my previous post and seen how it ran. If it didn't work out, you always could have taken it apart again and dived in a little deeper. But now that you're "in", go slow and take your time checking and completing each step of the rebuild. It's real easy to screw something up by getting in a rush - I know 'cause I've been there and done that myself. Good luck and give a shout out if you get stuck.
Click to expand...

It's always best to pull the cylinder when removing the head. The base gaskets are prone to leakage otherwise.

OEM gaskets are a must when doing engine work. Don't cheap out otherwise you are risking leaks. Doing the valve stem seals is not difficult. Here is a link to Steve's valve removal video. Once you see how easy it is you might just decide to do the work yourself. http://members.dslextreme.com/users/bikecliff/images/valve_replacement.html
 
Nessism said:
It's always best to pull the cylinder when removing the head. The base gaskets are prone to leakage otherwise.

OEM gaskets are a must when doing engine work. Don't cheap out otherwise you are risking leaks. Doing the valve stem seals is not difficult. Here is a link to Steve's valve removal video. Once you see how easy it is you might just decide to do the work yourself. http://members.dslextreme.com/users/bikecliff/images/valve_replacement.html
Click to expand...

thanks so much for the info. do you have a preferred site for the oem gaskets? i know basscliff has a huge list of vendors but i didnt know if any were better than others
 
Yeah, it would be a real shame to pop the head back on with a brand new $100 head gasket, find out you disturbed the base gasket, and have to go buy another plus the base gasket.

Boulevard Suzuki is probably going to be your best bet: they and G&S Suzuki seem to have about the best prices going for OEM parts. Boulevard has a couple of coupons going right now: $10 off $100 purchase or free shipping on $100+.

http://www.boulevardsuzuki.com/coupon.asp?

I just ordered some OEM parts and found the free shipping made for a cheaper overall purchase.

The base gasket at Boulevard is $17.28:

http://www.boulevardsuzuki.com/fich...y=Motorcycles&make=SUZUKI&year=1981&fveh=2128

The head gasket (set?) is $99.45.

http://www.boulevardsuzuki.com/fich...y=Motorcycles&make=SUZUKI&year=1981&fveh=2128
 
i'm not sure what it means by head gasket set either... but thanks for the info!
 
One thing that looks like it could have been the cause of the leaking is failure to re-torque the head bolts at periodic intervals. They loosen with mileage and that allows leakage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top