Why we change the intake O-Rings

[jdvorchak]

I know this has been mentioned a hundred times but I think it needs to be said again. I'm working on a 1980 GS1000G and one of the complaints was that idle sucked. Bike has not been ridden in a few months and as a matter of fact only been ridden about 1500 miles in the past 6 years. So I pulled the carbs and noticed all 4 Air box boots were hard and not making a good seal to the Air Cleaner. So I got new ones. Ordered some SS Allen head screws from Robert for the intakes. When I pulled the intakes off I could see immediately one major problem. The O-Rings were hard as rocks and one was even broken in two. Note picture below:



There are no short cuts when working on a 35 year old motorcycle. The rubber parts get hard and brittle and sometimes break. So you new to wrenching guys need to know that until everything is right, it won't run right.

Valve lash
Air cleaner boots
Intake insulators (rubber part) and O-rings
Carbs torn down completely and dipped
All Carb O-Rings replaced

None or this is hard to do and very few special tools required. All of the carb parts can still be bought in most cases. What it does take is a commitment to doing a thorough and complete job with attention to detail. Don't think you can do this in a day so don't hurry! Take your time. Put on some tunes and when you feel like you're tired, stop for a while. Remember if it's hard to do, you're doing it wrong. Nothing on these old bikes takes a lot of force when putting them back together, You may learn new cuss words taking them apart tho!

 

[Nessism]

Agree.

If you haven't seen the Newbie Mistakes thread before you may want to check it out. There are a few other critical thing to be done, such as fixing the charging system wiring, for those interested in keeping their GS bikes on the road safely and reliably.

 

[jdvorchak]

Thanks Ed. Actually on this bike I discovered the charging system wasn't working and traced it down to dirty connectors to the RR, the wiring mod not done and the RR was bad. Stator checked good with 90 VAC on all three. Oh and fork seals and cam plugs leaking. All of this was pretty normal stuff actually. I just thought I'd mention, again, how important those Intake O-rings were.

 

[Blue Falcon]

I know this has been mentioned a hundred times but I think it needs to be said again. I'm working on a 1980 GS1000G and one of the complaints was that idle sucked. Bike has not been ridden in a few months and as a matter of fact only been ridden about 1500 miles in the past 6 years. So I pulled the carbs and noticed all 4 Air box boots were hard and not making a good seal to the Air Cleaner. So I got new ones. Ordered some SS Allen head screws from Robert for the intakes. When I pulled the intakes off I could see immediately one major problem. The O-Rings were hard as rocks and one was even broken in two. Note picture below:



There are no short cuts when working on a 35 year old motorcycle. The rubber parts get hard and brittle and sometimes break. So you new to wrenching guys need to know that until everything is right, it won't run right.

Valve lash
Air cleaner boots
Intake insulators (rubber part) and O-rings
Carbs torn down completely and dipped
All Carb O-Rings replaced

None or this is hard to do and very few special tools required. All of the carb parts can still be bought in most cases. What it does take is a commitment to doing a thorough and complete job with attention to detail. Don't think you can do this in a day so don't hurry! Take your time. Put on some tunes and when you feel like you're tired, stop for a while. Remember if it's hard to do, you're doing it wrong. Nothing on these old bikes takes a lot of force when putting them back together, You may learn new cuss words taking them apart tho!

Link to SS allen bolts please.

 

[tom203]

It's in this link

http://www.cycleorings.com/intake.html

 

[JTGS850GL]

Link to SS allen bolts please.

If you only need a set and you're buying the O-rings then you can pic them up at: cycleorings.com

If you want to buy them along with other SS screws for the entire carburetor then I would recommend buying them from here: Bolt Depot

I've used them in the past to buy pretty much every bolt needed on a bike and buy in bulk 100 screw packs for the most common. Fast delivery.

 

[jdvorchak]

I got the bolts from Cycle O-rings as the link points. I sourced the O-rings from my local Suzuki dealer because I was there to buy a tool and remembered I needed O-rings while shopping. But cycleorings.com has better price and probably better quality. I bought a GS850 a couple of years ago and the PO handed me a box full of cycleorings bolts and o-rings to rebuild the carbs. I was very impressed. Then I looked up the price and was even more impressed with cycleorings. Each set of o-rings were in their own zip lock bag and plainly marked as to where they went.

 

[850 Combat]

I would prefer that they were in Viton, instead of Buna N. I think Viton would last better. Whenever I have changed them, I got the boots too.

 

[jdvorchak]

Anything is better than leaving the old ones in there. What the pic doesn't show, because the pic was taken the next day, was the center two intakes were still wet with fuel even though the screws were tight. So they had been leaking for a while.

They were the most brittle I've seen in a long time. They literally crumbled when you try to flex them.