what did you wrench on today??

[Carter Turk]

Bought a 1150 motor today and dragged into the garage on cardboard from a foreign country.
Got held up in customs for a moment with an orange ticket, then sent on my way.

[Grimly]

Damned tacho drive oil seal has gone again.
Luckily M&P are selling complete knock-off units for a pittance, which pretty much equals the cost of the seal and o-ring on their own.

https://www.mandp.co.uk/products/suzuki-gs-gsx-late-70s-early-80s-tacho-drive-unit-467999-678288

[fastbysuzuki]

Damned tacho drive oil seal has gone again.
Luckily M&P are selling complete knock-off units for a pittance, which pretty much equals the cost of the seal and o-ring on their own.
https://www.mandp.co.uk/products/suz...-467999-678288

cheers that's a good price

[Grimly]

cheers that's a good price

I'll be ordering one tomorrow night, but in the meantime I'll either remove the original and plug it, or hope that one of the other engines has one that's not leaky, and will last for a week or so.

[rfkac]

Took out a leaking clutch pushrod seal on my '81 GS450.
Was tough to come out; thought it might be the flanged type (wasn't).
Drilled a hole, tapped in a screw; came out nice and easy.
gs450 pushrod seal.jpg

[Buffalo Bill]

Pulled out a tank I've had for several years and started to take it back to bare metal. It's an original Frepin tank - a locally made aftermarket frame kit for TZ Yamahas. It has visible damage hence taking it back to bare metal - aluminium in this case.
Paint off and a skim of bondo appears...Start taking the bondo off and some impressive dents start appearing....
I'd thought I was pretty good at covering up damage with filler but this is another level. I should have realised that the final crash that wrote the bike off probably wasn't it's first, LOL. Typical 70's racebike. Fill it. paint it and race it. I was told the bike it came off broke in half...
I want to use the tank on a new build so I'll carry on cleaning it off. Aluminium dent repair is much more common now and more practical too.
I'll post a pic when it's bare but this is what a Frepin looked like.

Very cool race bike, 125cc? I read in the corner that's a 250cc, but I only see 1 cylinder.
Keep us updated on your build.

[ddaniels]

Working to replace my cam chain guides after installing the tensioner incorrectly on the FZ1. Need to clean out a bunch of black ground up plastic. Sheesh! I guess I'll adjust the valves while I'm in there. Shim under bucket so the cams have to come out. Stupid design.

[Grimly]

Checked and re-torqued the cylinder head. Each bolt took about an eighth of a turn, but I'm suspicious of the accuracy of the wrench I was using so maybe the first wrench was under-torqueing them or this one slightly over-torqueing. The one I used today is the same one I've had no trouble with for years, so tend to trust it more, but for these bolts it's fairly close to the bottom end of its range, so meh...
Also found the cam cover bolts were all a bit slack, again.
Probably just as well the rev counter drive leaked, as it prompted me to do the above checks anyway.
Replacement tacho drive not arrived yet, so I gutted the old one and filled it with hi-temp silicone last week - at least it's remained dry.
Now toying with the idea of an electronic tacho and get rid of the weak spot altogether. I reckon I've replaced about 10 tacho cables over the years between the two bikes.

Just keeping my fingers crossed this third head torque isn't a sign of impending doom - as I recall Nessism's difficulty with the Athena base gasket. Careful examination revealed the base gasket isn't, as yet, creeping, nor should it, as it's an OEM one. The other thing is the head gasket - the engine set was an NE one, and I hope their gasket is decent. However, Brendan used exactly that set and has had no trouble in the last couple of years, and more.

I'll start the bugger up tomorrow and do a cylinder compression check, just for peace of mind.

[gustovh]

Worked another project, just needs a couple buckles now.





















V

[Grimly]

Checked and re-torqued the cylinder head. Each bolt took about an eighth of a turn, but I'm suspicious of the accuracy of the wrench I was using so maybe the first wrench was under-torqueing them or this one slightly over-torqueing. The one I used today is the same one I've had no trouble with for years, so tend to trust it more, but for these bolts it's fairly close to the bottom end of its range, so meh...
Also found the cam cover bolts were all a bit slack, again.
Probably just as well the rev counter drive leaked, as it prompted me to do the above checks anyway.
Replacement tacho drive not arrived yet, so I gutted the old one and filled it with hi-temp silicone last week - at least it's remained dry.
Now toying with the idea of an electronic tacho and get rid of the weak spot altogether. I reckon I've replaced about 10 tacho cables over the years between the two bikes.

Just keeping my fingers crossed this third head torque isn't a sign of impending doom - as I recall Nessism's difficulty with the Athena base gasket. Careful examination revealed the base gasket isn't, as yet, creeping, nor should it, as it's an OEM one. The other thing is the head gasket - the engine set was an NE one, and I hope their gasket is decent. However, Brendan used exactly that set and has had no trouble in the last couple of years, and more.

I'll start the bugger up tomorrow and do a cylinder compression check, just for peace of mind.

Well, kind of up and down again.
The re-torque upset something and several drips of oil appeared at the front bottom fin of the barrels. Oddly, didn't seem to be coming from the base gasket, and my suspicion was on the cam chain tensioner, which might have been leaking and running forward.
I un-torqued the head nuts and left it for 24 hours to relax, then re-torqued today, doing it in three stages - 10, 20 and 27 ft/lbs.
Started it up and the little leak seems to have gone.
Only to be replaced by a much healther leak - now from the blasted copper washers under the domed head nuts on the right side.
Disturbing them wasn't such a good move. I left the workshop before I got into a bad mood. Tomorrow I'll pull them off, anneal them and smear them with Hylomar before fitting, and hope that's it.

ps. the compression figures are excellent, btw. All of them within a gnat's hair of 150.

[Grimly]

Annealing the copper washers fixed that, now the remainder of the leakage appears to be the valve cover gasket on the rear section of the RHS. Oil is finding its way down through the fins and appearing above no.4 exhaust. Unless there's a crack in the head casting, I can't see where else it's coming from.
So, that's four leaks happened almost simultaneously - tacho drive, cam chain tunnel seep from the base gasket area (I suspect), head bolts, cam cover.
The odd thing about the cam cover was it took some further re-tightening at around the 200 mile stage from rebuild, and it took more snugging up last week.
I'm beginning to suspect the quality of NE Gaskets isn't great, so I've ordered up a couple of Vesrah valve cover gaskets to have at hand should I need them.
I know opinions on Vesrah vary, but I've never had any trouble with them over the years.
That's always assuming these ones are genuine and not some counterfeit jobs.

[Grimly]

Now leak-free (well, not 100%, there's a tiny seep).
By backing out the cam cover bolts about 8mm or so I was able to lift it without disturbing or dislodging the gasket and could smear some Hylomar into the leaky stretch using a fingertip. Let that set for about 20 minutes an carefully bolted the cover down.
Definitely not impressed with this gasket - the OEM gaskets I've been using for years never leaked between services, and I can say the same for the Vesrah ones I used. It's become compressed and hard, losing its resiliency in a mere few hundred miles.
I smelt a rat when it took more settling-down re-tightening than is normal for a gasket bought from a usual supplier (OEM or Vesrah).

[pete]

Dave, I've had similar reports of OEM valve cover gaskets not being as good as they used to. A fellow Katana rider couldn't get his to stop weeping. I'm trying a DIY valve cover gasket on the 450 with average results so far, but have a Cometic gasket on the Kat which has seemed pretty good. The 450 has an OEM head gasket which is great, but again a Cometic on the Kat which is great. I've not tried Vesrah, but the Athena gaskets on the 450 have all been replaced as they went hard and brittle very rapidly.

[Grimly]

Yeah, I'm beginning to wonder if there's any decent stuff left.

[Grimly]

Has CruzinImage started making gasket set for the GS bikes? Suzuki two stroke forum members have had good results with their gasket sets.

Oh, they do. Good spot, thanks. Their price is right, and from what I've seen and heard of their other parts I might be inclined to trust their gaskets. For sure, the next 850 build I do will be using the ring set I've already bought from them.

https://www.cruzinimage.net/2017/10/19/79-81-suzuki-gs850-top-end-engine-gasket/

<edit>
Otoh, a quick scout around the Honda forums reveals that opinion on the Cruzinimage gasket quality it sharply divided. I might just stick with Vesrah.