Engine gaskets and seals

[Guest]

Hey everyone! I'm going to polish my engine covers and aluminum parts on my 82 GS110G and will therefore need to replace the gaskets. Anyone willing to tell me the best gaskets to use and where to purchase them? Thanks in advance for any help.

[bwringer]

Suzuki OEM gaskets ONLY.

Do NOT fart around with Athena, Vesrah, or whatever other crappy no-name junk is on fleaBay this week.

There are several good online dealers where you can look up the part numbers and buy online.

This seller happens to be a dealer near me, so it's where I get most things -- other folks will be along shortly with their own recommendations. BikeBandit and Alpha-Sports have very high pricing, so are best avoided, but there are many others. If you can find one that's locally based, you may be able to save on shipping as well.

https://www.onlinecycleparts.com/oemparts/c/suzuki_motorcycle/parts

Be aware that none of the online dealers stock the parts they sell -- all have to take your order, place their order with Suzuki, then ship the goodies to you, so it can take a week or two to get your stuff.


All that said, there are some reliable sellers on eBay that have supplies of NOS (new old stock) gaskets, so get the part number(s) and do some searching and you can save some money on the major stuff like head gaskets and valve cover gaskets. For the smaller stuff, like case gaskets, o-rings, and seals, there's not that much price difference, so it may be easier to just buy from a good online supplier.

Again, do NOT accept anything other than genuine Suzuki parts. It's simply not worth doing the job twice. Some eBay sellers will try to trick you with words like "replaces" or "equivalent" or "OEM manufacturer".

[greg78gs750]

what he said. Also, as a caveat, I have had trouble with so-called "NOS" gaskets being dried out and brittle to the point of unuseability, (spellcheck tells me that ain't a word...)particularly with valve cover gaskets.

[jdion81]

I went with OEM gaskets on the ones you don't want to mess with again. For example, base gasket, cylinder O rings, cam chain tunnel O ring, head gasket and various seals. I went with aftermarket for clutch cover, timing cover, valve cover, breather, tensioner. All small seals were replaced with genuine Suzuki parts. Some of them took a while to get to me as the vendor had to wait about a week to get them from "another warehouse", my guess is Suzuki. So far I have ordered from Babbits, Partzilla, and Partzilla on Ebay, and Z1 last night and other dealers on ebay.

Babbits so far is my favorite.
Partzilla seems to need the longest lead time
Partzilla on ebay damaged parts every time. I don't know why, but it seems they decide to package different when on ebay.
Z1 no opinion yet, shipping price was awesome and prices were pretty darn good. 4$ for a part that is 11$ on other sites.

[roeme]

btw, do we have a record of the various gasket thicknesses in use on our GS'es?

Asking because many of the don't-mind-to-mess-again-with-ones I'd cut myself (also using that as an excuse to get a laser cutter). I imagine I can source gasket sheets locally for a good price.
OEM I can order from the bike shop next village over.

[Andrew Vanis]

Asking because many of the don't-mind-to-mess-again-with-ones I'd cut myself (also using that as an excuse to get a laser cutter).

great minds think alike

check out:

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?240172-Some-Gasket-scans-Mostly-1981-GS-750-L

http://www.andrewvanis.com/Vehicles/Suzuki/1981GS750L/Gasket%20Scans/