New Member, New to Motocycles: 82 GS750E (Maroon)

[Guest]

Hi All

I've been sitting on a 66 Ducati Scrambler that's been in the family since 1969. Working on getting this running has piqued my interest in motorcycles and have developed a need to own one to ride on a regular basis. Last March I found a promising bike to help out with our gas expenses for the summer. It is an '82 GS750E. The craigslist article read that it was a cafe racer project that never happened. I was looking for a cheap bike to get running and help me commute to work during the warmer months. The only thing done to it was that the handle bars were flipped over and the front fender was missing. While I got it for very little, it is proving to be quite a challenge and I'm loving it. I also collect military rifles so keeping things as issued is important but with this I'd like it to run so aftermarket is ok for now. As for the bike, spark was good. Compression is fair but could be better. When I got it, we were able to get it going with starter spray. The tank was a mess but that is fixed now (I'm letting the fuel sender go to the fuel sender farm as I've read they are not reliable anyway). After a thorough carb cleaning, the bike finally came to life. Although it starts at 5k rpm! For some reason it seems to be running on straight gas. I went through a lot of gas today trying to figure it out focusing on the carbs. Everything there is spec and looks good aside from any rubber parts. No leaking of gas from the carb bank. I do need to replace a float needle which is on the way. Throttle is connected but not engaged. There is slack in the cable and the idle screw is backed off so as not to touch. Everything on the bike seems to be correct partwise. It has been worked on of course. I did notice that the carb floats were measured from the bowl rim(proper spot) to the top of the float and not the top of the curve on the float. I made that adustment prior to getting it running. Not sure what might be happening here. The result is that as soon as you start it (which is immediately), it kicks up to 5k rpm. Any guidance would be appreciated.


Thanks

Adam

[Nessism]

Humm, so flipping over the handlebars makes the bike a cafe racer now? Who knew?

Not sure what's wrong with your bike but wanted to welcome you. Just for kicks you might want to go through the Newbie Mistakes thread and carb rebuild tutorial linked in my signature to see if anything rings a bell.

Good luck.

[GSCafe]

Welcome to the forum. I also collect military rifles. Do you do any reloading? Seems pretty obvious that "Cafe" never happened. But that is good for you if you don't want to go that way.

[AdamW]

Humm, so flipping over the handlebars makes the bike a cafe racer now? Who knew?

Not sure what's wrong with your bike but wanted to welcome you. Just for kicks you might want to go through the Newbie Mistakes thread and carb rebuild tutorial linked in my signature to see if anything rings a bell.

Good luck.

Yeah, Putting them back to normal was the first task when I got it home. Broke down the carbs yesterday and cleaned thoroughly, all of the rings were flat. More on order from cycleorings and rebuild kits from Z1. Will go from there. Thanks for the ref.
-Adam

[AdamW]

Welcome to the forum. I also collect military rifles. Do you do any reloading? Seems pretty obvious that "Cafe" never happened. But that is good for you if you don't want to go that way.

Just starting with reloading. I was pretty happy to get the bike fired up. It did cross my mind to go cafe but from what I've read, that's for the experts. At this point I would only be changing parts for the look of it. The bike had some parts missing so I'm going to replace those and get it back to original. Finding parts for my Ducati is tough enough. I didn't think I'd have to do too much searching with the GS but some have been a challenge. I'll post more pics as I go.
-Adam