Blown up at Mt. Rushmoore

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone. This story happened on July 3rd 2001 and I am still feeling the effects today. By the way, I have a 77 gs750 with aprox. 28000 miles on her. I live just outside of Detroit and each year me and 3-6 friends go touring. Well, that year we happened to be going to Glacier Ntl Park in NW Montana. About 2 days into the trip my starter quit working, we all figured it was a weak battery (WRONG!!), so I would use the trusty kickstarter instead. About two days later near Mt. Rushmoore, we had pulled over to put on our rain gear. When I took off I gunned pretty good to catch up to the pack and when I shifted into 2nd I heard a loud grinding noise, but the engine was still running fine. My buddy pulls up next to me and yells for me to shut off the engine. I did and then pulled over. (By the way, this bike was almost completely rebuilt at the time: Dyna Ignition, new tires, chain sprocket, brakes, fork seals, battery, coils, seat, bowl gasket, jets...you get the picture). As soon as I stopped i looked down and to my surprise there was 2 quarts of oil already on the ground. What the F@*#. We already replaced everything I thought. It took 2 days to find a rental truck to get her back home. She was/is my first bike and I wasn't leaving her When I got back home I tore off the left engine case and everything that supposed to be in there, clutch set, magneto, etc., fell out in pieces the size of peas and dimes. I finaly got the money together last winter and put her back together. She ran like a top but the starter wasn't working again. I had since got a Triummph Sprint RS and my brother was interested in riding the gs down to the Smokeys for the weekend. he got a crash course in riding and we left. No problems! this weekend since, riding season is over (it's been 20 deg. or less for two weeks) I decided to replace the starter. I get it out and most of the inner parts of the starter look like pencil shavings. Needless to say, 1 1/2 years later and I am still fixing my baby.

P.S. if any one wants to see the carnage let me know and I'll e-mail you the pictures.
Fooch

[Anonymous]

Interesting little story. Hope you pull the Gs back together. Hey I had a girlfriend in Detroit once. back in the 70s, lived on Deerborne Ave.
GY

[Anonymous]

Too bad after all that work! I rode my GS750E out to Mt. Rushmore from NY state in Aug. 2002. Other than my speedometer drive washer sheering off its tabs and a set of fouled spark plugs, I had a good trip. My GS is around 39,000 miles though that 4000 doesn't show on the odommeter. I would tell you how much I paid for this GS but I'm not that mean. I'm trying to fix her up a little this Winter, just got side covers from a guy on this forum. One blew off between Mitchell and Sturgis, SD. Was a lot of broken down bikes pulled out of the traffic on the road into Mt. Rushmore. I shut my bike off for the stop and go traffic after I got to the top of the mountain, was over 100 degrees. Seat hurt pretty bad but I've since replaced it with a Mustang. Good luck with future rides with the GS.