My "immaculate" GS 550 story

[Shin-Ken 1074]

She looks straight and tidy, good paint and chrome so with luck it is fair wear and tear items to sort out. By the sound of it I think your right about the last owner just riding it until it started to give them trouble, and they offloaded it. Keep the updates and photos coming its always good to see how things are done and the end result of the hard work, cheers.

[straycatuk]

I got the electrics finished today and fitted my "hand made" srocket nut and decided to try and start the bike before I thought about any cosmetics or further new bits.

Fitted tank and as there is no prime position on the CV type tap,I attached a piece of pipe and sucked a vaccuum to get petrol into carbs.Reattached hose and attempted to start bike ............................................this is embarrassing ;

I couldn't even get a "click" from the starter solenoid . Thought I must have disturbed some wiring when tidying it up,so I used a piece of wire as a jumper to pull the starter sol. in. It turned over fine,but no attempt to fire ,battery was starting to sound a little flat after 5 mins. of trying ,so I decided to leave it for now.
As I was pushing the bike back in the garage ,I noticed that the kill switch was "off" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Started 1st touch of button,but screamed up to 6000rpm .I hadn't adjusted the throttle cable correctly.

I'm taking for a test run later !

[straycatuk]

Was only going to go around the block,but did about 15 miles !

The exhaust is LOUD . OK at 30mph in top,so I can avoid the law....I hope.

Pulls smoothly in top on full throttle from 2000rpm up to 7000rpm+ with no hiccups . A little flat,but I think that could be the exhaust. Handling is stable,although shocks are original and quite tired.Brakes all work well.

Engine sounds good with no nasty rattles. There was a little smoke when cold.
Oil leak under engine seems to have stopped - clutch rod seal worked.

The bad points - oil is seeping from head gasket. I originally thought it had run down from badly leaking camcover.
Once engine had got hot, it would die at junctions until I re-adjusted the idle speed.

I'll try and post some more pictures over the weekend.

[tkent02]

What exhaust and is it jetted for it?

[straycatuk]

I don't know what the exhaust is ,but it was jetted at 102.5,which was 4 sizes up,,but plugs looked "rich". I have split the difference and gone with 97.5 s . Difficult to get this right .I remember fitting an Alpha 4-1 on my 550 in 84 and I never got the mid range back.

some new pics. I haven't attempted to clean the bike yet.

[straycatuk]

Done a few more miles and decided that power is definately lacking ,also dosent seem to want to rev above 6000 rpm,by that I mean no noticable surge in power.
Slightly rough at 2000-3000 rpm and vibration not good at 6000rpm. I forgot to mention when I removed jets that 1 and 4 had 100 mains and 2 and 3 had 102.5s ,so I'm presuming that the balancing is way out (all 4 are now 97.5s) Still more tweaking to do. It looks a little better though.

[850 Combat]

Well, its quite pretty. You could practically rebuild it for the cost of good cosmetics. Once it is sorted, ypu'll just have the pretty. I would like to find a nice 550E

[lurch12_2000]

Guess I’m a freak but first thing I do when getting a “new” GS home is tear it apart.

You freak!!...oh wait a minute what does that make me?? I think I did most of those things too...hmmmmm......well I wasn't a freak until I stumbled on this forum...which means it's all your fault!