Firstly I wanted to say that this site has been a huge help in my quest in knowing all there is to know about the GS twins...THANK YOU
50,000 ft. overview....
I recently purchased a 1986 GS400E and have been working feverishly to get the bike up and running to it's optimal performance. My first step in getting the bike on the road was too locate some service manuals which was the easy part thanks to this site
I located the Clymer GS400-450 '77-'87 manual for this bike as well as the Haynes GS 250, 400, 450 79-85 manual (two heads better than one?) and started down the path of performing a major service of the bike.
The first part of the service consisted of Changing the oil and break fluids, new battery, new air filter, cleaned out the tank, new inline fuel filter, rebuilt petcock, and of course paint ...this got her on the road..and a happy week it was..
The Problem....
I then noticed a small oil leak coming from the cylinder head cover just above one of the half moons at which point I decided to take the cover off and replace the gasket. Once I got the cover off and spent some time reviewing Basscliff's valve guide for 8/16v motors, then more time reading the manuals I figured I might as well clearance the valves while I had the cover off as the top end of the motor sounded a bit louder than expected.
popped the plugs out, turned the motor till the cam lobe was pointed straight up and started looking the clearances....by eye, it seemed that the clearances were excessively large for each(almost a quarter inch?). rather then measure each one (which I know I should have done) I decided to go about setting them to the factory .003-.005 range (my gauge set started @ 004 so I started there). reassembled and tried starting her... the motor would barley turn over, wouldnt idle, and the top end sounded like it was about to explode...shut her down...
readjusted the valves going to a larger .007...she started..top end still sounded way too loud but I decided to take her out for a boot. The quick boot went OK and I decided to do the 120K commute to work the next day.
got in OK...heading home stopped by a mechanic friends shop and he agreed that the top end seemed really loud and that the clearances would need to go bigger... left the shop...about 10 minutes away...throttle cable snapped right at the throttle...no biggie.. managed to make it another 30K by manually pulling on the throttle cable wrapped around my finger and driving slow. All of a sudden...the bike cuts out on me... while rolling I try starting it again and it started...got another K before it did it again...when it happened the third time..the bike totally died...no lights, no camera, no action.
My questions...
1. am I using the wrong values for clearance? should I be looking at X manual rather than Y (I believe one states 003 -008 another 003-005)
2. being I have a new battery that should have been fully charged (considering I drove 100K that day) does this indicate stator issues?
3. is it sheer luck that all of this happened after performing my valve clearance( I can see the throttle cable being random...but could I have fried something with the stator?)
I have yet to dig into the bike after getting it home last night. My plan would be to check the overall health of the starting/charging system per Basscliff's guide and then move on to the valve clearance issue. I was also thinking of posting a video of the bike when started in hope of someone listing to the top end to see if Im crazy or not...
Thanks in advance for the response!
Comment