Gs500

[oldpara]

Mekanix that looks nice a nice start for the project.

Hjfisk was the driving force in the project he and I did last winter.
I'm not sure what happened to the images, I'm not having the best luck with photobucket so heres some more to give you an idea of what we accomplished.

From this




To this

[lurch12_2000]

Nice makeover!

Mekanix that looks nice a nice start for the project.

Hjfisk was the driving force in the project he and I did last winter.
I'm not sure what happened to the images, I'm not having the best luck with photobucket so heres some more to give you an idea of what we accomplished.

From this



To this

I had one all stock except for the decal stripe...fun bike but the GS450E I have now is more comfortable.

[Mekanix]

Very nice. Why didn't you go with the double rotor ?

[oldpara]

Lurch you're so right.
The streetfighter ergo's is not my cup of tea.
Much prefer the good ole GS upright riding ergo's.

[Mekanix]

That's what I'm heading for. Something comfortable and upright but with enough leverage to have fun with the bike.
Right now I'm trying to find a good set of comfortable bars under 28'' wide.


Should I mess with the engine or leave it be and just do a refresh ?

I was thinking of bumping the compression to 10.5:1 from 9:1 by plaining the block but I don't know what it has for valve reliefs and clearances.
There's probably a little more power to be had with degreeing the cam's.



Scored a new set of carbs yesterday and started to tear them down for cleaning. Surprisingly they didn't need any cleaning. But I did find one problem.

The spring on top of the throttle valve snaped into 3 pieces and settled on top. After running like that for a while it wore through the cap and the diaphram.
Luckily I have the other carbs torn appart to scavenge from.

But I also wanted to use the other set on the frankintwin. Looks like a project for later on... Its already got the whole gs500 ignition upgrade.

Looking at the curve for the 500 It makes more sense for a larger engine. Less advance in the low rev's I'm guessing to prevent kick back.

[Mekanix]

I found two things that others with 450's can use.

If you have cam end float you could use the cam end shims for a 500 from 91 on.
Actually most camshafts are the same diameter that I've seen.

The clutch mechanism under the left cover on most 450's before 1988 have a plastic bushing. The 500's have a bearing type screw assembly that rotates much smoother than the plastic type.

In other news:

I've cleaned almost every part.
Got new tires BT-45's for 260$ a set.
Made one good head out of two so I don't have to drill out broken studs
Lapped the valves and found a good combination of shims

I'm starting to look at porting and cleaning up the head.
________________________________________________
What do you guys set your valve clearances to?
I went for 0.076mm in the 0.03-0.08 spec for now until i get it running.
________________________________________________

[pete]

I saw someone mention the shims over on the GS Twins forum, good to know they'll work! I don't have that issue myself but I have definitely heard 450's that do.

Good to know there's a clutch upgrade as well...

I run my clearances around the 0.05 mark as that's what the first clearance check resulted in and I haven't had to adjust them since. If you want to go tighter or looser, looser is better of course...

[Mekanix]

Well since I just lapped the valves I figured they would tighten up a bit and there's really not much difference. But once its run a bit I'll go with that Pete.

[pete]

I think I had to adjust one or two after the very first 15 minute run of the engine straight after the rebuild, but I haven't had to change any during the services since I've actually been riding.

That will probably prove me wrong next time though

[Mekanix]

Pics of progress:


Soon to be stripped and either painted or vinyl wrapped.



New Tires BT45





Before stripping


After stripping


Head shot


38cc chamber
9.0 compression
0.030 deck height
74mm bore
56.6mm stroke

[zig06]

Nice job!, how did you strip the covers? Was it just an averge paint job by the PO or was there elbow grease involved?

[Mekanix]

Started with elbow grease. Found 5 different coats of paint so I had it chem stripped with aircraft stripper.

Took almost 30 minutes total. Now I'm trying to decide what to do about paint.

I could get it powder coated but my guy for that doesn't like doing engine parts. Can't blame him, Its too delicate for his set up.

Its probably going to be paint now but I can't decide between Lacquer, Acrylic, Enamel or Epoxy.

On top of that I have to do some plastic welding and take the paint off of the plastics before painting them again.

There's like 3 coats of paint on those and its chipping all over.

[Mekanix]

Updates and Pics




Somebody has been here before


I was painting the block by hand and noticed a small hair on one of the magnets. I tried to brush it off and noticed that it was a crack straight through the magnet, and the epoxy was about to fly off...

The magnet right beside it was the same story.

After looking closely I noticed lots of claw marks on the backside of the magnet casing and on the block. It looks like someone was trying to pull this thing off with a 3 jaw puller.

I managed to get it off with the front axle bolt and a pin. It took alot of cranking and nothing happened so I taped the end of the bolt lightly with a hammer and there she went
Who knows where the starter clutch bits went to It all flew out when the rotor poped of the crank.

I just happen to have another engine I can get this part off of. The friend that I got all the parts from before still has the entire bottom end. So that's what I'm fixing now.

In other news, I got the new gear position sensor. And the position indicator is in the mail.

FYI, If your lights don't work or are intermittent, You can file the surface down and get rid of the pits in the contact pads on the sensor to make it work like new again.





Powdercoat should be done this weekend and I'm in the middle of painting the engine covers. So hopefully progress will be made soon.


Here's the first little bit of painting I've done by hand. Can't really do much in an apartment but I can brush. Although I might get into airbrushes like this guy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPggKYmp1S4

[Big Rich]

As far as the magnet cracking - from what I've read on the Twins site, it's a "common" problem. Common enough anyway that they call it "a case if the goats", or "another stator has goats". Somehow it got it's name from the first person to discover it.......

Don't know if you saw that over there.

[Mekanix]

Never herd of that before. This one was definitely due to impact from P-PO, Joe Hackamabob or something :P


On the other hand I got the rest of the magnets out intact. Good for magnetizing things.

Just for fun I might clean it up and put some niodinium magnets in there.