The Death of a GS

[nickr2]

Hey guys,

I have been a member here before but my account got deleted.

I just had a question.

I had a 1978 GS 750 EC and,

I took my bike out to Sturgis this year and as I was going down the interstate last Wednesday into Wyoming and my crankshaft (im guessing) blew up. It would still run but it made a horrible noise coming from the crankshaft area. I also took the side cover off where the stator is and there were metal chunks and shaving all over inside.

At some point here sooner or later I am going to open my engine up to find out exactly what happened. But I was wondering if there was anything that I did to make motor blow up as from what I heard that is rather uncharacteristic for these engines.

The engine did sit in a garage for about 14 years without ever being started up and the engine seized up. But I put marvel mystery oil in the piston holes to free up the engine and I didn’t have to break it free.

I did all of the maintenance on schedule and actually changed the oil out more than the recommended amount. I did get the engine up into the higher rev ranges a lot so I wasn’t the nicest to my bike, but it is not like I went around racing it all over town.

At some point in time I want to pick up a GS 1000 from the late 70’s so I was just wondering what I could do differently if anything.
Just wanted to hear your guy’s thoughts.

[Steve]

Noises from the crankcase can mean any number of things went wrong.

Would be interesting to see what actually happened.

The only time I have had really nasty noises was on a 650. One of the circlips that keeps the wrist pin in the piston had come loose, so the wrist pin was able to slide sideways and hit the cylinder wall. Lots of noise, but still ran smoothly.

.

[Big T]

Blowing the crankshaft would be very unusual, your bike will run at 8k RPM all day

The metal shavings indicate tear down is in order

Something must have come loose somewhere

[850 Combat]

starter clutch maybe Mine sounded awful when it died.

[Big T]

starter clutch maybe Mine sounded awful when it died.

This

If you've got that cover off, examine the starter clutch and its action. Maybe one of the pins came out and got chewed up in there. There would then only be shavings in the crankcase to flush out

[chuck hahn]

Check over the end of the crank when you pull the rotorjust to be sure the bearing the flywheel runs on didnt scar it..otherwise if the starter clutch is all that went away, just replace that and the flywheel if its torn up. Red loctite everything when you put it all back togehter.