Cylinder Head Gasket question

[chef1366]

Wow! I would be P!ssed!!

[tfb]

Wow! I would be P!ssed!!

Yeah, I would be too -- but more than that, the Athena folks should be ashamed of that sort of 'quality'.

[Dave_17954]

Well I finally received my new head gasket from Suzuki. And there are the 4 orings that weren't included with my Athena one (which I returned btw). For $143 plus shipping I thought for sure this would be gold plated.....

[chef1366]

Well I finally received my new head gasket from Suzuki. And there are the 4 orings that weren't included with my Athena one (which I returned btw). For $143 plus shipping I thought for sure this would be gold plated.....

Money well spent!

[tfb]

Yeah the price of spares continues to climb... and it can make your eyes water, that's for sure. :-/

[hjfisk]

Well I finally received my new head gasket from Suzuki. And there are the 4 orings that weren't included with my Athena one (which I returned btw). For $143 plus shipping I thought for sure this would be gold plated.....

Yes you got the o-rings but I looked back at your photo of the other gasket you had and it had the crush washers in stead of orings. I have used the aftermarket gaskets on a few bikes in the past. I only had a problem once as I recall. I need to get a top end set here shortly for the "Road Kill " build and am up in the air which way I'm going.

[twodogs58]

650 Head gasket

Just saw this thread and felt moved to share a story. In the mid 80's I was service manager at Suzuki of Virginia Beach. We sold boatloads of non-current GS450-550-650G's. These were mostly still crated up. A couple of things we ran into were the need to do carb cleans on most of the 2-3 yr old crated bikes.
Then on the 650's we had a lot of weeping head gaskets. The gaskets Suzuki sent us for warranty came with no o-ring or built in crush gaskets on the stud holes so thats what we installed. We did some of these 2-3 times before one of my sharper mechanics picked up on the fact that something was missing. Problem solved.

The other thing we ran into was 650 rear brakes that would be brought in with melted plastic caliper inspection covers and reported seizing rr brakes. We replaced the entire rr brake system on a bunch of these (per Suzuki) before some sharp West Virginia mechanic figure out that the the return port in the master cylinder was crudded up from old non utilized brake fluid and time.
Running a small jet drill through the port and flushing the system cured that problem.

Suzuki of Virginia Beach was the number one volume Suzuki Dealer one year in that time span (don't remember which one - getting old now crs) so I got to experience a lot of stuff that took place in the transition from the gs bike to the gsxrs and cruisers and will post whenever I can be of help.

[chef1366]

Just saw this thread and felt moved to share a story. In the mid 80's I was service manager at Suzuki of Virginia Beach. We sold boatloads of non-current GS450-550-650G's. These were mostly still crated up. A couple of things we ran into were the need to do carb cleans on most of the 2-3 yr old crated bikes.
Then on the 650's we had a lot of weeping head gaskets. The gaskets Suzuki sent us for warranty came with no o-ring or built in crush gaskets on the stud holes so thats what we installed. We did some of these 2-3 times before one of my sharper mechanics picked up on the fact that something was missing. Problem solved.

The other thing we ran into was 650 rear brakes that would be brought in with melted plastic caliper inspection covers and reported seizing rr brakes. We replaced the entire rr brake system on a bunch of these (per Suzuki) before some sharp West Virginia mechanic figure out that the the return port in the master cylinder was crudded up from old non utilized brake fluid and time.
Running a small jet drill through the port and flushing the system cured that problem.

Suzuki of Virginia Beach was the number one volume Suzuki Dealer one year in that time span (don't remember which one - getting old now crs) so I got to experience a lot of stuff that took place in the transition from the gs bike to the gsxrs and cruisers and will post whenever I can be of help.

You need to post more!

[Dave_17954]

twodogs ...you need to contact Athena and tell them your story then maybe they would believe some people who know to put orings in their head gaskets so they don't leak.....just say'n

[quexpress]

Just saw this thread and felt moved to share a story. In the mid 80's I was service manager at Suzuki of Virginia Beach. We sold boatloads of non-current GS450-550-650G's. These were mostly still crated up. A couple of things we ran into were the need to do carb cleans on most of the 2-3 yr old crated bikes.
Then on the 650's we had a lot of weeping head gaskets. The gaskets Suzuki sent us for warranty came with no o-ring or built in crush gaskets on the stud holes so thats what we installed. We did some of these 2-3 times before one of my sharper mechanics picked up on the fact that something was missing. Problem solved.

The other thing we ran into was 650 rear brakes that would be brought in with melted plastic caliper inspection covers and reported seizing rr brakes. We replaced the entire rr brake system on a bunch of these (per Suzuki) before some sharp West Virginia mechanic figure out that the the return port in the master cylinder was crudded up from old non utilized brake fluid and time.
Running a small jet drill through the port and flushing the system cured that problem.

Suzuki of Virginia Beach was the number one volume Suzuki Dealer one year in that time span (don't remember which one - getting old now crs) so I got to experience a lot of stuff that took place in the transition from the gs bike to the gsxrs and cruisers and will post whenever I can be of help.

I'm sure than any information that you will refer to will be of great help. Please do not hesitate to post sir!

[Dave_17954]

Got her all back together using factory gaskets and shes ready for the summer.....