Calling '83 Shaftie Owners - Cylinder Head Fins

[bwringer]

After years with an ugly franken-engine, my '83 GS850G is finally getting a freshened engine where everything matches. It's an '81 engine, but I've painted the cases the correct satin black and I'm working on polishing the covers, so it should look just like it did from the factory unless you look closely at the clutch cover or count the bolts on the valve cover.

Anyway, on the '83 shafties, the engine was painted black, and the case covers were polished. There's also one other neat detail I'd like to get right -- the outer edges of the fins on the cylinder head were polished. (The entire engine was painted black on the chain drive models.)

I'm having a hard time finding a decent photo of this area so I can polish the right places (actually, I'll just sand through the paint on the fin edges). Can any '83+ shaftie owners post a photo that shows this area in decent detail?

Here are a couple of fairly distant photos stolen from the gallery and from another GSR member that show how nice this looks, but they're not close enough to see just where the polished bit starts and ends:

Same color as my '83 GS850G. I don't have the cool fairing, though.


DW Voss's '83 GS850GL - same colors as my G in a slightly different shape. First one I'd seen:

[tomcat24551]

I e-mailed you some photos. I couldn't upload them to this site because they were too big. Someone needs to put a "how-to" on this site explaining how to do it.

Thanks

Tomcat

[bwringer]

Thanks for the photos!

I got photos from two people that showed me exactly what I needed.

Thanks!

Pix of my project will be posted soon... I'm trying to time things so the 850 is out of action as little as possible during the transplant. I'm going to start assembling the bottom end in my new engine in a day or two, and should have it nearly or mostly complete before I pull the old engine in a week or two and perform the transplant surgery. Somewhere in there, the case covers will get polished...

[Mike_H]

Can you post them please? I'm doing the same thing, and would like a close-up to see if I missed anything.

[tomcat24551]

I'm going to start assembling the bottom end in my new engine in a day or two, and should have it nearly or mostly complete before I pull the old engine in a week or two and perform the transplant surgery.

Since you have the bottom end accessible, have you thought about replacing the 5th drive and driven gears with new ones for '82-83 850 "L" models? This would give you about a 4% taller gear ratio in 5th gear. Of course, you'd only want to do it if you think the engine spins too fast now, but it sure would make an interesting pictorial!

I expect the gears would cost about $125.

[bwringer]

Since you have the bottom end accessible, have you thought about replacing the 5th drive and driven gears with new ones for '82-83 850 "L" models? This would give you about a 4% taller gear ratio in 5th gear. Of course, you'd only want to do it if you think the engine spins too fast now, but it sure would make an interesting pictorial!

I expect the gears would cost about $125.

Just when I think I know my way around a GS850... :shock:

From a little quick research, it appears that the 5th driven gear has 25 teeth in the 1981 engine I'm using. That part number, 24351-45104, is no longer available.

The 83 850GL 5th driven gear has 24 teeth, part number 24351-45110, and shows up for $64.09 on Flat Out's fiche.

However, the drive gear has the same part number (24250-45102) and the same number of teeth (26) on both bikes, (and the same price, $64.09) which doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't it need to have one more tooth to mesh with one less tooth on the driven gear?

It could be neat to have a little more overdrive -- I regularly dispose of long distances at 80-85mph on the interstate. And in the twisties, the taller 5th gear wouldn't make any difference, since I'm in second or third gear in the fun stuff.

But I don't know if 4% will make all that much difference -- my bike is sitting at around 6,000 rpm at 80mph (allowing for the inaccuracies of elderly instrumentation), so 4% taller gearing would only drop the revs by 240 at that speed.

The GS850's engine speed doesn't really bother me overmuch. I never have considered it a problem, and personally, I don't really understand why it's such a common GS850 complaint.

Dunno if it's worth it... I'm never selling this bike, so the only person I have to please is myself. If I thought I might sell it someday, it could be a definite selling point.

[Steve]

I e-mailed you some photos. I couldn't upload them to this site because they were too big. Someone needs to put a "how-to" on this site explaining how to do it.

Thanks

Tomcat

Tom,
There are a couple of ways to re-size a picture. If you have Windows, open the picture in Paint. Click on Image, then Attributes to see just how big your picture is. Select to view the numbers in Pixels. Many of my pictures are 1600x1200, most sites allow up to 800x600, so I need to cut both dimensions in half. Go back to click on Image, then Stretch/Skew. Type in the reduction factor you need. In this case, I would type 50 in both spots, then hit ENTER. Save the picture with a different name, if you wish.

Another way is to use software that is available FREE. Go to Irfanview.com, find the tab for the free download and get it. The program is not quite intuitive, but it will batch-process entire folders of pictures, and can even re-name them in the process, if you wish. I use it when I am preparing albums and slide shows for the rallies I have attended.

When you have your pictures re-sized, put them in a public sharing site like PhotoBucket. Now you can link to that picture and have it show up here.

Yeah, it's a bit of work, but doggone it...we're worth it. 8-[


.

[tomcat24551]

Wouldn't it need to have one more tooth to mesh with one less tooth on the driven gear?

I personally don't think so. There probably is some practical limit to the amount of disparity you can have between the number of teeth on two meshing gears, but in this case, you're not at the limit yet. My thought is that as long as you have enough teeth to go around the edge of the gear, and they are the right size to mesh with the teeth on the drive gear--no problem--any number can win!

My opinion only.

Tomcat

[tomcat24551]

Yeah, it's a bit of work, but doggone it...we're worth it.

Yep, I agree completely. I'll try some of the things you suggested. Thanks for responding.

Tomcat