GS400E won't start anymore

[Anonymous]

Hi! I'm new to motorcycling and just bought my first ride. It's a 1984 GS400E with 27550kms on it. At first, the bike ran well, had some idle problems though (high rev or so slow I would stall). Then, I wasn't able to keep it running without holding the throttle. After a little investigation, I found that I had almost no oil left in the engine. I poured some oil back in and was able to run it for 5 minutes but had a big loss of power. Now it's not starting anymore, it just backfires sometimes...Is it a blown engine or maybe just a tune-up made by a pro would fix my problem? Any advice on what I should check first?

Thanks for your help!

[fgh]

The almost no oil in it is very bad news. If the oil got so low that the pump could not pick it up constantly then there was probably significant damage to the engine. The backfiring would indicate the valaves are sticking sometimes and it fires wih a valve open you get a backfire. Take the top cover off the engine so you can see the valves. Look at the area carefully for damage. If it looks OK crank it with the spark plugs out and watch to see if the valves are operating properly. If they are operating and you get air movement out of the cylinders then you'll need to get into the ignition or carburation to find you're problem.

Of course it doesn't hurt to first check to see that the spark is OK and in time. Check to see that there is gas in the tank and it comes out when you turn the fuel selector to "RES"

[Anonymous]

Do I need any special tools to perform such work on my bike? Like a torque wrench or something...And if anything is damaged, would it be cheaper to simply get rid of the current engine and put another one in? I'm asking because a nearby dealer has a 1982 400E engine with 32000kms on it (150lbs of compression) for 300$. I wonder if that would be a better solution than ripping the current engine into pieces. By the way, would the 82 engine fit in my 84 bike?

[Anonymous]

Well the bike is now running again!!! Turns out the spark plugs were to be replaced. The weird thing is that I only ran 100km with these...maybe it's because of the long storage period...or maybe something else is causing the spark plugs to have a short life...I'll spend these long winter nights working on the 400 to see what is going on with the beast! Until then, LET'S RIDE!!