Did I break it again? Popping after cleaning.

[Roostabunny]

Watch your dealer, they sometimes gouge pretty good on shims. I couldnt find them around here for cheaper than 12 bucks each! ouch. z1 i think they are 5? maybe 7? either way still cheaper. and your dealer will most likely have to order them anyway.


Thats great kid...dont get cocky...

Prolly the best line in the movie..

Drat! Bummer of an update... well, partly.

The bad news is that locally or at Z1, no one has all of the sizes I need. Fortunately, one local dealer has the one size (2.60mm) that Z1 doesn't have, but I'm paying shipping and driving to the shop to boot. My buddy has a bunch of shims around but they're from Yamahas and Kawasakis - and I just found out they're 29.0mm instead of 29.5 diameter.

Anyway - I'll get that airbox sealed up tomorrow and the new boots on it. Then change my gear oil and replace my fuel line and petcock while I'm waiting for shims.

How 'bout...

"watch this..."

"Watch what?"

Cheers

[TheCafeKid]

Drat! Bummer of an update... well, partly.

The bad news is that locally or at Z1, no one has all of the sizes I need. Fortunately, one local dealer has the one size (2.60mm) that Z1 doesn't have, but I'm paying shipping and driving to the shop to boot. My buddy has a bunch of shims around but they're from Yamahas and Kawasakis - and I just found out they're 29.0mm instead of 29.5 diameter.

Anyway - I'll get that airbox sealed up tomorrow and the new boots on it. Then change my gear oil and replace my fuel line and petcock while I'm waiting for shims.

How 'bout...

"watch this..."

"Watch what?"

Cheers

You serious?? What size do you need? Z1 has shims from 3.0 all the way down to 2.3

Here my friend...

http://www.z1enterprises.com/catalog.aspx?pid=GS750B-1977-EN1

Minus the holiday i promise you'll get them at LEAST as fast as the dealer, prolly faster and you wont get gouged for em....

[Jd Powell]

Roostabunny, I am also in Phoenix (19th ave & 101) if ya need a hand feel free to PM me. I frequently spend my weekends wrenching/tuning and have a fairly well stocked garage. I've also been trying to get some of us Phoenix area GS'rs together for some group rides.

[Roostabunny]

Roostabunny, I am also in Phoenix (19th ave & 101) if ya need a hand feel free to PM me. I frequently spend my weekends wrenching/tuning and have a fairly well stocked garage. I've also been trying to get some of us Phoenix area GS'rs together for some group rides.

Hey JD, I'm around Arrowhead - Union Hills and the 101. Just replied to you in the "Sportbike Illiterate" thread, too.

I'll send you a PM.

[Roostabunny]

You serious?? What size do you need? Z1 has shims from 3.0 all the way down to 2.3

Here my friend...

http://www.z1enterprises.com/catalog.aspx?pid=GS750B-1977-EN1

Minus the holiday i promise you'll get them at LEAST as fast as the dealer, prolly faster and you wont get gouged for em....

Oh they had all sizes on the website, just not all in stock. They're fresh out of 2.60mm.

Anyway, I ordered the ones they had, and JD sent me the number of a local shop I didn't know about that does a lot of work on older Suzukis.

[Roostabunny]

BTW, all my clearances were .003" and under. I'm pretty excited to see how the bike runs with spec clearances and a well-sealed intake path.

Meantime, while waiting/searching for shims I also replaced my fuel petcock and ancient fuel line. Aside from the obvious mechanical and safety benefits, it sure is convenient to have a tank that doesn't spew fuel whenever it's disconnected. I'm also planning to change the gear oil while she's sitting in the garage.

[Roostabunny]

BTW, I sure got confused between metric/English clearences (.003” compared with .03mm) and messed up Steve’s spreadsheet by entering .003 thousandths of an inch instead of 3 thousandths of an inch. The effect was that it seemed like all my clearances were in the millionths of an inch, and, of course, that meant I needed 8 shims when in reality .003” is well within spec. The spreadsheet works great when you follow the directions, and when I re-entered the measurements properly I only needed one shim which I was able to swap at a local shop for $0. I guess I’ll hang on to the ones I ordered from Z1 for future adjustments.

OK, the big news is that the airbox work seems to have done the trick on the popping, lost power, slow idle, and occasional white smoke during warm up. As a bonus, between that and the new battery, starting is a breeze. I had been goosing the throttle to get it to catch, but this morning I used choke and no throttle and it caught the first time. Could be my imagination, but I think throttle response is smoother too. I feel like it got choppy on deceleration for a while now, and I think it’s back to normal.



pics here for the airbox hacking/fixup...




Thanks go to 49er for the tip about the breather galley thing. I didn’t even see that when I was cleaning originally, and when I ran the coat hanger wire through there I ended up with about two tablespoons worth of rusty gunk. Yikes! I sprayed a little PB Blaster up there after cleaning, hoping to slow the return of more rust. Based on the volume of crud it’s likely that the breather was restricted, and I’m hoping my oil seals will get a nice break now that the breather can once again, well... breathe.

I struggled with getting the airbox back on, but only for about 3 minutes. After all I’d read about the magic moment of reassembling the airbox to the carb with new boots, I knew something had to be wrong. I’d installed left and right boots “Letter Up” as advised in this forum, but trying to get them hooked up made me think maybe that was backwards, since two boots on one side went fine and the other two were visibly not aligned. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that there was a Braille-like raised dot on the flange of each boot. Then I noticed four identical raised dots on the airbox – one under each hole. Those clever engineers! I spun the boots “Letters down” to align the dots, tried again on the carbs, and got to experience my own “magic moment” when they popped right on.

Anyway, a successful fix, and in the meantime I adjusted my valves, replaced my fuel petcock and fuel line, and changed my gear oils (None too soon on that gear oil – they looked pretty yucky. And I made a mess despite Basscliff’s great pictorial). Next step – carb rebuild!

Thanks fellas!

[Flyboy]

Glad to hear she is running sweet again, good job.\\/

[49er]

Hey, side question - could the film of oil on the front of the airbox come from these mediocre seals from old airbox boots? Seems odd, since it seems like the air would be leaking in, not out. Course, there's a film of oil on the inside surfaces of the box, too.

I'll clean it real good before I install new the boots and seal up the covers with the rubber weatherstripping I bought at Ace yesterday. Just curious what you think about that oil.

The film of oil that was forming on the outside of the airbox is caused by the pressure build up in the engine when the breather tract in the airbox isn't working correctly. When the crankcase can't breath, oil gets forced past the seals in the cam chain tensioner, the oil pressure sensor unit next to the starter and the tacho drive unit in front of the engine. When the tract gets completely blocked, your engine will also start to lightly smoke, through oil being forced past sad old oil rings. Ask me how I know!

[Roostabunny]

The film of oil that was forming on the outside of the airbox is caused by the pressure build up in the engine when the breather tract in the airbox isn't working correctly. When the crankcase can't breath, oil gets forced past the seals in the cam chain tensioner, the oil pressure sensor unit next to the starter and the tacho drive unit in front of the engine. When the tract gets completely blocked, your engine will also start to lightly smoke, through oil being forced past sad old oil rings. Ask me how I know!

OK well, time to go to the carwash again - that way I can be sure what's coming from where. I've changed seals in the cam chain tensioner and tach sender and installed new cam cover, half moons, and breather gaskets, so hopefully clearing that breather will keep my engine a little cleaner a little longer.

That's one of my favorite things about this forum, we get to learn from each others mistakes and sad old smokey ring sob stories! As a newbie mechanic, it sure makes it a lot more fun when I have all this experience at my fingertips. :-D

[Roostabunny]

The film of oil that was forming on the outside of the airbox is caused by the pressure build up in the engine when the breather tract in the airbox isn't working correctly.

Seems like this is confirmed to be the problem - after a week's worth of commutes (a little over 250 mostly-freeway miles) my airbox has no oily film. Also no seepage making it's way across the flat top of the crankcase. Thanks again for the tip!

[49er]

Seems like this is confirmed to be the problem - after a week's worth of commutes (a little over 250 mostly-freeway miles) my airbox has no oily film. Also no seepage making it's way across the flat top of the crankcase. Thanks again for the tip!

RB, its good to hear that you now have a great running, non oil spewing GS.
I'm sure that many other GS's suffer from this problem to varying degrees.
Enjoy your ride.
Cheers Ian

[Roostabunny]

Yeah I sure am - can't wait to see what happens once I rebuild the carbs!

Cheers