Is it a head gasket????

[Anonymous]

I just picked up a '82 GS450T with about 10k on it. It runs but not very well. It will sputter at low rpm's then pick up and run great. The previous owner included a head gasket with it and said he thought that it might need it based on someones reccomendation. The bike smokes a whiteish smoke out of the left side exhaust pipe. The other pipe is clean and fine. I took the carbs off today and I am going to clean them to see if this will help. I put new plugs in also, the old ones were kinda blackish and smelled strongly of gas. The old plugs were also 2 different brands and not the right ones.

Is there a way to tell if it's a head gasket or maybe the valve stem seals are bad? Or maybe just the carbs out of wack. I'm going to try and synch them. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

[Dink]

White smoke is fuel! You do not describe anything that would even suggest a head gasket, it sounds like all it needs is a good carb clean and set up, cant hurt to also check valve clearences and timing though.
Dink

[Anonymous]

I hope your right. That would be nice. I'm going to hopefully clean them tonight and put them back on tomorrow.

[Dink]

Sooty plugs and white smoke = over fuelling, not head gasket.
Dink

[Anonymous]

smoke

got to disagree, white smoke is oil, black smoke is fuel,

[Anonymous]

It may indeed need a head gasket, but adjusting the carbs properly is certainly not going to hurt. If your bike is like mine, the previous owner/"mechanic" may have gone to great lengths not to actually do things right.

First of all, get the proper NGK sparkplugs and set the gaps right. It could be that the prior guy monkeyed around with different types of plugs to try to make up for some other problem that he didn't really want to get into.

Next, set your fuel mixture back to stock. (For my bike, that is 2 1/2 turns out on all carbs, and the screws are covered with little aluminum plugs with a hole through them)

Then, see where you're at. Before you do anything else, buy a service manual by Haynes or Clymer, and look through the troubleshooting section. Oh yeah, and either of those manuals will tell you what each color of smoke means, hehehe. It will be the best $25 you ever spent. Have a look on ebay and amazon.

Report back later.

[Anonymous]

my *guess* would be that it's water... I know that this is not a water cooled engine, but more than likely just a trace of water has gotten into your carbs/airbox/cyl's, and is creating white steam.. same thing happened to my gs850 and got me really scared when it took a long time to go away..

blue= oil
black= overrich
white= water/steam

maybe get some carb/fuel cleaner that will bond to water and pull it out of the system.

was the bike parked outside? has it been raining?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies. I took the carbs off and just cleaned them a little and put in the fresh NGK plugs. I rode it a few miles and it still runs the same. One side has white smoke and backfires sometimes and the other side is fine. I bought a manual and I'm waiting for it to get here in the mail. Then I want to adjust the carbs right. They have to be out of wack. If that doesn't fix it I'll go from there.

[Anonymous]

what was the condition of the pulled plugs?

I'm going through a similar problem... blue smoke when increasing rpms from 1k-3k then the exahaust clears. when I cruise SUB 3k it sputters a lot when the engine is cold (pops and backfires).. GG I'm about to buy a gsxr and drag this thing to a junkyard by chain behind my jeep.