1980 GS850G Restoration

[glstine]

I picked up a 1980 GS850G a while back that was listed as a parts bike, with title. When I went to look at it I saw it was mostly there so I went ahead and picked it up. I finally made room for it and got it home yesterday. I am going to do a frame up restoration on it. This was going to be a long term project, but last night my oldest son (16) expressed interested in helping me (he had no interest in helping on the 550). As a father-son project I will be able to spend more time on it.

It's a little rough, but actually in better shape than the 550 when I brought it home.




There is also a box of parts, including parts from other bikes. I'll be posting in the parts wanted section soon.

[terrylee]

enjoy, I love my 850! I never can improve mine enough. terrylee

[Octain]

How much did ya give for it?

At first my son was interested in working on the bikes but now, not so much.
His interest comes and goes.
Typical 16 year old. All he wants to do is ride.

[glstine]

I paid $150. I figured that was a good price since there was a title (we will see in the end I suppose). It is really not as bad as it looks in the pics, most of the major parts are there. The gas tank is also very clean which surprised me, I expected it to be full of rust.

[Octain]

Sounds like a good deal to me.
If you do all the work yourself and are carefull you can have a decend bike for under a grand as long as the engine is ok. Also have the satisfation of knowing you did the resto.
Dont give up and ask lots of questions.

[Buster-boy]

There is a sweet looking tank, tail, and side covers for sale on eBay for $250. They were $299. Didn't see a fender though, but maybe he's got that too. It was a restore project for another guy but the guy screwed him somehow so he's selling them off. Claims to have over $1,100 into them.

If you need parts I've found Tri County Motorcycle Salvage in California has just about everything you could ever need. May not be the cheapest, but he's usually got what I needed for my 81 850GX. Stockers has a lot of stuff too.

Good luck on the restore!!

Jim

[glstine]

I finally got myself somewhat organized so I have now gotten to work on this thing. First thing I did was got the calipers apart, front pistons were next to impossible to get out and they were somewhat pitted so I guess I will replace them. The back pistons came out easy and appear to be in good shape.

Nice yuck in the back calipers, the fronts were crystallized


I have gotten almost everything off the frame. The wiring harness appears to have some cut wires so that might be fun to get back into working order.

After I got the rear fender and tailpiece off I realized the back of the frame is bent slightly similar to what Basscliff had shown on his thread. I had noticed the fender was off but I had hoped it was just because the bolt to the frame on the low side had been removed and the fender was loose. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. I'm glad Cliff had that in his thread so I know how to deal with that now, Thanks Cliff.



That's it for now, next step I guess will be to get the engine out and get the frame painted. I'm going to go bumble bee yellow and black on this one.

[glstine]

I haven't updated this thread in quite a while but I have been working on it. Seems like delays everywhere from kids activities to humidity to high to paint anything (I actually considered painting some stuff in the utility room one day but I figured the wife would kill me).

Got everything off of the frame and started getting it cleaned up



Stripped the old paint off using wire wheels on the angle grinder. I will never ever ever do that again. For the cost of all of the wire wheels I went through I probably could have paid to have it sandblasted. Not the mention the mess it made.



Nice new paint job. I used the VHT epoxy paint I saw recommended on a thread here. Turned out nice. We will see how it holds up.



Swing arm and shocks back on. I just painted the old shocks, I will eventually get some progressives.



The case covers were pretty rough.



But they shined up pretty nicely.



Got all of the gunk of the engine. I gave the cylinders and head to a friend to bead blast for me.

[glstine]

Forks back together with progressive springs and new steering stem bearings.



New propeller shaft boot



Crank case back in. I went ahead and painted it, wasn't planning on it but I couldn't get it as nice looking as I wanted. Felt like I did it kind of cheesy since I didn't split the cases, just taped up all the fasteners and other items. Looks okay though.





That's it for now. I'm getting ready to paint the cylinders and head. I've been cleaning all the old gaskets off which I swear the PO glued on with JB weld or something. The top end had apparently been off before since it didn't have an OEM head gasket. It looked like the one in the Athena set I got, which after reading some posts on here, I wish I hadn't. Unfortunately I can't justify spending another $100 bucks on OEM gaskets at this point, so I will just have to live with it, for now anyway.

[paul1875]

very nice work mate the frame looks excellent

[Flaggo60]

Nice thread. Hope you keep posting with a lot of pics as it progresses, IŽll be watching.

[recycled64]

Great!

Thanks for sharing your progress and pics. As far as I'm concerned, what you've posted is absolutely the most interesting and satisfying thing to see that anybody, I mean anybody, posts up here. Resurrection, indeed.
Makes you wonder about the ones that get away, or get parted out unnecessarily. Thanks!!

[Dogma]

Oooo I like where this is headed. Nice work so far.

[glstine]

Thanks for the nice comments. I am thinking things should start progressing much quicker now. I have most of the parts I need except a few odds and ends, just a matter of getting it back together (and hoping for some lower humidity to paint. Today it was 91% when I got home from work)

[DENNYDOG]

It looks like your build is coming along nicely. It never seems like I can get things finished as quickly as I would like either.

Where did you get the boot for the drive shaft from? I noticed a worn spot on mine when I cleaned it up last weekend.