1981 GS450E Rebuild

[deven5498]

Very nice!!! Can tell you have some time into that. Good catch on the male bullet hot lead. I have done that before.

[pete]

And there she is...



And a dodgy little video of it in action:



I took her out for a short test run this avo with the iPhone as a GPS speedo and it worked real well. I ended up setting the circumference to 1980mm to give me some leeway and I'm something like 2 or 3 km's slow at 60kph so I'm happy with that.

I definitely need to make a proper bracket though as it's a little annoying having it on one side but the main thing is now I get to look straight down at the dent I had to put in the headlight bucket to clear the ignition switch... and I also want my gear position indicator back and probably a voltage monitor of some sort as well.

I had to duck into the supermarket for a minute and when I went to leave there was a white van crawling past the bike with a guy and woman taking a good long look at the bike... I think they were trying to work out what it was... sorta made me feel a bit proud, but then I ended up in front of them and thought they were following me! False alarm though as they turned off... haha

All in all a successful day... but I also do need to do the tacho drive block off yet. I attempted that today and I discovered I manage to round the head of the bolt when I installed the tacho drive during the rebuild Will figure that out another time.

Oh, and I had an interesting situation on Friday where by the time I got to work I almost couldn't get her into 1st. Turns out the nut on the front heim joint of the gear shift linkage was loose to the point where I was shocked it was still on there, so I got to use my toolkit for the first time and tighten that up. Today I took it off again and put some blue locktite on it...

[pete]

So I referred to the wiring diagrams I printed and labelled last week and got most of the harness done:



And I remembered I got a mini blade fuse holder with some 5 amp fuses a while back in preparation for the voltage monitor that I never ended up using:



I made a lead to run from the battery to the short harness for the clock power as it needs to be permanently on to keep the time, and note I changed this later so the bullet connector is a female. I didn't think it through properly the first time and that would have ended up with a live bullet connector floating around near the frame... never a good thing!



Part of my testing included holding the tacho wire against the negative side of the Dynatek coil to make sure it would signal it correctly which it did, so I made up the lead for that and the 1M resistor they provide is under the yellow heatshrink there:



You can just make it out screwed under the Dynatek terminal of the left coil:



I finalised the speed sensor mounting and cable tied the wire up the brake cable. It's not the neatest install in the world but it's neat enough for me, although if I'm really keen I might make another bracket later and move it under the brake caliper. Hillsy showed me an install like that over on DTT and it's real neat. I didn't think I'd have room but once the speedo cable is gone there should be room now...



Finished up the short harness:



And got it connected up and all the wiring cable tied down securely and out of the way:

[pete]

Rightio... the Acewell install was an adventure. I ran out of time to finish it all on Saturday due to starting late and having to vote, but I got it finished up and a quick test ride in today and I'm happy to report it's awesome

I have it calibrated ok, reads a couple of km's faster than I'm doing going by the GPS speed which is fine by me and the tacho seems to read accurately which seems to be a difficult thing with these for a lot of people.

Anyway...

Magnetic bolt on and speed sensor semi-mounted for testing:



I cable tied the Acewell to the footpeg temporarily to make sure everything worked ok:



And I found out why my tacho wasn't working... it seems the crimping of the cylinder head end of the brand new cable wasn't done real well and when I pulled the cable out the end stayed seated on the tacho drive, so obviously the drive was spinning the end but the end wasn't spinning the cable:



So once everything tested ok I mounted the Acewell up where it will go for the time being:



The harness for it reaches just under the front of where the tank sits so I needed to make a short harness to reach from there to where the main harness connectors are:



The old gauges and cables set aside, and I removed the plug from the gauge side to make the short harness I need:

[pete]

The Acewell and battery box cover are on! At last...

First, back track to Friday night and I got the rubber glued onto the speed sensor bracket and battery box cover:



Left them clamped there overnight so the glue had a chance to set properly and really hang onto the rubber. Not too concerned about the speed sensor bracket but I really want the rubber in the battery box cover to stay there over the + battery terminal.

Battery installation tested ok:



Bit hard to see but I ended up moving the terminals back to the front mounting points and bent the connectors 90 degrees so I could route the wiring properly, and I removed the pigtail for the trickle charger as it was making it far too difficult:



And it does help the battery blend in better, turned out better than I expected:



And onto the Acewell install which is what I know some of you are waiting for

[pete]

Pete,
From a guy who installed his front fender backwards, this makes perfect sense. Barb always says that what rattles around in my head is mostly minutiae; Which sounds a lot like manure. When I first joined the forum, I entertained foolish thoughts of going toe to toe with you but I'm going to concede here and now. As difficult as it is to admit, I can never be more than your court jester. You are the rightful heir to the throne and I dub thee, "King of BS" and pledge my loyalty and support.
Niels

Hahahahaha thanks Niels... I think

Pete,
From a guy who installed his front fender backwards, this makes perfect sense. Barb always says that what rattles around in my head is mostly minutiae; Which sounds a lot like manure. When I first joined the forum, I entertained foolish thoughts of going toe to toe with you but I'm going to concede here and now. As difficult as it is to admit, I can never be more than your court jester. You are the rightful heir to the throne and I dub thee, "King of BS" and pledge my loyalty and support.
Niels

[pete]

So I didn't get the rubber glued on tonight, but I did at least get the front tyre circumference measured up.

Don't have any chalk handy, so stuck some masking tape on the front tyre:



Marked where the tape hit the ground with another piece of tape, then rolled it forward three different times and marked each where the tape ended up.



That netted me with two measurements of 1961mm and one of 1962mm. So, for the purposes of leniancy I'll enter the circumference as 1970mm to start with to try to cope for a bit of extra tread when the tyres are new and a small increase when the tyres heat up.

I do intend to verify with a GPS also as a guy at work loaned me an external GPS device that should work with the work iPhone.

I also did a little on the battery box cover by installing the lock properly:



If I'm lucky, I'll be able to get into some prep work tomorrow night and glue the rubber on. We'll see...

[pete]

It was a bit overcast this morning before I went to work but I took some quick shots of how the paint turned out:



All in all I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, especially for a night time crappy light paint job.

Then I just sat them in place to see how they'll go:



They should go well, and that battery box cover should blend in nicely too.

I also cut the rubber out to stick on, the battery box cover is going to get a bit just around the + terminal as a just in case measure and the speed sensor bracket will get a bit on the back to protect the fork leg paint. I hope to glue them on tomorrow night after giving the paint another 24 hours.



Then I took a leaf out of Daniel/Eric's book (7981GS) and got my old bikini fairing hung up out of the way finally:



I also started preparing for the next project this morning by printing this out at work:



I'm hoping tomorrow night I can get the rubber glued on and measure the circumference of the front tyre, then hopefully on Friday night I can start pulling the tank and gauges off and get stuck in.

[pete]

Looking good there Pete....

Just a quick question, how come your pictures are so small ? In order for me to appreciate them I usually click on them, get sent to Photobucket, but then I at least get a larger view of them...

just wondering, by the way your not the only one......with small pics.......

Thanks mate

To help the screen load quicker, I just paste the image thumbnails from Photobucket, that way if you don't want to wait for the full pic's to load it's much quicker.

Occassionally I just post the full pic anyway but that's why I do it this way normally...

Looking good there Pete....

Just a quick question, how come your pictures are so small ? In order for me to appreciate them I usually click on them, get sent to Photobucket, but then I at least get a larger view of them...

just wondering, by the way your not the only one......with small pics.......

[pete]

Well it wasn't raining when I got home from work today, although the humidity was still quite up there tonight. However, the weather's only predicted to get wetter this week so I had to bite the bullet and paint tonight and hope it turns out ok.

This is how the primer turned out, took these this avo:





I managed to miss a bit around the hinges but that's only inside where it won't be seen, so if the paint peels off there it's no big deal.

Then after 5 coats of the 3M satin black tonight:



The photos are horrible because the camera refused to focus on the black parts in front of the black background, so this is a rare case of them looking better in the metal than in the photo.

Between coats I worked out the stock wiring colours that need to be attached to the Acewell:



So the only thing I need to do before getting stuck in on Saturday is to work out the tyre circumference.

[pete]

Pete,
I need opinions and I always enjoy your perspective (looking at the world from the bottom side up!) Do you guys think a frame looks better with a gloss or satin finish? Everybody feel free to jump in.
Thanks,
Niels

Hahaha yeah I like to see things right side down

It all depends... if the frame is going to be painted a different colour and a design feature, then full gloss for sure, otherwise I like semi gloss or satin as my personal preference...

Satin black! The frame should not look better than the rest of the bike!

Yup, that's what I reckon

I like the Gloss frame especailly since I used flat black on exhaust and satin on engine.

Anyway, PETE FORGET THE BATTERY BOX (though it does look good)!!! I WANT TO SEE THE ACEWELL HOOKED UP!!!!!! Then again I did start a whole thread dedicated to aftermarket guage clusters.

Paul

Now steady on Paul... Saturday is supposed to be Acewell day ok? And if you look at the pic's the little bracket on the right is for the Acewell speed sensor, so in a way I'm already working on it

Happy now?

And yes, I intend to hunt down your thread again once I've got it mounted and working and will add a pic or three for completeness.

I also hope to have the front tyre circumference measured in advance of Saturday.

It was high gloss for me. Love it.

That does work on yours too

Pete,
I need opinions and I always enjoy your perspective (looking at the world from the bottom side up!) Do you guys think a frame looks better with a gloss or satin finish? Everybody feel free to jump in.
Thanks,
Niels

It was high gloss for me. Love it.

I like the Gloss frame especailly since I used flat black on exhaust and satin on engine.

Anyway, PETE FORGET THE BATTERY BOX (though it does look good)!!! I WANT TO SEE THE ACEWELL HOOKED UP!!!!!! Then again I did start a whole thread dedicated to aftermarket guage clusters.

Paul