1981 GS450E Rebuild

[pete]

Pete, what was the original shape of the mirrors for your model?

Hey Greg, the ones that were on it when I got it were black round ones, but going by the fiche the stock ones were rectangular...

Oh, and this is where the carry rack is at after John did me a favour and welded it up for me:



It should be cured enough for me to mount on Sunday if I get the time.

[ged]

Hmmm... now come on Dale I thought you were gonna shoot me a magic bullet!

I went circular mirrors due to the circular headlight, figured rectangular would be out of place... although the indicators are rectangular...

They're cheap crappy Chinese or Taiwanese ones so I'm sure they'll need replacing at some point anyway

Pete, what was the original shape of the mirrors for your model?

[pete]

Usally foam grips are water proof/repellant its the nature foam material used..

I find they get ripped before they wear. good for vibration dampening, if you get tingles in the fingers!

Cheers john

Cheers John, hopefully that's the case! My hands are definitely a lot more comfy with the foam grips, I think the cheapy rubber ones were just too firm.

One thing I'm wondering though is if I need some 'bar end weights... these motorcross 'bars are very light and I seem to get a a reasonable amount of mirror vibration happening at times. Not sure how the weights would go with the hand guards though... something to think about I guess...

Usally foam grips are water proof/repellant its the nature foam material used..

I find they get ripped before they wear. good for vibration dampening, if you get tingles in the fingers!

Cheers john

[pete]

Looking good Pete! Any problems with the foam grips getting wet though? I think that is the biggest concern with those........

Cheers Rich!

You know I never even thought of that... given she's a daily rider she'll see some rain before too long so it'll be interesting to see what happens.

The hand guards keep a lot of wind and rain off when moving, but stationary's a different story and there's a lot of that in traffic... fingers crossed they don't get too soggy!

Looking good Pete! Any problems with the foam grips getting wet though? I think that is the biggest concern with those........

[pete]

Pete I wish I had the vision to be able to tell you what would look good on it but I don't. All I'm good for is paying attention to the finer details.

I'm thinking maybe something in black, not quite as high and possibly rectangular? Dunno..

Hmmm... now come on Dale I thought you were gonna shoot me a magic bullet!

I went circular mirrors due to the circular headlight, figured rectangular would be out of place... although the indicators are rectangular...

They're cheap crappy Chinese or Taiwanese ones so I'm sure they'll need replacing at some point anyway

[rustybronco]

Hahahahahaa believe it or not Dale I actually like them... they give me a good view behind amazingly enough...

I still think of bar ends every now and then but that would cramp my style in traffic I feel... I don't lane split much but when I do I don't want bar ends stopping me...

Do you have an alternative in mind though?

Pete I wish I had the vision to be able to tell you what would look good on it but I don't. All I'm good for is paying attention to the finer details.

I'm thinking maybe something in black, not quite as high and possibly rectangular? Dunno..

[pete]

And get rid of those dorky looking mirrors

Hahahahahaa believe it or not Dale I actually like them... they give me a good view behind amazingly enough...

I still think of bar ends every now and then but that would cramp my style in traffic I feel... I don't lane split much but when I do I don't want bar ends stopping me...

Do you have an alternative in mind though?

[rustybronco]

All I need to do is get that carry rack done now...

And get rid of those dorky looking mirrors

[pete]

I s'pose I should put a bit of an update in here...

Twice now I had her go back to one cylinder a couple of km's from home, so I spent about 2 or 3 hours yesterday with the tank off fiddling around swapping coils, plugs, leads, etc. to determine the issue.

I initially thought it was a loose spark plug lead but that theory went out the window after swapping the leads because the issue has always stayed on the right cylinder no matter what I did.

At one point yesterday I feared the Dynatek was having issues, but then all of a sudden I got spark again. I thought it may be heat related but since getting it back together I've rode a number of km's into the city and on errands yesterday to pick up some stuff and then to work and back today with no issue.

Given it ran for about 4000km's up to this point with no trouble I have no idea if it's fixed or not, so I guess I'll just suck it and see and hope it doesn't happen in the middle of nowhere...

And as for my errands yesterday... my hand grips were worn through and on the throttle side I could see the throttle tube, obviously not high quality items!



I've also started feeling the cold on my neck so wanted to replace the neck warmer I had years ago.

So here're the purchases:



And I also have gotten jack of putting the tank bag on and off constantly and have a mark on the tank where some grit must've gotten between the bag and the paint, so I finally found a pair of panniers that I can mount and clear the exhaust:



They also come with triangular colour inserts as a nice touch so you can colour code with the bike:



I also have them mounted a little higher now and so far so good on the trip to work today although one of the bungy cords ended up sitting on the inside of the exhaust and melted a little, so I found a better point for that this avo.

And I did get the new hand grips on yesterday too and they're a huge improvement over the old ones as they're a little larger diameter and a nice soft foam which I'm finding much easier on my hands:



All I need to do is get that carry rack done now...

[pete]

Pete,
With the help of The Wiz, Billy and others, I was able to get a link up to my photo album.
Niels

Nice one! Photobucket keeps crashing my browser at the moment so I'll get to look at some point

Pete,
With the help of The Wiz, Billy and others, I was able to get a link up to my photo album.
Niels

[pete]

Pete,
You've slipped to page 3, that's unacceptable. How long is this holiday of yours going to last? I finally got my build thread started and you aren't here to critique it. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Niels

It's all good Niels, back late yesterday so trying to catch up this morning... have a lot of unpacking to do yet though

Pete,
You've slipped to page 3, that's unacceptable. How long is this holiday of yours going to last? I finally got my build thread started and you aren't here to critique it. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Niels