1981 GS450E Rebuild

[pete]

Pete,

I'm not a praying man, but I was doing some considerable wishing for you. When I took my headlight/blinker switch apart I lost a spring and a ball bearing from it and didn't know it. Two weeks later, after looking at an active thread I realized I lost it and looked in the garage. Low and behold I found them. I bet your happy!

cg

To be honest me neither Charlie, even though I was brought up to be a good little church boy... yeah that went down the tubes

Anyways, yeah I'm stoked, absolutely stoked, but I did refrain from giving my housemate a big kiss... don't think he nor my wife would appreciate that...

I'm happy it is finally working out for you Pete

Cheers Cowboy! As you can probably see above I'm also happy

I seem to recall seeing a thread from you on a rebuild or refresh I think? How's that coming along? I also stumbled across an off topic about crap you've been through lately. Man I really hope that's all over for you and that your daughter heals up well. One thing you will definitely get on this forum is lots of moral support and encouragement, so I hope that has helped too.

[pete]

Ok, had to take care of some on call work stuff earlier, so lost a bit of time to that tonight unfortunately, although I did still get a bit done.

The major achievement today of course was the housemate finding the pilot air screw spring, just awesome!

I now have a matched pair:



Bit hard to photograph, but both back where they belong:



I also adjusted them to what they were before disassembly, left 2 1/4 turns out, right 2 turns out.

Then, back onto the electrics.

Held up the $6 each spark plug cap gamble I took:



No way are they going to fit.

So, after the run around I got on Sunday, there's no way I'm trying any of those auto shops again. ZPower here (www.zpower.com.au) apparently have XB05F's for $9.95 each, so I think I'll just order from them and suck up the postage costs. It will still be cheaper than Repco's rip off $7 each plus a $17 freight fee!

Then I got the rats nest back together again:



And finally identified my odd wire that I couldn't find a home for:



It belongs to this:



Yep, that's right, I have a brand new in the bag brake light switch from years ago when I actually had a spare one.

So instead of hooking the car battery up tonight, I decided to try some resistance measurements through the harness instead.

With the ignition and kill switch on, everything was showing about 1.8 ohms resistance from the battery terminal, including at the fuse and the connector for the fuse into the main harness.

So, took that bit off to check it all out and give it a good thorough clean up:



I remembered at that point that the PO had some electrical tape wrapped around one of the connectors that I always had meant to fix but never quite got around to.

Apologies for the blurry pic's, but under the tape it was a tad ugly and missing the rubber sleeves that go over the bullet connectors:

[pete]

Sorry, all these pic's turned out a bit blurry... proving yet again I'm no photographic wiz...

Fuse holder is naturally somewhat grungy:



And of course being a glass fuse, it's buggered:



If someone tells you to double check your glass fuse even though it measures ok, do it. A connectivity test and resistance test didn't show up the fact that one of this fuse was no longer properly connected to the rest...

I cleaned the fuse terminals up and put it back together though as I still need it for the first start:



I do intend to replace that with a blade type later on, and possibly even redo that whole area of the harness so there's a few fuses there instead of just the main fuse.

So, after all that, the resistance through the harness did drop a bit, but I forgot to take note of the figure and I've forgotten what it is now... oh well. It'll only take a minute to measure it again next time.

Next up I think will be more electrical cleaning, and I'll have to try to remember to get a 15 amp glass fuse from the servo near work tomorrow.

[Charlie G]

Pete,

My main fuse fell apart when I opened it up also. I can't understand a fuse only lasting 3 decades.


cg

[pete]

Pete,

My main fuse fell apart when I opened it up also. I can't understand a fuse only lasting 3 decades.


cg

Yeah exactly! It's a 50 cent part right? Shouldn't that last the life of the machine? Haha

I really much prefer the blade fuses...

[Leigh]

Pete,

My main fuse fell apart when I opened it up also. I can't understand a fuse only lasting 3 decades.


cg

You just can't get quality these days, eh Charlie?
Not like the stuff they built 30 years ago..

[Charlie G]

You just can't get quality these days, eh Charlie?
Not like the stuff they built 30 years ago..

Yeah right, We should mount a recall petition! What are they held together with, tobacco juice?

[Leigh]

I'll have my lawyers call your lawyers.
I smell a class action!

[pete]

I'll have my lawyers call your lawyers.
I smell a class action!

I'm in! Anyone know a good tort lawyer?

[pete]

Well tonight got royally messed up... went to use the hot water to rinse the dishes after dinner and it was cold... had to double check I'd turned the hot water on but yep, stone cold. Bugger.

Wasted an hour trying to figure out how to start the gas hot water going again and our very helpful gas provider only operates between 8am and 6pm, so I couldn't even find out if there was an issue with gas supply.

Anyway, got it going, and managed to do some stuff, just not alot.

So found this waiting for me:



I picked those fuses up today and just put them there to hide my address. Seems the servo only sells glass fuses in an assorted pack of 10 now...

Anyway, one gasket in there that fits like it should:



Got my stainless allen bolts ready to go:



Valve cover on and lined up so the gasket seems to sit right:



And bolted down in place ready to roll:



All I need to do now is fill it with oil, sort the electrics out, find a suitable temporary fuel container, restrict the carb intakes somewhat, and I'll be ready for that first start. Awesome.

[pete]

Speaking of electrics, I wanted to do more on that tonight, but after the hot water crap I only got time to get the new fuse in to the little bit of cleaned up harness.



The section of that part of the harness that contains only the fuse holder measures 0.8 ohms from bullet connector to bullet connector, and the same measurement is across the fuse holder with the new fuse in place.

Connected to the rest of that part of the harness and ended up with 1.2 ohms. The weird thing there is that the other section that has the battery and starter motor terminals and bullet connector on it also measures 0.8 ohms. I'm not sure why 0.8 + 0.8 = 1.2, but that's what the multi meter is telling me. It's probably just a scale or rounding thing.

Anyways, connected the mess back together again so hopefull next time I can do more electrical testing.

[scottychop]

Nice work Pete. It has been a lot of fun watching you go from tear down to build up. I cannot wait to see it run. You better have some video man!

[pete]

Nice work Pete. It has been a lot of fun watching you go from tear down to build up. I cannot wait to see it run. You better have some video man!

Cheers Scott! I tried video with my digital camera, but the output is tiny.

My housemate just got a fancy new digital camera that I haven't looked at yet, but it hopefully has a better video feature on it as I really want to get some video of the first start.

I think when it happens I might post about 10 replies filled with those little dancing emoticons...

[Leigh]

Nice work Pete. It has been a lot of fun watching you go from tear down to build up. I cannot wait to see it run. You better have some video man!

Seconded!
I'm getting excited just reading the thread.

[Flaming Chainsaws]

Pete, I recommend that you convert to a blade type fuse. They're like $2-$3. At least around here they're that much.

The start up is getting close... Come on Pete! After 9 years!