1981 GS450E Rebuild

[pete]

Hahahah could be!

[pete]

Well, I officially have Ikons front and back

I still have some galvanised steel rod from making my tail piece, so measured off 197mm and taped it:



Found the Fedex box from the Dynatek was perfect for holding the fork leg straight so I could manoeuvre the desk lamp on the workbench over it and measure accurately:



There was a touch too much oil in there, but I gave it about 15 pumps as per the Ikon instructions and it brought it down to exactly the right level, so back in the triple trees:



The spring's not in there yet, just put the cap bolt on lightly to stop anything dropping in there.

So, out with the left fork spring and I'm not sad to see this pair set aside for scrapping:



Left fork leg ready to go:



Drained and pumped out the left leg's oil then and figured I'd better make sure I don't use this for some bizarre reason:



Repeated the measuring and pumping process for the left leg and this time I didn't have quite enough in there so had to pop a couple of small amounts more in until it measured exactly right as per the right fork leg.

Then I got it back in the triple trees to make a pair:

[pete]

Then in went the new Ikon springs:



Torqued up the triple clamp bolts and cap bolts:



Front wheel back on:



'Bars back on:



And yeah I did whack the seat pan on and had a few stationary bounces and it certainly feels a hell of a lot different to how it used to just sitting still, really keen to get it out for a run now!

[Ricko19]

Good job Pete My bike needs the same treatment when I've saved some pennies.

[pete]

Good job Pete My bike needs the same treatment when I've saved some pennies.

Cheers Rick! I'm glad it's finally done. I've wanted Ikons for years (well Koni's initially... haha) and I'm only now able to afford them, so definitely happy to have them on there

That's another big step forward on the build... now I need to take care of the niggly stuff... oh and get it running!

[pete]

So John pointed out the other day that my temporary fuel tank is not ideal (and I must agree) as it needs to have the first bit of fuel syphoned into the float bowls, so figured I'd fix that tonight so I can rule that out as any restriction on fuel delivery.

You can see the fuel hose exits right up towards the top of the container and it extends down inside to the bottom of the tank, so fuel needs to get sucked up a few inches of pipe before being able to go back down into the carbs:



So that's now moved to the bottom and the grommet is a tight fit in the hole and the hose is a tight fit in the grommet, so hopefully I won't get any leaks:



I'll probably need to shorten the hose to join the carb hose, but it should now be a straight gravity feed:



I then figured I'd double check the float heights given I now have a factory manual and the carbs were out on the bench. I set them initially based on the Clymer, and I'm now glad I checked because the Clymer is wrong for the '81 onwards.



Left pic is the 1980, right is the 1981 addendum in the manual, 22.4mm for 1980, 26.6mm for 1981, so time to adjust the floats again.

Once again did my cardboard measurer trick:



And yeah, way too low:



Apologies for the blur but the batteries in the camera started carking it here so I didn't get to take a better one of it adjusted correctly:



Naturally I repeated for the other carb as well.

In addition to that, I got onto the jet guy today and my jets should be in an express post bag on their way to me, so they should arrive tomorrow or Friday, meaning I apparently will get a chance to have a go at it again on Saturday.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Well that makes sence... I have heard more horror stories about Clymers manuals inaccuracies, DANG!

[pete]

Well that makes sence... I have heard more horror stories about Clymers manuals inaccuracies, DANG!

The Haynes is the one that's really caught me so far and the Clymer hasn't been too bad. I think it's simply that they're still using the 1980 spec's and didn't clarify different spec's for different years... and that's not real flash either actually...

[oldrookie]

Clymer's had me doing the clutch adjustment exactly backwards with its "tighten until heavy resistance is felt" line a few weeks ago.

GS board members got me straightened out quickly enough.

Hang in there with the build, Pete. It is going to be a great ride when you button it up.

[pete]

Clymer's had me doing the clutch adjustment exactly backwards with its "tighten until heavy resistance is felt" line a few weeks ago.

GS board members got me straightened out quickly enough.

Hang in there with the build, Pete. It is going to be a great ride when you button it up.

Yes I remember that thread! I'll be using Ed's advice once I get to adjusting my clutch too, very worthwhile.

I certainly hope it will be a great ride! At least it should ride well on those springs and shocks, but the way my time's going at the moment it'll just have to roll down hills.

I got barely enough time in the garage to put some fuel in the modified temporary tank to make sure it doesn't leak before I got called back out again.

The new jets arrived too so I only got about 30 seconds to compare with the old ones, and that brief glance says they should screw straight in at least.

I managed to get back down after about 20 minutes to see there was no leaks from the relocated hose on the temporary tank but that's all I got done.

At this stage Saturday is not looking good after all that either, which seems to be pretty typical now. If that's a no go then I'll just take another day off work or something because I won't be able to rely on next Saturday either at this rate.

So frustrated right now but I'll get there...

[pete]

Looks like last night was a mis-communication, meaning tomorrow should still be bike day... yay!

Got the carbs back together tonight and I'm starting with the stock pilots again for the moment in case it was float height or something.

I also condensed my white board down and did me a list of stuff tomorrow that I can do as starting her up won't take all day.



I also just realised I'm missing disc brake and disc pads off the list...

[Hoosier Daddy]

Now that's a good idea with the white board!!!
I even got one of those around here somewhere.

[pete]

Yeah when we moved in here it was screwed to the wall in the study so when we painted the study recently I pulled it down and moved it to the garage above the work bench and has come in handy many times since. Great to scribble measurements down while you're working on something... like a fork brace for instance...

I try to keep my to do list up to date as well and it's awesome to see it shrink...

[pete]

So I need a new R/R

Why am I dancing and laughing at the though of a new R/R?

Easy...





Sorry to "star" in my own video again but I can't rev it remotely, and yes that's a hanging idle you hear which is why I fiddle with the idle knob. I was also setting AC volts on the multimeter to check out the stator.

Definitely too lean and I really do suspect my intake boots are leaking a little air, so doubly glad I have some new ones on the way.

These are the plugs after, left and right as shown:



I'm actually kicking myself a bit because of three reasons...

Firstly, after intending to set my mixture screws at two turns out, I forgot to touch them at all which means they ran at 1 turn out, so I'm not sure how much that contributed to the lean running.

Secondly, I only just realised today that after having the advance unit in and out so much recently I still haven't actually taken the time to degrease and lube it correctly, and a couple of times today it looked to me like it was sticking a bit in the advanced position, so I need to do that.

Thirdly, I didn't do anything with the mixture screws while it was running to try to see if there was enough adjustment to make the mixture good or if I still need larger pilots.

While I gave it some rev's a couple of times to check the stator and R/R out, it spent the vast majority of that time running with the throttle closed, so the readings on the plugs will definitely be the pilot circuit.

I got the rev's up somewhere near 5000 and I saw 72v AC on the multimeter on all three phases of the stator, so the stator is good.

Unfortunately, I saw 12.5v DC on the multimeter from the R/R until somewhere around the 2500 - 3000 RPM mark where it dropped to about 12.3v DC, so the R/R is definitely toast. I'm 100% sure I have it grounded well, so I'm pretty confident it's the R/R itself with the problem.

So, let me get back to the beginning of the day...

With the modified temporary fuel tank, hanging off the left 'bar was no longer an option because the fuel hose hangs down below the carbs, so fortunately there is a hook in one of the garage rafters so I was able to shorten the fuel hose and hang it off there:



I let it run for a good 15 minutes with the fan straight on it to get a good heat cycle into it, and then I dumped the oil and filter. I was lucky enough to only lose one of the oil filter cover washers in there (easily replaced).



Then, while letting that drain, I finished shaping the front guard:

[pete]

I also started sanding the fork brace/guard mount with some 800 grit wet/dry paper in an effort to start on the brushed looked and it didn't see to end up too bad, and the guard itself looks heaps better with some proper shape to the bits I cut off:



Then I put the sump plug back in and grabbed out the new oil filter which actually comes with two new O rings which I put aside given the existing one's only had a 15 minute run to its name:



And popped her back in with the cover on:



And just in case I get the urge to do something stupid: