1981 GS450E Rebuild

[landshark]

PS, i havent spoken to old mate about the seat yet, should get some time tomorrow.
There is no such thing as a quick conversation or question with him.

[pete]

HELL YES! A Duc Thumper would be AWESOME!
Depending on the deal your Dad found ya, and if it has no frame, you have no title... you may be able to part it out on E-Bay and MAKE money to finish your bike.
How come my Step-Dad doesn't send me texts like THAT?
Well there was this one time he kept telling me to walk over to his neighbors around the block, Seems there was an old Buick for sale. I imagined and old land barge of a Buick, like a Electra 225 or such non-sense so I kept blowing it off.



Then one day my wife (now ex) and I were pushing the stroller with my daughter (now 25) and I see this 70's GS Convertable!!! Owner says he just sold it...

Aww man you missed a good one there! Don't ya hate that?

Seems it's not quite what I was thinking after all...

The description my dad replied with was a 50cc engine of the 1950's era with a two speed gearbox in the sump and set up to attach to a pushbike, so I'm assuming it's one of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducati_Cucciolo

Certainly quirky, although not exactly the type of Ducati single I was envisioning

Still, if it's free it could be an interesting little mini project to follow the 450, or maybe some collector wants to pay a small fortune for it...

Yeah Pete, I know what you mean about the little odds and ends, they eat up a lot of time, spent many a day in the garage busy for hours, but at the end of the day, you can't really see what you have achieved.
But they have to be done, and at the end of the day it is another tick off the old list.
I was keen as mustard to get my front end on today now that the parts are here, only to realise, nope, not gonna happen, till need to paint the headlight ears first before they can go on......oh well.
But a bit of retail therapy, buying parts is always nice and is food for the soul when the road ahed still seems long.
Get the Duc

Indeed! Did the smallest of things tonight (update will be done shortly) but it's more than the last three night's put together so I feel I've accomplished something again.

I feel your pain re: the headlight ears, it's always frustrating when you get to that point only to find you've missed one little detail.

And yep, parts buying is always fun indeed

See above for the Duc update...

If you dont take the Ducati, i will!

Hahaha... again see above...

PS, i havent spoken to old mate about the seat yet, should get some time tomorrow.
There is no such thing as a quick conversation or question with him.

That's cool, and yeah I know the type. Usually great blokes but tend to talk your ear off under wet cement and 95% of what they have to tell you is actually worth hearing... but doesn't help when you're rushed or on a deadline...

I'm hoping to go check foam out this Friday, and if it's gonna be stupidly expensive just for the foam, I may end up getting that seat from Charlie, but I'll probably still need your mate to do the re-cover...

[pete]

Well as I said earlier I actually got something done tonight! Worked on dropping the front guard the required 25mm's to get my fork travel safely back.

Marked out both sides first up:



Cut and drilled the new holes:



And there we go, sorry for the rushed crappy angles I took the pic's at but I wanted to get this update done in time to watch MotoGP:



And now something like 147mm of travel:



I don't think I ruined how it looks too bad at all actually

Gotta go back and round the corners off and smooth the edges again like I had done already, but that's the easy bit...

[landshark]

Hahaha... again see above...



That's cool, and yeah I know the type. Usually great blokes but tend to talk your ear off under wet cement and 95% of what they have to tell you is actually worth hearing... but doesn't help when you're rushed or on a deadline...

I'm hoping to go check foam out this Friday, and if it's gonna be stupidly expensive just for the foam, I may end up getting that seat from Charlie, but I'll probably still need your mate to do the re-cover...

I think i want the ducati even more now!!
I will do my best to talk to him today.

[pete]

I think i want the ducati even more now!!
I will do my best to talk to him today.

Haha I did some Googling while waiting for the MotoGP to start last night and I reckon it could be a fun little project, so I'll take it and see how I go once the 450 is on the road...

And cheers for that, no stress if you don't as I'm guessing it'll take me a week or two to get the foam into anything resembling the correct shape anyway. I'm actually thinking a two layer setup, one layer on the bottom a lot firmer than what's on there from stock and a thinner softer layer on top.

[pete]

Ok, firstly to cover off the Duc, dad confirmed today it's a Cucciolo, so will definitely get my hands on that and maybe I'll get my hands on a vintage pushy and do it up... we'll see down the track a bit. And I will definitely post some pic's when it gets here!

So, onto tonight's action...

The first thing I did was get the spacer for the Dynatek rotor off and sand it down a bit more so it's now exactly 0.125" thick like the proper Dynatek spacer, and it definitely feels a little looser than it did before, so I have a feeling that was contributing to the advance mechanism sticking a bit.

Then I took a better pic front on of the lowered guard and it seems to look ok. It's not crooked, the flat front tyre off the bead makes it look that way:



Next up I had a close look at the tacho cable now that the guard is lowered, and it looks to me like I won't have to re-route it after all. The guard being lower seems to have sorted it so it doesn't look like it will pinch if the forks go all the way through their travel which is a relief. I had no idea what I was going to do about that so very glad now I don't have to do anything...

Anyway, next up was to work out if the stock brake line length and banjo's will work with the Mikes XS Yamaha master cylinder I got so I can order a braided line.

So, popped the caliper on loosely and bolted the brake line stay onto the left fork to mock up where it sits normally:



Not sure how well you can make it out, but I inverted the little mount that normally sits under the triple clamp so the brake line can run through it normally. If I left it underneath, it would be a close call with the raised front guard and would pinch the brake line with the forks fully compressed, so inverting it will allow some room for the line not to be pinched:



And the stock line seems to line up well with the Yamaha master cylinder:



So measured it up, and 860mm long banjo to banjo with a 10mm flat banjo on one end and a 10mm 45 degree bent banjo the other end will do me just fine and dandy thank you.

So next I wanted to work out where I could put the cable guide onto the left side of the front guard to run the speedo cable through:



Sat the cable in place:



Got a rough idea of where the guide should sit:

[pete]

And marked out where I need the hole:



And now going back and looking at my before pic's from years ago, I think I have it marked about an inch to an inch and a half too far forward and it may end up interfering with the brake line there, so I'll need to double check that before drilling the hole.

Sorted out my leave today, so this Friday's a day off and the week of the 10th October is now a week off too...

And apparently all my eBay purchases have been posted...

[pete]

Well, discovered why I've been feeling crap... got the start of a chest infection, so on antibiotics now to knock that on the head.

Then came the complication... bloody hot water system has decided to play up again, and this morning I couldn't even get the damn pilot light to ignite. Had to resort to a very dodgy method... get the BBQ emergency lighter in there and ignite the pilot light that way. Not the best method but it worked!

End result of that is Friday morning will be a plumber visit to replace the hot water system (got it repaired back in Feb. so it's on its last legs). So there went the Friday paint/foam trips...

However, I managed to score Thursday off as well, so get to do my stuff on Thursday first!

So, only a quick trip tonight because I want to get an earlier night, don't want this chest thing to get too bad and stop me doing what I need to on Thursday.

Firstly, confirmation that where I marked the speedo cable guide will interfere with the brake line:



This is where it should be:



And hole drilled:



Still needs to be enlarged a little as it needs to be between two drill sizes.

I need to do something about a headlight, so pulled it out tonight to work out how it mounts so I can see if a generic 7" from an auto store will be a suitable replacement.

Here's one reason it needs replacing:



The other reason is that the plastic housing for the bulb is worn and tends to fall out and flop around while riding.

Not looking terribly pretty on the back, and the dampness is some WD I squirted on the mounting screws to get them off nice and easy:



Chrome is a bit rusty on the bottom and top so I'll need to deal with that:



Headlight removed from surround:



And I may or may not do something with the rust inside the ring. Would be nice to get rid of it though:



And, finally, got the battery box mounted back where it belongs, meaning also that I don't need to terminate the engine ground lead on the battery tray bolt and instead I'll be able to run it straight to battery negative:



I decided a little while ago that the fancy new Lithium Ion batteries aren't all they cracked up to be and will require a hell of a lot of electrical circuitry to stop them exploding, so I'll aim for a maintenance free instead. This one seems a pretty good deal to me and has free shipping:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Suzuki-GS450-E-80-82-Battery-CB10L-A2-/280539928233?pt=AU_Motorcycle_Parts_Accessories&hash=item41517b96a9#ht_2906wt_1074

Don't need it just yet though...

The old Aussie dollar took a minor drop in the exchange rate today so I haven't ordered the brake line yet, will do that soon though.

[pete]

Well today was pretty successful as far as picking up stuff I need, and the plumber is coming at 8am rather than 10am tomorrow, so that may yet free some bike time up that I didn't expect to get.

Anyway, went to the place I get my POR 15 stuff from normally (MPA Refinishing at Brendale) and walked away with all the paint I need

I had a feeling they wouldn't give me the advice I needed, not sure why just a feeling I had, but I'm glad to be proven wrong because they were very helpful today.

Then I went off to Dyman Foams at Geebung and ordered some foam which will be cut to size and ready probably next Tuesday. One layer of firmer and one layer of softer stuff.

Then off to Capral aluminium for a sheet of 1mm thick alu. for something I have yet to disclose (it may not work out).

Then I did some travelling looking for a heat proof sheath for the Dynatek and oil pressure switch wiring but all I ended up with was a metre of exhaust wrap... bit of a hack but it should do the job.

Dropped into Clark Rubber at Virginia and got some neoprene to make up the rubber knee pads for the tank (ouch that's expensive stuff!). Neoprene should hold up to the sun better than normal rubber apparently.

Then I ended up at Albion Motorcycles where I spent too much on a set of Kawasaki EL250 passenger footpegs. I figured the price on eBay for pegs plus postage wouldn't be much less if any so I forked out the $$.

One stockpile:



Then I got the hole for the speedo cable on the front guard enlarged so it fit (took it out again to prep for paint):



And popped the footpegs on to make sure they fit ok. Left one is a little saggy but they both held my weight when standing on them and my wife's half my size so they should be good to go:

[pete]

Ducked in tonight mainly to get some more pic's of the paint so I can start a paint thread (I will need advice ) but I did quickly throw the seat latch on the tail piece to make sure it sits right with the rubber grommet:



Just like the factory one...

That means I can safely putty that ready for primer and paint now, don't have to do anything else to it.

I'll come back and edit this post with a link to my paint thread once I've started it.

And here it is:

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=182912

[oldrookie]

Duc Thumper rebuild thread! Surely good for at least five years! (Derived using the formula= 2 cylinders= 10 years.)

[pete]

Duc Thumper rebuild thread! Surely good for at least five years! (Derived using the formula= 2 cylinders= 10 years.)

Hahahahahahahahaha

Glad you didn't use capacity for the equation, that'd have me doing it in a year!

I'm quite keen to get my hands on it now, but I'm trying not to get too interested or excited in case it's a hunk of junk and/or it distracts me from getting my 450 done...

[pete]

Wheel bearings arrived today:



Notice anything missing?

Yeah... parts fiche shows 3 bearings for the rear wheel, only two in that package... I've emailed the seller to find out if I ordered the wrong set or if there is indeed one bearing missing...

Front ones look ok though...

[pete]

Took a few minutes today to call a tyre shop here in Brissie and hear what he had to say about dual sports for the 450.

The best suggestion he could think of is some universal block trials tyres, and apparently Googling should give me info on them, but I'm struggling to come up with anything useful.

He said they're fine on the road and he would be able to get them in front and rear sizes for the 450 rims, approximately $250 - 270 fitted plus tubes if necessary.

The only thing I can find so far is that they were *the* tyre to run back in the day and are currently used on modern trials bikes, but as far as finding actual sizing info and pic's and stuff I'm not having much luck...

[mlc216]

Pete,

I think these are probably what he was talking about... They were used a ton on the dual sport bikes back in the day.

http://www.tiresunlimited.com/ALL%20...241_trials.htm

This is what I was going to run on my tracker... you know before I started stealing parts from it haha