1981 GS450E Rebuild

[Agemax]

True... I may revisit that later...

Right now I need to get this thing done, the Christmas clock is ticking...

you must be able to buy it locally, its cheap as chips too

[pete]

you must be able to buy it locally, its cheap as chips too

Yep sure can and I know where, but I have to make a special trip. Would rather use that time to get my paint sanded/polished and start on things like wheel bearings and so forth that I have sitting here waiting to be installed

[Agemax]

get some off ebay and get it delivered

[pete]

get some off ebay and get it delivered

Maybe... we'll see

[pete]

Had one of those days today... lost a couple of hours doing taxi duty for my wife, didn't get the polishing finished because I wasted too much time trying to polish by hand, couldn't get vacuum or breather hose, and the headlight doesn't fit with the standard headlight ears...

Firstly, I did get a little bit done last night. Sat the seat pan on with the foam and adjusted the levers to the right height, mounted the front indicators, and put the mirrors on:



Got my headlight this morning along with some hand grips:



The problem with the headlight is simply that the bucket is a bit deeper than the stock bucket, so it actually butts up against the bottom of the ignition switch.

I should just be able to get a pair of those universal after-market ones to drop it maybe half an inch or something to fix that. The only downside of course is that I need to remove the 'bars and top triple clamp to get the stock ears off...

I then managed to get some 8mm ID fuel hose although contrary to what the place's web site says, they didn't have 6mm for the vacuum line or 12mm for the breather hose...



And then while getting the polish I picked up a 60/55W H4 bulb as the headlight isn't supplied with one, although it does have a parker bulb in there and the plug as well:



The rest of the day was the aforementioned polishing time... well attempted polishing time anyway...

And tonight I made the discovery that the headlight wouldn't fit so I made up a new positive battery lead and the associated lead that runs from the starter solenoid to main fuse:



I think I figured the routing out for the harness for the trickle charger too so I should be able to get the battery and everything hooked up next time I get some time in there.

[pete]

I suspect these are next on the hit list so I can get the light mounted:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/140618772694?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649#ht_2723wt_905

[7981GS]

and the headlight doesn't fit with the standard headlight ears...

Got my headlight this morning along with some hand grips:


The problem with the headlight is simply that the bucket is a bit deeper than the stock bucket, so it actually butts up against the bottom of the ignition switch.

I should just be able to get a pair of those universal after-market ones to drop it maybe half an inch or something to fix that.

Is there some way that you could put the factory-type dent in the bucket so that it fits?

Daniel

[pete]

Is there some way that you could put the factory-type dent in the bucket so that it fits?

Daniel

Good idea Daniel, and I did think about that but didn't want to void the warranty.

Having said that, looking back at those brackets on eBay it looks like I could have some issues mounting the indicators to those brackets.

It would only need to be a relatively small dent to get enough clearance... but I don't want to distort the whole headlight shell as such.

I'll have to look again and give it some more thought...

[pete]

Ok, far more successful night tonight... well mainly anyway.

First off, I decided I'd go the denting the headlight shell path rather than finding headlight brackets, waiting for them to ship, then figuring out how to mount the indicators... blah blah blah...

Looking like it'll be a relatively easy job although it's not exactly pretty given I'm just using a ball ended hammer and I'm not panel beater. Also, the chrome on this thing is incredibly thin so it's splitting and peeling off... at least that part won't be seen!



That's the start of it, but it's a little noisy and awkward at night so I'll have to finish it another time, might even get a few spare minutes on Tuesday as we have the day off for the Melbourne Cup. It just needs to go a little larger in diameter and about another quarter of an inch deep and it will clear the ignition switch easily.

Anyway, then I got on with getting the battery connections sorted and routing the wiring around that area properly.

I decided to do the ground properly and instead of tying from my frame ground to battery negative and relying on that to ground the electrics tray, I went straight from the tray to battery negative, so one new ground cable made up:



Battery connected:



I moved the screws to the front of the terminal blocks for a specific reason which I'm not revealing yet... gotta keep some mystery about things! Ha...

Electrics tray is sorted with the new ground lead straight back to battery negative:



The loose plug there is for the harness for the battery charger which is tied in with the rest of the wiring and connected to the battery, just haven't decided what to do with the plug yet.

And some of the wiring, reasonably neat now:



Then the moment of truth. Turn the key on and see what happens...

Result is that it all works nicely

I hooked up all the indicators and the tail light and all works exactly as it should which is excellent.

I also figured out the pinouts for the H4 bulb for the headlight, but I think I should look at running a relay for that as high beam is nearly twice wattage of the stock bulb (60W vs. 35W) so I'm not sure I should be putting 5 amps through the stock headlight switch

I also have to replace the bullet connectors for the parking bulb as they're really tiny bullet connectors that don't sit in the stock ones properly.

And I finished up the night with some voltage checks...

Ignition key off and across the battery terminals reads 12.56v.

Ignition key on and reading is the same.

Kill switch on and reading at the coil plugs is 12.55v... awesome!

It'll be interesting to see if that changes once I have the Dyna and coils plugged in, but so far it's looking real good.

Oh, that 12.55v is also the same on the sense wire at the R/R.

I will have to go and revisit those voltages though as I just realised they were all measured with the negative probe on the negative battery terminal. I should have measured using the grounding point at the same point in the harness I was measuring the voltage...

[pete]

So reading around the shop here and other places such as Andre's (Matchless) guides, seems I don't necessarily need a relay mod for the headlight if I'm sticking with a 55/60W bulb which makes things even easier.

I'll double check the voltages at the headlight connections but it sounds like I should be good to go if there's good voltage there.

[pete]

I did get some more done last night, but tidying that harness up and mounting the Dynatek coils is so fiddly and tedious it took me a couple of hours to get done. There really isn't much room at all for those coils, and in fact you can't route the throttle cable where it's supposed to go as the coils are too close together for it to run down under the frame backbone.

Anyway, new bullet connectors on the parker bulb:



H4 socket to replace the stock plug:



I checked the voltage before doing that. Low beam is good and high beam is ok, a little voltage drop but not too bad so I'll leave it as is.

And the result of about an hour and a half's work... the other stuff above was all of half an hour at most with voltage checks etc.:



I did end up getting those cables even more out of the way with another couple of strategically placed cable ties, so I should have clearance to get the valve cover off as well.

You can also see the throttle cable sitting just the other side of the breather cover for the moment too. It's supposed to route down under the frame backbone but there's not enough clearance with the Dynatek coils.

The house mate got out to Bunnings yesterday also and he picked me up a new 5" wool polishing pad and some fasteners that I hope to use to hold the seat cover on:



Now if I can just get that headlight dent finished then all the electrics will be taken care of except mounting the tail light and rear indicators which are waiting on the paint polishing...

[pete]

Well I'm not going to win any panel beating awards, but...



And the result:



Finally the front looks like it should again

All I need to complete it now is the fly screen and a mesh headlight guard... but both of those are optional things that won't help me get a safety certificate so they can wait. Things like tyres are a little more important, I hate looking at that crooked front tyre...

I also discovered that something funny's going on with my horn switch too. According to the wiring diagram, the orange wire should have switched 12v to it, and the green should be switched to ground via the horn switch. The orange wire is fine and has switched 12v, but the green wire has 12v when the horn button is pressed. I can only assume that I've stuffed something up when swapping the plugs so I could use the GSXR left control, so I'll need to get something sorted out there.

So, having the electrics pretty much in hand I thought I'd start trying to get the seat foam organised.

I mounted the tank and tail piece to make sure I can get the shape right and started measuring and drew a diagram up on the white board of what I think will work best:



As you can see I'm going for a slightly stepped seat, and the red shaded areas are the softer foam with the black shaded areas the firmer foam. I think it should work out ok...

I got these pieces cut out to start with:



And sitting on them actually feels pretty good even though they don't go all the way to the tank and there's no real shape to them yet.

And then I got this far before calling it quits for the night:



I stuffed up the little bit at the back there but one of the offcuts should sort that out.

I need to trim some bits from the bottom of the main bit to let it conform to the shape of the seat pan better, but it's definitely looking like it will work.

I could really use a longer sharp knife too as I'm just using a Stanley knife at the moment and while it's sharp enough the blade's only long enough to go about halfway through the foam so I have to do each cut twice to get through.

I also need to get some contact adhesive to stick it all together...

On another note entirely, is it just me or has the forum been really quiet lately?

[pete]

Complete side note, started this thread:

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=184488

I'd really like to stop that left pillion peg from sagging so I don't get hassled about during the safety certificate inspection...

[Charlie G]

Pete,

The forum has been quite latley. Maybe the weather change. Looking forward to see you carve the foam.

cg

[Hoosier Daddy]

could really use a longer sharp knife too as I'm just using a Stanley knife at the moment and while it's sharp enough the blade's only long enough to go about halfway through the foam so I have to do each cut twice to get through.

Borrow your Mums electric carving knife she does the turkey and Ham with. (or pick up your own) It has nice long blades, easy to control, and goes through seat foam like butter!