1978 GS1000 Rebuild

[traviseckley]

sounds good check your messages

[azr]

I just had a look at the 78 tank. It looks pretty good, the sheet medal looks good. You can see some rust inside that would have to be taken care of. I could post some pictures tomorrow if you wish. You could have it, just have to take care of the shipping. The petcock looks pretty crusty. The bike did run, but is now a parts bike for the 79 bobber project.

This is the 'biker life' at it's finest, one helping another. Good job.

[russr33]

I just had a look at the 78 tank. It looks pretty good, the sheet medal looks good. You can see some rust inside that would have to be taken care of. I could post some pictures tomorrow if you wish. You could have it, just have to take care of the shipping. The petcock looks pretty crusty. The bike did run, but is now a parts bike for the 79 bobber project.

Wow that is damn generous of you Albert! Better pay that forward Travis. Or at least send a x-mas card to Albert next year and some of whatever he likes to drink!

If you do get that tank don't worry about trying to rebuild a petcock. You can use one from a kawasaki sherpa (any year I think). Bolts right in I have one on my '78.

[sachsaca]

You know after being part of this web site I have a new confidense in certain things. I have also learned how to do many things I was absolutely scared of. If I were a betting man I'd say you could do that, get a torch and see what you could do. I think thats more the fundamental nature of this site than anything else, do it yourself. Try a search of you tube, they have one of everything on there. I wonder if you could braze it up then seal it, i'd lay odds on it you could make it happen.

[traviseckley]

Ordered a bunch of parts today. Factory service manual, o-rings and gaskets for carbs, intake boot o-rings, spark plugs, oil/air filters, rear brake caliper, crash bars w/highway pegs and petcock rebuild kit (i know its better to buy a new one but I'm not spending $250+ for a new one at this time so I'll give the rebuild kit a try first). Now for the waiting game. Albert did you get the message I sent you?

[traviseckley]

Well most of my parts arrived. Gas tank will be here Monday, Thanks again Albertaphotog! My crash bars from ebay got lost in the postal system and my carb bowl gaskets and factory service manual seem to be lost too! I'm starting to doubt our postal system.

[traviseckley]

Some of my new goodies.



I know it's nothing to extreme, but it's just about everything I need to get my bike atleast driveable this year. Now just need my carb bowl gaskets to get here so I can do the carbs! Also got my new rear brake caliper and insurance and tags yesterday!!

[traviseckley]

Well got my gas tank from Albertaphotog today and started to do some work to my bike. Started with getting the tank ready to be derusted. The petcock on the tank looked awful but with a little elbow grease it didn't clean up too bad. Hopefully It doesn't leak when I put it back in. Filled the tank with vinegar to work on the rust problem, found a few pinholes which I soldered and seemed to be holding up. As you can see from the pics I'm no expert solderer lol, but it worked. Also got my new rear brake caliper rebuild with new seals, pistons, bleeders and pads. Sorry for the quality of the pics, lighting in my apartment sucks and all I have is my cell to take pics with atm. Also, while prepping my tank I found two metal pieces in the tank, can anyone identify what they are? I don't have a clue.

New tank filled with vinegar


My repair job on the tank



Mystery items from tank



Cleaned up petcock


Rebuilt rear brake caliper


More to come soon...

[sedelen]

I don't believe that is an original '78 GS1000 petcock. The filter on the GS1000 is two tier. The problem with your petcock filter is the filtering element of the filter (where the gas actually flows through the filter) is well above the the base of the petcock by about 3/8 of an inch. The GS1000 filtering part of the filter goes all the way to the base. Since yours sits somewhat higher it doesn't use up all the gas in the tank, and water collects on the bottom, and looking at your tank it looks like it did.
I have the same problem with mine. But it's the only petcock I have that actually positively shuts off the fuel. I have two other petcocks that leak internally when shut off, still allow some fuel to flow. I was thinking I could just change out the filter but I can't get the one out of my good petcock for fear of breaking the filter and I haven't been able to find an aftermarket one. Anyway, just my thoughts.

[traviseckley]

Yeah I noticed the filter is different than on the petcock that came out of my old tank. As long as it doesn't leak I'll be happy. The one that came out of my other tank looked alot worse, I bought a rebuild kit for it, but I'm betting it will still leak. I'm still gonna try to clean it up and rebuild it. The one from this tank cleaned up nice and looks in decent shape as long as it doesn't leak I'll use it for now.

[traviseckley]

Finished Cleaning the rust out of the tank today. Cleaned up pretty good, some minor surface rust formed from the ride from my dads garage to home. Stuff sure does come on quick. few pics

[Nessism]

There is still rust in there. Keep going...

[traviseckley]

Got working on the bike again this weekend, haven't been able to work on it cause of a shoulder injury at work. Anyways got the carbs torn down and cleaned with new o-rings. Sorry didn't get many pics.

Carbs before cleaning:



Disassembled:



Cleaned up and put back together:




Got them back on the bike and tried to tune everything, not sure I did the best job at that but got the bike back together and fired up easily and took it for a test drive, drives and runs great! But I do have this popping sound when idle and downshifting, can someone tell me what this is from, the bike accelerates without a hesitation and runs super. Could the aftermarket exhaust be causing this or is there more tuning that needs to be done?? Here is a pic as the bike stands at the moment, probably won't get much more done to it now til riding season is over here.

[chuck hahn]

May be a bit rich and dumping a bit of raw fuel into the exhaust..also check for exhaust leaks..sucking in cold air on decelleration will cause the exhaust to po and crackle as well.

[traviseckley]

Ok thanks for the info, This is my first bike rebuild of any kind and the first carb i've redone. Learning as I go, but the carbs still have me a bit confused and I have no tools to sync with. I just did the manual sync after reassembly and set the idle once the bike was running. I'm still impressed with myself that i rebuilt the carbs and the bike fired up as soon as i hit the button 1st try lol. I'm learning just slowly