1982 GS 450LZ Repair/Clean/ misc. whatnots

[Guest]

So after working on this girl for a few months, I decided to start a thread. Probably because I'm bored at work, and miss working on her.

Sad thing is, My dad got be a wrench set for my birthday, and that is probably the most useful gift I will ever get.

So, onward to the lists. Pictures will arrive sometime in the future.

To do:
Starter button, refix/replace
Repaint?
Lots of testing
Check rear tire while the darned thing is off.
Check/replace chain
Speedo light, replace
Luggage?
Seat redo?

In the works:
Ignitor building
Rear brake shoe replacement
Cleaning as stuff gets taken out

Done:
Redoing the shoddy electrical work done by PO.
Front brake pads replaced
Air filter cleaned
Left Handlbar switch assembly replaced
Tach Cable replaced
Tach light replaced
Mirrors replaced, one was stolen off in PO's garage

The brake shoes and ignitor are the issues at the current moment. I had to take the entire exaust system off to get the rear wheel off, to find out Motorcycle Superstore had the wrong brakes listed for their site. So while those are getting returned and new ones ordered and shipped from them (horray free shipping back, and ther here again), my dad doesnt want to test the ignitor he built.

Now, the To do list. The seat is the tinest bit too high, but im also trying to keep it as stock as possible. The mirrors I got for my birthday are pretty close, if not exactly stock, and that was the deciding point if it will be close to stock or not, though it now looks a bit weird with both mirrors, being so used to it only having one.

The tank has a spot on it where the paint came off, most likely due to careless gas pouring by the PO (boy this girl was mishandled, not too badly, but now she has a better home). Haven't decided whether to do an at home job, or go and get it professionally painted. I guess that depends on effort and time costs vs pro costs.

The chain is the original chain, though some of the links look like they might have been replaced. We have to look closer at it, as we jsut stared at it for a long time trying to find a spring link in order to take the rear tire off. There wasn't one. Boy we felt like a group of idiots.

I'll probably get the rear tire replaced, just better safe then sorry. I don't know how old it is, nor do i feel like taking that wheel off for a long time. Dropping the exaust is a huge pain.

Im not sure what I will do in the way of luggage. Looking for something cheap, and something lighter than ammo boxes. Not sure how I will mount it though, it seems like there are very few luggage mounting spots.

Im just piddling around for now, cleaning and derusting some spots ont he exaust until my brakes get here. Bah... Its not the repairs that are bad, its the sitting and waiting ofr the parts...

[pete]

Subscribed! Wanna see what you do with it

Also, I have a desperate need to know how your dad is fixing that ignitor...

In about two weeks I'll be firing mine up again to hear my shiny new exhaust and continue testing my ignitor to see if it works properly or not.

Good luck and looking forward to the pic's!

[Chrkut]

Brake shoes are on, new oil and filter in. A chain and the rear tire is getting picked up and mounted. The chain, tire, and tire mounting/balancing was a bit more expensive than I wanted, but it wouldn't pass inspection and I'm not risking my safety with an 06 tire and a rusty chain.

List time!

Done:
Redoing the shoddy electrical work done by PO.
Front brake pads replaced
Air filter cleaned
Left Handlbar switch assembly replaced
Tach Cable replaced
Tach light replaced
Mirrors replaced, one was stolen off in PO's garage
Brake shoes
Chain and Tire replacement

In the works:
Ignitor building
Putting the rear back together
Cleaning as stuff gets taken out
Sanding, derusting, and painting exaust with high temp black.

To do:
Starter button, refix/replace
Repaint?
Lots of testing
Speedo light, replace
Luggage?
Seat redo?

Project is now waiting on the tire and chain tomorrow, and then whenever I can get the exaust done. I refuse to rush it, and since Im taking summer courses, I dont have as much time as I would like. I will work on it when I get home from work today, and hopefully will have the cycle ridable and inspected by the time Fall courses start, and my new job starts too.

Im having issues deciding on a tank color. It will need to be repainted sometime, due to having a big stripped portion above the gas tank cap, probably because one of the PO's was careless about refilling it. Im between a bright yellow, probably around this shade:



But that would require repainting of the plastics as well. It will have a "color" Black and chrome type color scheme, because of the exaust that will be black. Red would be an alternate color, and would not require repainting of the plastics right away. Red would be ok for resale (if i ever wanted to sell it for some reason) due to the stock color, but I have always liked yellow and maybe racing stripes on things. Not to mention flames and racing stripes make vehicles go faster. My sister of course, wants to paint it the same color scheme as my helmet...

http://www.motorcycle-superstore.com/1/2/48/21437/CITEM/Icon-Airframe-CMYK-Helmet-Closeouts.aspx

Haven't been able to get much ignition work done. Thinking about doing the R/R replace just in case. Dad has been doing some work on the 250 Rebel because it failed inspection (rear tire, chain, exaust leak), but that should be done here soon. Been reading over the Stator papers and such, so the replace would probably be worth it now before it went ahead and broke other things.

[pete]

Sounds like you're slowly getting there which is excellent news

Doing the chain and tyre is definitely a good thing, are you doing the sprockets as well though? Highly recommended course of action is replacing sprockets at the same time otherwise worn sprockets can wear your new chain early.

Colour's a very personal thing I think, and I'm not a big fan on yellow, but red/black/chrome sounds nice

On the electrics, given that you're already working on a replacement ignitor, I'd definitely look at a replacement R/R as the ignitor on our 450's seems to be the first thing to suffer with a dodgy charging circuit.

Also, on your ignitor replacement, I'm emailing with a guy from Dynatek at the moment to see if there's a way their DS3-3C setup will work for the '80 - '82 450's. At the moment it's only designed as a points replacement for the earlier 400's.

This is my backup plan should my HEI home made job fail...

[Chrkut]

We've rebuilt our HEIs about 5 times now. Since i have the exhaust off we can't test it properly at the moment, but we can still test it for spark.

The sprockets looked good enough to go until the next chain change. It doesn't look bad at all and is in nowhere near the kind of shape the chain was in.

Ill have to see how it looks with the red/black/chrome before I pick a color.

[pete]

I'm still on revision 1 of the HEI module setup, but will be testing properly this Saturday now that I have a real exhaust and my K&N pods fitted.

No worries on the sprockets, as long as you're aware it's all good

As to colour, yes I know what you mean... I feel like I've been through the rainbow and back trying to decide and I still have no idea... my biggest issue is visualising it in my head. I have done some mock ups in the GIMP but they're lame at best and don't give a realistic view of how it will look...

[Chrkut]

I might have to take your GIMP idea. I havent played around with the color of it in any photo editing programs.

One muffler is completely painted and is waiting to cure. The other muffler im trying to get that muffler protection plate thing that is over the one weld off, and then sand and paint that one.

The R/R was bid on, won, and paid for today, so that should be in the mail soon enough.

Rear wheel, tire, cahin and stuff is not together yet, will do that after im done watching the food today, and after my dad puts his Rebel back together, as we need his angle grinder to get the old chain off.

[pete]

Go for it! The GIMP is free, and if I can do a dodgy crappy job of it, then anyone can colour their bike in it

Glad to hear your getting some progress done, always a good feeling to get it underway, and that would be the heat shield you're referring to

So watching the food? What's that about? I prefer to eat mine...

[Chrkut]

PICTURES!

Got the rear tire back on, working on the chain now. Ignore the sign :P



Here is a crappy flash picture of the muffle i got painted. The other one will match.



Electronics will be worked on as soon as the second muffler/exaust / "heat shield" thinger is dry enough to be able to reattach it so it can be "cured". Testing and finishing the paint job, killing two tires with one nail since 2011.

[Chrkut]

Oh, and i forgot this picuture. We have a whole corner of motorcycle crap. Amazing since just a few months ago we could barely even walk through it.



The unfinished muffler can be seen to the far left.

[pete]

Definitely good to see you're getting somewhere! Muffler's looking good too.

Going to be interesting what happens with those HEI modules, fired mine up today and it looks like the timing's something like 180 degrees out of whack and is firing on the wasted spark instead of the correct spark, so much more fiddling to do yet, will be updating my ignitor thread shortly.

[Chrkut]

So we got the muffler on, and we decided to test the module to see if we fixed most of the issues with it. The ignitor modules worked fine, but the oil filter area started spewing oil. Bad o-ring + stripped studes = oil all over garage.

Im currently wating on a new filter that comes with an oring (cheaper than just buying the darned ring itself), new studs, and while I was at it I got a disc lock and a cargo net.

This waiting sucks.

[pete]

Aww so close! I know all to well that waiting sucks... always the way though

So does that mean you didn't get to test the ignition fully yet? I should be giving mine another go tomorrow.

[Chrkut]

We got the oil leak fixed with a new gasket and gasket cement. We had the ignitor running to where it would idle, but if it was given any throttle it would backfire.

I'm at work currently and just got a phone call from my dad. He fiddled with it and got it so he could rev it, but it now idles around 3k rpm

Hopefully it will be inspected by the time i have to take my fall courses. My summer calc course is done, so i have some time of my own to play with it until next monday.

Pete, i havent taken a look at your thread yet today, but if we can get it working without the idle being around the 3k area, ill see if my dad can draw you up a diagram.

[pete]

We got the oil leak fixed with a new gasket and gasket cement. We had the ignitor running to where it would idle, but if it was given any throttle it would backfire.

Idling and backfiring and not rev'ing... sounds very familiar to me

That's what mine was doing 180 degrees out of time...

I'm at work currently and just got a phone call from my dad. He fiddled with it and got it so he could rev it, but it now idles around 3k rpm

That sounds promising! One thing that definitely happened with mine was when we advanced it back towards the correct timing, the rev's shot up at idle because it was actually idling correctly, so we had to back the idle screw off to bring it back down.

I wonder if it's as simple as that meaning it may be working?

Hopefully it will be inspected by the time i have to take my fall courses. My summer calc course is done, so i have some time of my own to play with it until next monday.

Cool, time on the bike is always good, wish I could get some more myself...

Pete, i havent taken a look at your thread yet today, but if we can get it working without the idle being around the 3k area, ill see if my dad can draw you up a diagram.

That would be awesome.

Right now I've put the circuit aside as I'm stumped and am working on my fork brace and front mudguard as a distraction before I get back into it fresh again.