1988 GS450E - let's bring it back to life!

[franticgrowls]

Hello everyone!

I managed to say a little bit about this bike in the owners section so I will do just the overview here.

This motorcycle is a WRECK.
It's not what you might call a wreck wreck but it's there. All thanks to the previous owner who was such an idiot that he destroyed the machine - more on that later.

My plans for it is to make it run again, work again and then make it special.
Please don't hate me but this bike will become a hybrid of street tracker and a cafe racer. I will get on that during this topic later on too.

Right now I am in the middle of the stripping process and boy, do I start to see the damage the PO has done...






This is how the bike looked before the stripping process.
It's been washed before taking the picture so it might not look that bad now but upon cloer inspection... you'll see

I plan to post questions, suggestions, stories, picture, movies and everything about this GS. I hope I won't be wasting anybody's time here.

I will work on getting this bike back on the road.
Let's begin!!

[pete]

Subscribed! Definitely get her running right before customising, but street tracker sounds like fun... I do like that style

[franticgrowls]

Sorry for not posting anything recently but the weather was so awesome over here that I just had to go out for a couple of days and spend some quality time with my friends.
Well, the GS got some loving couple of days back so here is the update on the bike

The PO was a moron.
There is just no other way of putting it.

Couple of information on the "repairs" he did:

The exhaust was full of holes and since you can take it off and reassemble after repairing that seemed like an easy job. Wrong.
He did weld the exhaust while it was ON the bike. The result? The pipes were so bent out of shape that even the holes were just a minor problem. I struggled a LOT to get the pipes off the bike. As it turned out the PO didn't even pay enough attention to put new exhaust gaskets. Did I say new? I meant ANY. What a dumbass.









I started stripping the bike and I found many things to be wrong with it.

The rear cowling and all plastic parts for that matter are broken, bent, glued together, were mounted on zipties and what not. It's quite ok since I am not planning on reusing them on the bike any more but still...
The seat was taken from a different model, GSX400 as it turned out upon closer inspection. I am beginning to think that not a single part is from this motorcycle.

The majority of work was on taking the bike apart and finding out new spots of rust, old oil, grease, rust oh and did I mention rust?
And rust too.

I am pretty sure that most of you guys have seen more and more out of shape bikes but for me this is something relatively new. I have seen bad examples in cars but motorcycles - that's a new one for me.

Even more respect for this motorcycle - it still runs.
Kudos.

I managed to break a couple of bolts even with a lot attention paid to not using brute force or anything. WD40 is the main ingredient right now since I don't know better. But new bolts are gonna be replacing the old ones so to hell with it. It just slows down the process is all.





I removes the airbox and tomorrow I will get new pods for the bike. I measured the diameter and it showed 50mm. Is that about right should I buy the 50mm pods?

I wonder because I saw the 56 on the old boots and maybe there is something that I am missing?



I also assume that the kickstand should not be bent so much, am I right?





The front brake caliper is in a condiditon as shown in the pictures:




It was stuck real bad but I managed to get it out with all the rubber parts intact. There is some corrosion on the piston but I think I can sand it away with some fine sand paper. Do you have any advice on restoring a caliper like that? Can I sandblast it and if so how to apporach it? The inside of the caliper *where the piston works) in the upper part/lip is kind of corroed the aluminum oxidized and it looks rough. I don't know if that is fixable... I will post some pictures later on.

Any suggestions?
Best regards!

[pete]

Wow she's a mess! But that means all the more fun cleaning her up and getting her all back together right?

The side stand looks ok to me, and if you want good quality pods, go to the K&N website and it will tell you exactly which ones to order if they have your bike listed.

If the bore of the caliper is salvageable, you should be able to get a new piston and seals from Suzuki. They were quite inexpensive when I did mine and it was nice to know they're brand new.

Oh and don't forget to replace the brake line! A braided steel line will work very well.

[oldrookie]

Some (most) of your questions can be answered on Basscliff's site

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/bikecliff/

[franticgrowls]

I will be sure to read it all, thanks for the tip!

One more question though - my shocks seem to be busted and I should start to look around for a replacement. Are there any universal shocks inbetween the suzukis?

I did find similar shocks to the ones I need but I was thinking of getting something better or bigger from a more expensive bike if possible. And I was hoping for something black instead of chrome.

What are my options?

[cowboyup3371]

You can pick up Progressives for a decently cheap price from places like Z1 Enterprises. Or, look up a Hagon dealer in your area.

I just looked and here's the worldwide distributor list from Hagon's site:

http://www.hagon-shocks.co.uk/common/pagedetail.aspx?PageCode=distributors

Other folks have put the more expensive shocks on theirs, like Ohlins and another brand I can't think of right now, but those Hagons feel real nice for me.

[pete]

I put Ikon shocks and fork springs on mine and am extremely happy with the ride. They should be a notch above the Progressives in theory but I've never compared. I do know they're waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than stock though!

[franticgrowls]

Small and sad update on the bike...

It's as if it doesnt want to get back on the road - many bent and out of shape elements like footrests and back wheel tensioners (is that what it's called? not sure) were small stuff but a bent frame is something completely different.

Once with no seat and no back I found that one pipe at the end of the bike is higher than the other. I have no idea how the PO managed to do that but now I am in a pickle.

I found a company here in Poland that repairs bent frames with a laser technology and I will try to get an estimate on the cost of the repair before I strip the bike even further and sandblast the frame.

Bummed.

Even though I took off the rear wheel and cleaned and greased the insides, hubs and all there was to it. Not a pristine condition but all the buffing and polishing will have to wait for now. Tomorrow I will try to do something on the bike to make me feel better.

Some pics..

before..

after..


before..


after..


before..


after..


and the bent frame...


and my lovely assistant 09 Kawasaki 650R in the background


Hell - now I'm not even sure if the swingarm is straight..

[pete]

It's really hard to tell from the photos but I think the swingarm is ok.

It does look like something is not right with the frame though.

If it's just the top tube bent after the fork mount, then it should be an easy job to straighten it out.

If it's more serious then yeah that could be an issue... definitely best to either take some measurements and see if it all squares up or get an expert to check it.

[franticgrowls]

Today was a productive day and yet some more dissapointments because of the PO

I am smiling because I am starting to not give a damn about all that, let's just do it!

So today after a week long brake I managed to strip down some more of the bike..






After taking off the tank I had these GENUINE SUZUKI PARTS (*cough cough):





Well done PO, well done.

Carbs seem to be in decent condition but for the bike's age they could've done better. One screw was just unscrewed (see the pic) and on the other carb screws are just stripped so I suppose that this one will be worse that the other inside.. I will see it once I open it up. The diaphragms seem to be in good condition which is a relief.

[franticgrowls]

The handlebars were bent in so many ways I just couldn't stop thinking about who in their right mind would ride that piece of sh and most of all - sell it to another person. God damn.
The switches were mounted on a ductape, some repairs were made with ductape as well, such as the clutch cable which was corroded underneath the tape. Well done again.
I am not that worried since I am getting a different handlebars and cables as well but still, am mad at the PO nonetheless.






I took off the sprocket cover and I was presented with this:






I started working on it and went from this:





To this:


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Notice how the chain did it's terror.
But that's not all, oh no. After cleaning the surroundings of the front sprocket I found this:




It was stuck by the gearbox lever pole. After cleaning this area some more I found out where it came from. Look...



Now this is peachy - I have no idea but I think that at some point some dumbass PO has put on a thicker and slacker chain and that did the trick..
Fortunately it's nowhere near a really vital part of the engine so the work will carry on.

Next the engine will get out and go for inspection because I can see some leakage. Will keep you guys posted.

Oh and I got some new parts already, no biggie but they will keep on coming.
As for now - brand new pods and some minor stuff

[pete]

Wow that is quite bad!

It looks like the PO also ran the bike with a *very* loose chaing going by that groove... and that piece of metal appears to have splines on it, not sure where that could've come from though...

[Toasty]

The mess in the front sprocket cover is either from a leaking clutch shaft or output shaft seal. Both are relatively easy fixes and there are tutorials here and on basscliffs site. Unless your PO is like mine and tried to replace the output shaft seal in the past with a chisel and took a big chunk out of it, so now the only way to fix it is to split the cases