81 GS550T Full Rebuild...In Ohio

[Flyboy]

hey hey, almost there, pull the motor and drop the swing arm out and you ready to start sprucing her up to look like new. Wooo Hooo
Keep the updates coming.

[cowboyup3371]

After work came the real fun time tonight when I removed the right hand side frame mounts and loosened the mounting bolts. I thought by doing that, I could just lay the bike down and pull straight up. Nope, it took some doing and redoing and redoing but common sense finally prevailed and we got the engine out.

Here's us trying to fight with removing the mounting bolts to get them out AFTER we flipped it over INSTEAD of before:




But with some brains on the phone and the realization the left front motor mount had to come off to prevent the rear of the engine from catching on the lower mounting brackets that are welded to the frame, we got to this:





Because my daughter had drum practice I couldn't do anymore for the night. Surprisingly though, Charmayne decided she wanted to finish a couple of frame parts while I was gone. After spraying bolts down with WD40, and a phone call to me asking if that was okay, she resprayed everything with the Liquid Wrench. She was able to remove the side stand by herself but forgot to pull the cotter pins for the center stand so needed my help after I got home. I was very impressed with the job and effort she made.



Course she had to ham it up a little again...I think I'll have to take the camera away from her (she did this by herself too).



So tomorrow night starts the serious cleaning and we'll probably start tearing down the engine either this weekend or next week

[GSScoobie]

Are those girls old enough to be seeing a Nakid bike?

[cowboyup3371]

Started in on taking apart the engine today. Spark plugs look a little on the rich side I think.







Then removed the cams making sure i kept the same bolts with their caps. Tried to make an E with the marker pen but didn't do all that well. Both are marked only on the left side.





Each cylinder has its own storage bowl (4 foil bowls for a dollar at the dollar store)








As I started to remove the head, the plastic cam chain piece here came out with it. Is that normal?





More to come

[cowboyup3371]

Here are pistons 2 and 3:



Piston 1



and Piston 4



And finally the valves (cylinder 1 is on the right in the picture)



Do they look alright?

[koolaid_kid]

You are a touch rich, Scott, but not too much. Pistons, squish area look fine. How many miles?

[cowboyup3371]

A little over 22000; what is the squish area?

[loud et]

Not sure of the term squish area either, but Yes, the cam chain guide stick comes right out you open it up. pops in , pops out.

[koolaid_kid]

The squish area is where the valves reside. Not sure what else you would call it, but I am sure there is something else.

[Steve]

A quick Google search yields many pictures, this is one of the better ones.



That thin band above the piston, where the combustion chamber is smaller than the cylinder, is the "squish area" or "squish band".

.

[koolaid_kid]

Thanks, Steve.

[cowboyup3371]

Yes thank you Steve. So how were you able to tell that small space was good by the picture George? Is there anything special I should look for when I'm physically looking at them?

[koolaid_kid]

The dome where your valves live is the top of the squish area. The roof, if you will. Of that speaking I was. (in my best Yoda voice.)

[cowboyup3371]

Today was the family fun day as in everybody got involved with working with me. Even Paul wanted to come out so we put him in his wheelchair and let him do quite a bit of cleaning:



So he and Justin took care of frame bits:











He had a blast and was talking about it quite often after they went inside

Meanwhile, all three girls and I worked on removing the valves from the head and then these little buggers...



I hate those dang things

Here are what my intake valves look like. Any suggestions on how/what to use to clean them up?

[cowboyup3371]

Once those were out, I started in on my pistons:



Used an Allen Wrench to help push the hinge pin out



Although I used a wheel to try cleaning off the carbon, I couldn't get it all. I'll stick them into Berryman's and see how well all that varnish gets off







How do the cylinders look to you all? (Best picture I could get)

Number 1



Number 2



Number 3



And 4



I also found out that all of my top and middle piston rings are well within specs (0.20mm to 0.25mm with service limit at 0.07mm) so that's $100 saved for other things.