Project 'Zero'

[witttom]

Cool project! Piecing the thing together using parts from different models sure does look like an interesting challenge. Hope it all works out. Keep us up to date.

I -THOUGHT- that was going to be the easy part... like assembling legos from different kits. You look at one part on a 650, and see the same part on a 750 or 850, and say... 'Hey, that's the same part!". But that's not always true. In fact, it's fairly common for it NOT to be true, sometimes even from one 750 model to another. Some parts may look the same, but there is often a subtle difference. I'm learning that more and more every day. It is definitely a challenge, or bigger than I had anticipated. I had this plan, or 'recipe' in my head for some time now, but as I progress through it, it's constantly changing. The bike itself is making a lot of the decisions, as strange as that may sound.

[witttom]

I've been wanting to bite the bullet and go ahead and move the engine over, but before doing so, I have to remove the carbs and a few other things. Before I get to THAT, I felt I should at least have a look at the clutch, probably pull it to have a look at what is jamming it up behind the clutch basket. Before I do that, I obviously have to drain the oil.

So, I pull the oil plug and.... SPLOOSH!!! Something MUCH thinner than oil comes gushing out. I immediately assume it to be kerosene. Why? I dunno. Can I tell the difference between 20yr/old kerosene and 20yr/old gasoline? I dunno. It looks to be about 90% whatever, 10% oil. I bet I got roughly 4 quarts out of it. It's nasty stuff. That's a big red flag. Scary, but I proceed.



I remove the clutch (I'll spare you the details of what it takes to do that). Feeling pretty confident, because I've done this a couple times now with parts bike engines that I have broken down. It's amazing what you can learn when you have no fear of f@¢king something up. Hehe...








I expect to find a misalignment problem with one of the mechanical arms behind the basket, but it seems fine. Not what I was expecting to see.



With the clutch gone, the drive shaft/sprocket is now freed up and spins. HOWEVER. The tranny still does not shift. It's still jammed up. ...and the engine does not turn. That tells me either the tranny has MAJOR problems (and preventing the engine from turning over), OR the engine is genuinely locked up, or both. Either way, I'd have to split the case to figure it out.

This should have been one of the first things for me to do, but I've been working on some assumptions (wishful thinking?). I'm just glad I discovered this before dropping it into project Zero.



Damn. What a bummer.

[steve murdoch]

That is a tough discovery, alright.
btw, nice quality pics. Most of mine look like a 2 year old took them.

[ron bayless]

whew! This is way too hard for me to even think about doing. I hope you can get your engine unlocked.

[witttom]

whew! This is way too hard for me to even think about doing. I hope you can get your engine unlocked.

I will most likely be changing direction, and going with an older 8-valve 750.

[GateKeeper]

nice rebuild and all and hopefully you get the engine issues sorted out soon...

can I just make one suggestion, when posting pictures and they are one after another, put a space between each, that way they appear to have a border around each one and don't end up looking like one big long picture....

keep up the good work....

.

[witttom]

Haven't updated this thread in a long time and I see that most of my images now have broken links (I may eventually go back and fix those), but....





I'm still working on it.

The basics so far....
- 81GS750L frame.
- 82GS850G front end (triples/forks).
- 82GS750T tank.
- 82GS750E(1) wiring/electronics.
- 82GS750E(2) engine with 4k-miles.
- 82GS750T carbs.

It has some GS650E, GS550T, and Honda CB650 parts sprinkled in there too.

Doubtful that I will be using that tail section, but it looks cool just sitting there, so....


Slow progress, but at least it's progress.