Charmayne's rebuild of her 550L

[Charmayne]

School is so tiring it puts me to sleep to be honest. But I have two weeks of school left. Summer is almost here and that gives me time to get it up and running and ill be driving it hopefully.

[Charmayne]

And the nail polish isn't so special. I would put it on one day to make it look nice. The next day it would look bad so it doesn't matter to me nor does it bother me.

[Charmayne]

Carburetors

It’s finally summer. During the week I started stripping the carburetors. I started by unscrewing the air box wasn’t hard. The carbs were a pain in the neck for them to come off. But then dad reminded me on unscrewing the intake boots. That made it a little bit easier on removing the carbs. But still tough enough that dad had to jump in and take the carbs out.
Then it was time for the fun to begin by removing everything off the carbs step by step. Some things got easier while I unscrewed some screws. I put all the carburetors parts into little bags but then dad told me to put them into a plastic container. Which I did I put carburetor #4 in a plastic bowl while taking it a part.
Carburetor # 4 is now being dipped. (Sorry no pictures of it being dipped, until tomorrow). While carburetor # 4 is being dipped I started to take apart all the others apart. We ran into a carburetor issue I was taking apart carburetor # 2 apart. Dad came to check on me and turns out where the float pin sits, one of the posts were broken. Then dad I asked me if I broke it or was it like that. I told him it was like that.
Well dad left me at garage to go for a ride with my sister Cheyenne. He said clean the pistons from the carburetors, to get the gunk off. Then do a little bit of electrical work its easy just find the correct color wires and match it up. It was a little bit tough and WOW it’s hot outside!
Pictures later. Pictures aren't wanting to upload correctly.




It's clean.

Electrical work.

[cowboyup3371]

She did a very good job at matching the wiring on the ignitor connector and left the wires loose for me to confirm before locking them into place. First carb's in the dip and will be removed in the AM.

[Charmayne]

Carburetor 1 is done. Carburetor 2 will be dipped tonight.

[cowboyup3371]

And it runs again. After much cursing and taking the carbs off three times in 48 hours because I was forgetful, stubborn, and even put the cam chain tensioner together wrong, it fired up without much of an issue. Charmayne and I need to now put the brakes back on and adjust the clutch; I'll do a valve adjustment later this summer when I do mine again. We do have a rattle coming out of the left pipe that I'm hoping is just a loose baffle but because I haven't really heard it before I'm not sure what it is.

[Cipher]

Is that connector safe? The brass protruding is a short waiting to happen.

[cowboyup3371]

Is that connector safe? The brass protruding is a short waiting to happen.

Cipher that picture was taken over two years ago after we first started this project; yes it was put back together properly

[cowboyup3371]

Although the left front footrest decided to walk away from us, we were able to get it out on the road today by switching mine to her bike temporarily and verified all is working fairly well. She tried to ride it this afternoon in a parking lot but needs to work on her clutch and throttle control as she kept stalling it out. We hope to get back to a ride on Wednesday night

[Cipher]

The best way I know to practice clutching is doing repeat stop and go launches through gears.
I learned clutching finesse on steep hills and that is a bad place and time to learn.

[cowboyup3371]

Shortcuts are bad

Ughh, so when we got the bike a few years ago I was told there were problems with maintaining a charge on the battery and I initially planned to upgrade the R/R and other electrical parts before she would ride it. However, in the interest of getting her some riding time I chose not to follow through on my plans as quickly as I should have. We found today that the system is not charging when we tried to get her out for some more parking lot work so now the bike is parked until next week. I'll order a new stator, Polaris R/R, Eastern Beaver fuse block and a new headlight on Friday then work with her to go through the harness and clean connectors.

I knew better but was being a too proud dad - bit me in the arse.

[Cipher]

arse? is that an American word? I thought it was British and Canadian.
Not to lessen the pain of the bite you have received.

[cowboyup3371]

So I figured I'd bring this thread back up as we have encountered some problems with how the bike has ran in the last couple of years. This last thread - https://www.thegsresources.com/_foru...park-look-like summarizes the problem as well as the compression numbers I took today. Consequently, we are going to do an engine rebuild which I'll keep track of here.

I am hopeful we can get her on the road this year as it's been awhile since she has ridden.

Some pictures of her previous rides

Charmayne Riding by Scott Baker, on Flickr

Charmayne on KY-22 by Scott Baker, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott Baker, on Flickr

[cowboyup3371]

Started in on disassembly tonight and though I encountered one hiccup that I tried hard to avoid and failed, everything else went fairly well for spending 3-1/2 hours by myself in a hot garage.

I doused all of the exhaust bolts with P-Blaster on three separate occasions since yesterday morning yet three still broke with this being the worst one. Although I knew better, I didn't think about grabbing the heat gun before trying to hit these ones since the others came out much easier. So, once I get the head off, the friend whose garage I share will weld nuts to the ends of each and we'll get them out.

Broken Bolt by Scott Baker, on Flickr

I left the bike here when I chose to go eat (already after 8pm) and take care of other family needs but I'll get back to it tomorrow evening. I think I can have the cylinders off tomorrow evening so I can get it to the machine shop on Wednesday or Thursday for measuring and honing.

Valve Cover Off by Scott Baker, on Flickr

[Rich82GS750TZ]

Scott, if the welding doesn’t work or you end up with buggered holes, I know if you need him to, Norm can drill and tap those exhaust bolt holes. Get in touch with him when he gets back from NE.