1980 GS450 L Time to freshen up!

[Guest]

Today I pulled the motor out of my 1980 GS 450.
I have been riding this bike for several years and put about 12000 miles on it.
She has close to 50k miles. I used it as a commuter. Very dependable ride.
The compression slowly got worse and she started sputtering. I have decided to freshen the motor up. When I took the head off I noticed there was almost no wear on the cylinders. The head gasket was leaking and I might have gotten away with a re-torque.
Too late now! My plan is to take it apart and go by the Clymer book I bought.
I bought a Vesrah gasket set and a few seals and bearings.
I will be needing plenty of help on this one as it is my first Japanese rebuild.
I have a shop and plenty of tools.
Thanks in advance for any advise.

[Big Rich]

I'm not sure what gaskets come in the Vesrah kit, but search around for their dependability. I think people have problems with certain gaskets, and OEM is the only alternative.

[pete]

Hey mate welcome and good luck on the job!

Tip... don't bother with after market gaskets, stick with genuine Suzuki at least for the critical bits like the base and head gaskets. I tried Athena and so far I have replaced the stator gasket, head gasket, valve cover gasket, and breather cover gasket... none sealed well and the head gasket nearly blew after less than 30,000km's after the rebuild.

I have heard Vesrah cursed the same as Athena many times...

[gsjames]

What about sealers such as gaskecinch on the head gasket? Old school fix

Hey mate welcome and good luck on the job!

Tip... don't bother with after market gaskets, stick with genuine Suzuki at least for the critical bits like the base and head gaskets. I tried Athena and so far I have replaced the stator gasket, head gasket, valve cover gasket, and breather cover gasket... none sealed well and the head gasket nearly blew after less than 30,000km's after the rebuild.

I have heard Vesrah cursed the same as Athena many times...

I was told the vesrah were OK....
I see a 81 OEM head gasket on ebay for a reasonable price.
My vesrah kit lists the 81 as well as 80 gs450?
What about sealers on the head gasket?
Any thoughts?

[pete]

Worst case I would use a genuine base and head gasket, and in my case the compression seemed to change between the Athena and the genuine head gasket. I wasn't able to compare thicknesses or anything but I definitely had to make small adjustments to my jetting after replacing it which means it most likely affected compression.

The 80 to 82's were mostly the same, but sometime in the 81 to 82 model year they went from a 12 bolt valve cover to a 15 bolt.

[gsjames]

How fqar should I go with this?

Worst case I would use a genuine base and head gasket

I have checked the cams, pistons, rings, cylinders, clutch parts... and up to this point all of the parts are looking good according to the specs in my Clymer book.
I am tempted to go with just the top end rebuild. New OEM head gasket and some new clutch springs as they are on the low side of spec.
Can the trani seals and bearings be changed without cracking open the case?
I did the clutch rod seal 10k back. I think it is the shift seal leaking although no oil hits the road. If I take it all the way down how far should I go. The bike has about 40k on it.
I think it may have been rebuilt as the head gasket was not sealed right and the other gaskets are glued here and there with permatex #2. Does not look like factory work to me. I will also need help sourcing some of the parts...

[pete]

If there's no need to pull the bottom end apart then don't do it... in the end I didn't need to pull mine down as I mis-diagnosed a shifting issue and thought the transmission had a problem. The shift shaft seal I think can be done with the cases together if you remove the shift shaft and the pushrod seal the same I believe.

Going by the pic you attached you'll need a base gasket as well as a head gasket and there are two O rings on the bottom of the barrels you'll need to replace as well.

I had about 96k km's on mine when I pulled it down and everything was in spec, I just put in new rings because I had it apart.