1982 GS650GL back from the dead

[Guest]

I was gifted this bike from a friend a couple months ago. My very generous friend had grand plans of turning it into a "cafe racer" or whatever, but after watching it sit in his carport for 7+ years he decided it was time for someone else to deal with it. We were on a ski lift, very drunk, when he decided to gift it to me. I wasn't sure I even wanted it, but I was between both bikes and fortunes during that moment and figured "What's the worst that could happen?" If I could bring it back to life, awesome. If not, then it would go to the scrap yard.


First thing I had to do was drive the truck from Denver to Colorado Springs to pick the bike up. Although the weather was nice on the first leg of the trip, the sky opened up and dropped about 6" of hail on the highway during the trip back to Denver. FUN TIMES! NOT!




As soon as I got the bike back to the shop, I started tearing it down. It was more or less complete minus the side-panels, but I took everything that wasn't the frame, engine, fork, swingarm, and wheels off of it and put that stuff in boxes. Then I jumped the starter using a 7A battery to see if the engine would turn... uh OH spaghetti-OHs... this engine is STUCK! NO BUENO! So I did what anyone else would do and pulled the spark plugs out and sprayed a bunch of slick stuff into the cylinders... two stroke oil and cable lube if memory serves... then I had a beer and smoked a cigarette and tried again with the starter 15 minutes later. BINGO! Engine spun fine. My next big question was "Does it have any compression?" so I busted out the compression tester and got 100psi accross all four cylinders! NICE!


A couple days later, after work...




The next big question was "Does this puppy have spark?" But I had removed the wiring harness, so I'd have to jimmy rig some stuff to see spark. At first I thought my buddy forgot to give me the igniter unit/CDI thingie, but I found it attached to something in the parts boxes.



My friend gave me a Clymer manual and a wiring diagram he'd printed from the innerwebs, so I used those to figure out how to wire the signal generator to the igniter/CDI thingie to the coils, wire the stator to rect/reg, and power everything with a 7A battery. Then I pulled the boots from the plug wires, spun the engine over, and saw that the bike was good, that it had both spark and compression, and I knew the next project would be rebuilding/cleaning the carbs. I went home, drank beers, and fell asleep thinking about what all the bike would need before it was roadworthy. I also decided at some point that "the ugliest motorcycle ever" shouldn't be returned to stock condition, that it was too far gone for that, and I'd go ahead and make it some kind of "custom," not like a cafe or a bobber or whatever but just a simple motorcycle with a single seat, a nice stance, low bars, and barely-there wiring. Call it a bobber if you want, to me it's just an old motorcycle.

I also wondered how hard it would be to lower the front suspension, so I took everything apart and added a spacer to the damping rod, which got the front end 3" lower than stock:



So a few days later I dug into the carbs. Things I noticed: someone did the "safety wire fix" on a broken float post. The slides were STUCK. The carbs were mangy, dirty, corroded, and crap-tacular in every way. But my friend had given me a full set of o-rings from cycleorings.com AND he had installed brand new intake boots, so I knew they wouldn't take much. I unganged them, disassembled them completely, and dropped them in the sonic cleaner for about an hour. Then I blew them clean using the air compressor, ordered some K&L carb kits mostly for the gaskets, and looked hard at the vacuum diaphragms. At first I thought they would need to be replaced but rather than spend $80 on new ones I tried my best to "bring them back" using carb cleaner and two stroke oil. And wouldn't you know it, they came back pretty decent. I had to use the needles and seats from the K&L kits because I effed the stock ones up removing them. I measured the stock ones vs. the K&L ones and decided not to mess with the float height even though the K&L ones are slightly taller.

Before (monkey poop!):



After (dolphin jizz!):



Next I made a "preliminary" wiring harness using Rick's Motorsport connectors:



I wanted to be able to disconnect the igniter, coils, rect/reg, etc quickly and easily, and these connectors do all that with a stock or at least professional look. I *hate* crimp connectors, so everything gets soldered and heat shrinked the good and proper way, you know, so I can sleep at night knowing I did a good job on something.

After building a wiring harness and installing the fresh carbs, I hooked the bike up to a test bottle (hanging from an IV stand, lol), flipped the switch from "off" to "run" and thumbed the starter button. AND THE BIKE RAN. It didn't just run, it RAN GOOD. Revved from idle (which needed adjusting, derp) all the way to "really, really freaking loud" pretty fast. Happy days. Here's another pic:



Jeez, that pic sucks. The carbs aren't even installed! Anyway, here are two videos of her "maiden voyage," or first ride (WARNING: the "f" word is dropped in these videos, maybe NSFW depending on where you work!):

https://youtu.be/03-yNIz40wI

https://youtu.be/_V1NmQCBex0

I filled the float bowls up with gas and rode it around the block. Things I noticed: front brake pulses because the brake rotor is warped, the bike feels pretty quick, and it runs through the gears nicely. Cool beans!

Stuff I did: made a wiring harness, rebuilt the carbs, lowered the front 3", cut the seat hoop off, stripped the seat for its pan, rebuilt forks, added pod filters.

Stuff I still need to do: sort the tank/petcock out, get new tires, get a new front brake rotor, new brake lines, finish seat, finish rear hoop, take her to Bandimere, etc... LOL! FUN STUFFS PEOPLE! These old bikes are pretty much bullet proof, and if you have the time (and the tools, space, know-how) they can be brought back to life fairly easily!

[Grassigrass]

Ar1, I just received this same exact bike and I really look forward to seeing what you do to it. I am also very new to this so I hope you don't mind me picking you're brain here and there about it. Mine runs and drives great. I am really interested in making it kind of a cafe/brat type bike. So pretty much like yours but try to keep an appealeaing to the eye double seat. I had traded an old mower for it to a guy who has a little shop/dealership. He told me that he had the top end rebuilt and the carbs cleaned at the end of last year. I understand that you shouldn't trust the word of people you purchase from but I'd like to hope this guy was serious. The only problems the bike has is the speedometer doesn't work and my blinkers don't flash but just stay lit. My rpm gauge works fine. I'm not sure if the speedo cable is bad or the entire unit itself. Anyways I'd like to replace it. As for the blinkers I'm just going to take them off for an inspection and then figure out where to go. Like I said I don't know too much about bikes, I tinker here and there with my mowers and small engines (I own a commercial landscaping business). My first project I want to do is remove the airbox and install pod filters which then means I need to mess with the carb. I have no clue what carb parts I would need to purchase. I believe I can do the work just don't know what I need. Please, any pointers or tips you can send my way would be much appreciated. I'd post a pic of my bike but it is to the T the same as yours. Please post more pictures of yours as you go please. I like it!!!

[ar1]

Speedo is either a broken cable or a busted sending unit (it's mechanical, on the left side of the front wheel). You can check it by removing the cable and spinning one end. If it doesn't spin on the other side of the cable, the cable's busted. If the cable's OK then it's your sending unit. Could be your gauge, but I doubt it.

Blinkers not flashing, hard to be sure, but probably the flasher is busted. I don't run blinkers or speedometers on my own bikes, just fix them for other people. :-P

As for pod filters, they get a bad rap. I get why. The dudes who designed our airboxes are probably lots smarter than we are, which isn't a reason. I've never been the type to do something because somebody smarter than me says so, lol. The real reason is the intake pulses are "synchronized" with the airbox installed. With pod filters the carbs are flapping in the wind, so to speak, operating seperate from their brother and sister carbs. And there's a lot more air flowing through them, which leans the engine out a bit. Engine runs hotter, exhaust gas temps heat up, etc. The part you most likely need to change when going to pods is the main jet. Fuel acts like a coolant in the combustion chamber. I don't buy new jets, I just drill the old ones out, scratch the numbers off, and make notes about it in my notebook. A notebook is absolutely my #1 most important and valuable tool. More important IMO than all those pricey wrenches, sockets, ratchets, etc I have in my box.

Right now my GS is a touch lean with the pods and stock jets, but it idles, runs, and accelerates just fine. This is based on plug chops, but I might throw it on a homie's dyno to get EGT and AFR to make sure. It feels a little weak on the low end but screams on top. I have no idea how it felt stock, so I don't mind how it runs now.

One word of warning is don't use the jets that come with K&L carb kits unless you compare the size of the holes in the jets to what came stock. You can do that with drill bits. Find the one that goes through the hole, then the next size that doesn't go. Same with the stockers. Make notes before, during, and after any drilling you do. Most people just buy jets, some shops have endless piles of cash to buy them in bulk. We don't, so we drill them out most of the time. I get my bits from a company called Hi-Strength Bolt Company here in Denver for about $1 apiece. You can't get them at big box stores. They're numbered from like 40 to 100, with the smaller numbers signifying a bigger hole.

Don't be afraid of "not knowing about bikes." Essentially, they're just small engines with wheels and suspenion and a spot for you to sit. Bikes is bikes is bikes, they're all the same crap in my book. The only bitch about working on them is tight clearances, but that problem's solved with magnets and manual dexterity 99.999% of the time.