I ride the GS, finally!! - updated 9-4-07
Monday, September 3rd, 2007Finally, I actually have ridden my project bike! I might not of been legal on the road, and it sure wasn’t all that safe on the road, but yes… the GS was ridden. Wow, I gotta say, that it felt better & was more fun then I expected it to be. I’m pumped now to get the bike registered (the legal part) and to finish fixing the remaining “unsafe” items so I can actually start riding it regularily.
OK, I’ll admit, I only rode the thing first a few laps around a parking lot that is near my house, then I did only 2 laps around my neighbourhood block. I road it so little because it’s not registered for the road, plus that the tires are so weather cracked that I wouldn’t trust them at all, and that the chain is so rusted & tight… I was afraid of it snapping & breaking my engine cases.
I am a little surprised how good it felt to be riding on the road again. I haven’t had a street bike in 7 years, while I’ve been off doing the dirtbike thing. I have a mixed-bag of observations & feelings from this first ride on the bike, with some good things as well as things that need definite improvement. Well, mostly things just need improvement with the bike to complete bringing it out of its 15 year hibernation, the good parts, I guess those were mostly just the joys of riding the thing.
Well first of all, I do like the handlebars that I put on the bike, they will do fine for now… much more sporty feeling then the stock bars that were on it. Now that the bike is running on all 4 of its cylinders, it does rev much more freely (well that should be obvious, huh?) When I did give it a little bit of gas on the road, it did have a little bit, maybe more so then I expected, of a engine growl. So that of course is cool, it didn’t sound so wimpy after all. But, the bike still won’t idle, I’ll have to track down that idle adjuster & crank that up a bit… I think I can see it, but I have to remove the tank to get at it… that part sucks… what a drag. A newer bike would have this at a much easier reach. But anyways… oh yes, the left pipe seems to have this occasional pop, while the right does not. Not sure yet what’s up with that.
The front brake, yes… well maybe I should say no. It felt like I must have a piece of wood for brake pads. The lever was firm enough, remember I put a braided stainless-steel brake line on the front, but there just was no real stopping power to it. At this point, I still have the pads that came with the bike. In the near future, I’ll need to buy a new set of pads & hope that they give me some more friction.
The rear brakes, yea… they don’t even work. The rear caliper isn’t even on the bike right now. I hope to be buying a caliper off of ebay here tonight, then after that to rebuild the caliper & the rear master cylinder… and follow that up with a braided stainless-steel brake line for the rear. But that’s all good stuff to come. I must say that it felt a little weird with no back brake and a front brake that didn’t work all that great. I don’t like the idea of no rear brake for the concern of forming a bad habit of not using it.
Oh! The clutch felt good, so I’m happy about that. It doesn’t seem at this point anyways, that I need to worry about updating my clutch, so that’ll be a money saver 
A weird sensation that I felt was that it seemed like the bike was always trying to turn left just a little bit. I am not 100% sure that the handlebars that I put on it (take-offs from my dirtbike) are even straight, they look like they are… maybe they are slightly bent & causing this left turning sensation? Another suspect is my steering-stem bearings. I know that they need attention because it is almost like the bike has a steering dampener on it. Well in the sense that there is a notch or a sticky spot for lack of a better word, when you turn the bars left to right. When the bars are straight, it takes a little effort to get the handlebars to turn, once free from straight, they turn easily. So maybe this stuck or dead spot, is actually not totally straight, maybe it is slightly to the left. I’ll likely be updating my steering stem bearings, instead of just re-packing them.
As I said, I just went around my block, so I kept doing right turns at the intersections. I had a hard time keeping the bike running when I came to a stop… often times the bike stalled & I would have to keep restarting it. So after my ride & I pulled back in my driveway, I wanted to check it over a little & also drain the carbs since I have been warned about these old carbs clogging up much more easily then modern carbs if they sit w/o running for a while. Here I noticed 3 more things.
1. The bike sure has a lot fo smoke coming out from underneath it. But I do know that there is a bunch of old oil & grime on the motor & possible old leaks or something… but it does not leak now as far as I know. So I figure I’ll just keep cleaning, plus when I do start to ride it, hopefully this’ll just burn off.
2. I do not think that the charging system is working 
My battery died eventually from all of the restarts. So at this point, I have no idea what is the cause of this… I of course am hoping for no major costs to get it working.
And finally 3. The fuel petcock on this bike makes no sense to me. I do not know which way the lever is actually pointing… plus there is no “off” on the petcock. There is ON (should be obvious what that means), there is RES (this should be Reserve of course), and finally there is PRI. What does PRI mean? My guess is Prime or Primer? But that doesn’t make any sense to me. I was trying to turn the fuel off so I could drain my carb float bowls. I finally managed to get them to stop draining by leaving the petcock set to ON… but how does ON mean OFF? and Again, which direction it the lever even pointing, there are no markings as far as I can see. But here comes the real kicker! When I had the carbs done drainging, I tried to start the bike to make sure that they were empty of fuel… and the bike fires right up & runs as it jsut was. I even revved it for a bit just in case there was some fuel left in the carbs, but it just kept running. That confuses me, the carbs appear to be empty, so I assume that the fuel is shut off, so how does the bike keep running? If the fuel is not shut off, how come the carbs quit draining? So I am going to have to do some Internet searching and/or ask around on this fuel petcock scenario… If anybody out there can educate me on what I feel should be a simple thing, please do! But yes! It felt damn good to take the bike for a spin & I look forward to getting the bike on the road again.
Updated: 9-4-07
OK, I did a little research on the Internet & I believe that I have figured out the fuel petcock on this thing… sure is different then what I’m used to.
ON = The fuel pours out when the motor is running, the running motor causes a vacuum pressure to allow the gas to flow. And when the motor shuts off, then the gas no longer flows when the petcock is set to ON, since the vacuum pressure is gone when the motor stops.
PRI = Prime. This setting allows the gas to flow even if the motor is off & there is no vacuum pressure. The idea for this setting is if the carbs are empty of fuel, the bike wouldn’t start, so this allows you to fill the carbs w/o the vacuum pressure.
RES = Reserve. I still haven’t verified if the RES setting behaves just like the ON, in that the fuel will not flow when the motor is off… but I am assuming that it does.
This also goes along with how I was able to drain the carbs with the motor off, when I had the petcock in the ON position. But when I fired up the bike to test if the carbs where empty or not… that it surprisingly fired right up again. This is because my starting of the motor brought back the vacuum pressure & the carbs filled back up.
So for me to drain the carbs like I originally wanted to, all I should have to do is leave the petcock set to ON, turn the bike off & then drain them… w/o me turning the bike back on until I’m ready to ride next time.
This oldschool stuff is both simple, yet sometimes confusing because it’s different then what I’m used to.
