Wow, it sure has been a long time since I’ve written on the site, but an even longer time since I’ve worked on the GS. Looks like last September since any activity with the bike. Well I am glad to say that I have finally begun working on it again.
Once I have installed the new items that I bought, pretty much all of the safety concerns will be resolved. The items of interest; Tires, Brakes, Chain & Steering Stem Bearings.
Oh, first off, about my carbs… last year when I did ride the bike… I could never get it to idle on it’s own. I believe the problem came down to that the Idle Adjuster is seized up from rust, so I can’t turn up the idle. Well after some reefing & prying, some rust pentrator & a torch… I still haven’t been able to break free the Idle Adjuster. So I brought my carbs to a co-worker of mine, he’s good with the old bikes. I hope that he’ll be able to fix this. He has gotten back to me with an update, letting me know that the actual adjuster is cracked, bent & needing to be replaced. He will likely need to drill it out, re-tap the threads & find or make another adjuster for it. So for the time being, I do not have my carbs, but this is fine since the bike isn’t even ready for the road yet.
Tires
I must say, that I am pretty excited to get my new tires mounted on the rims… they look pretty sweet! I went with Avon RoadRider’s, they have gotten favorable feedback on the GS forums, plus their price wasn’t all that high. the same co-worker who is fixing my carbs, he said that he didn’t really like them when he put one on the rear of his bike… so we’ll have to wait & see…
Oh, the sizes that I went with are; Front 100/90-19 & Rear 120/80-18. The front is pretty much the stock size, but the rear might be slightly wider, but it is also a shorter sidewall, so I’m not sure how the results will be, between looks, handling, bump absorption & etc.
I had planned on removing the old tires & installing the new ones myself, just using tire-irons like when changing dirtbike tires… Then bringing them in only to be balanced. But I gave up after trying to remove the rear tire. I might try again, but I think that I’ll likely just bring them in & have them mounted & balanced at the cycle shop.
There’s been a few things while working on this bike, where I can tell that the engineers back then hadn’t really considered ease of maintenance. For example, to remove the rear wheel, you must remove the rear axle of course… but the exhaust is in the way on both side to actually slide the axle out! What a pain… I really didn’t want to have to remove the exhaust… so after giving it a little thought, it occurred to me to removed the rear shocks, this would allow me to lift the axle & rear swingarm above the exhaust… allowing me to pull the axle out without removing the exhaust. So there’s another reason to get a 4-into-1 exhaust on the bike… they stop before the rear axle, allowing room to remove the axle easily.
Brakes
Well I’m back at working on the brakes again. I plan on removing my Stainless Steel Braided front brake line, and installing that on the rear brake. I feel the length that I used on the front will fit the rear better… I bought a shorter line then to put on the front. Last year, I had rebuilt my front brakes… but never touched the rear. Well yesterday I started looking at the rear master cylinder, it is in almost as rough shape as the front was last year. The brake fluid had mostly dried up & was a brown sludge inside the master cylinder… oh and the piston doesn’t seem to be moving within the rear master cylinder. So that is up in the air, I’m not sure yet if I should try to rebuild this master cylinder, or if I’d just be better off finding a different used master cylinder somewhere?
When I bought the bike, I received a spare rear wheel, the spare had some busted spokes. But the spare did have a brake rotor on it, as well as a sprocket. After comparing the rotors between the two wheels that I have, I found the spare to be in better shape, it has less grooving in it. So I swapped the rotors, giving me the rotor that is in better shape, to be used on the bike when it hits the road again.
Speaking of rotors, I took some emery cloth & sanded my front & rear rotors. I did this hoping to aid in the new pads that I bought in seating better. I’ve never sanded rotors before, but how hard can it be? I just went in different directions then the circular grooves worn in already. Pretty much just made an X pattern in the rotors, kind of like honing as far as I know. The rotors sure cleans up, well brightened up from removing the old crappy surface. I didn’t sand them all that much, the circular grooves are still in the rotors, but you can see my hand “honing” in addition.
So yea, I bought new brake pads, I plan on sanding down the pins that the pads ride on, putting Braided Stainless Steel lines on… hopefully in the end, my brakes will be back working in a safe enough manner. Last fall, I didn’t even have the rear brake mounted on the bike, and the front was barely working… there was good lever pressure, but barely any friction between the old pads & rotor… it was to the point that when I finally slowed down enough, I’d actually put my feet down to stop a couple of feet shorter.
Chain
I had a few options to go with replacing my rusty old 630 chain. I could buy 530 sprockets & convert it down to a 530 chain, or I could just put a 630 chain on it. Well I’m well aware that you are not supposed to put a new chain on old sprockets, but that is what I’ll be doing. I inspected the current sprockets on the bike, they are in pretty decent shape, plus money is tight, and finally, I still see that down the road, I might be installing a different or newer wheel & swingarm on the bike… so that’ll necessitate a different sprocket then. So I’m trying to avoid buying things twice if I can.
Upon removing the old chain, I first hunted out to see if it had a master link, which I did find. But, the pins wouldn’t slide through the links… so I still needed to grind off the heads of the pins to get the master link removed. But in the end, no big deal, the old chain is off & waiting to install the new chain.
Steering Stem
Finally, I need to address the steering stem bearings. There is a very pronounced “catch” when you turn the bars right & left… right in the middle or straight position. Sure, I could possibly just repack the ball beargings & it might be fine. But I preferred to just replace these bearings. With newer technology then 30 years ago, the replacement aftermarket bearings are tapered-roller bearings. But the instructions tell me that I need to have my steering stem machined just a little, so that the top bearing will seat correctly. Fortunately, one of my neighbors works at a machine shop… so my plan is to give him my steering stem & new bearings… I’ll have him do the machining, plus press off the old bottom bearing & then press on the new bottom bearing for me.
In the end, the front end of the bike will be safe, tight, secure & move freely, all on new modern bearings.
Looking at my triple clamps, I see that they are fairly rusty. The lower triple clamp had been covered with this chrome trim piece. I’m pretty sure that when I reassemble the triple clamps, that I will not use the chrome trim piece, I’m not real crazy about chrome. Even though I am anxious to get it back together, I imagine it makes more sense to clean up the triple clamps now & paint them while they are apart, instead of doing it later & then possibly disassembling them again to do it.
Well that’s about it at this point. I still have more work to finish to get the new items mounted on the bike, let alone get my carbs back & installed. After that is all completed, then I should be ready to give the bike another try. There is still a little bit of a question on if the bike will even run reliably, or if there are any still-hidden secrets that will need to be addressed to make the bike reliable enough for daily commuting.
