The More I Dig, The Rustier The GS Gets
Tonight I was anxious to dig into the GS a little further. I could see that the swingarm was a little rusty, plus I figured it might be a good idea to grease up the swingarm bearings… actually bearing replacements might be in my best interest… so I pulled the swingarm off since all that was holding it on was the swingarm axle.
Maybe I should just stop tearing the bike apart, because the more that I dig into it, the more rust I find. This bike, the $75 purchase from a co-worker who had the bike sitting in his shed for 15 years, this bike is turning into quite the rust bucket… which is a little discouraging. This reminds me of another co-worker who recommended that I do not get into this project for reasons such as this.
For comparison, you can see in this image the rusty brake-arm that was on the bike, versus the much cleaner brake-arm that I won off of eBay. Notice how little rust & corrosion is on the other piece. This also matches the brake master cylinders… both the front & back master cylinders are full of corrosion. Earlier I was considering to try & rebuild my rear master cylinder… but I have since decided to just buy a nicer piece off of eBay… actually, I’m expecting to win that auction is about 12 minutes from now… I hope.
Something else that I didn’t even notice until I was pulling off the swingarm tonight. Both of my stock silencers on my exhaust have rusted holes near the end of them, on the bottom side. you can kind of see it in a picture on my previous post, the image showing the clearance issue when pulling the rear axle out. Just another example of the GS’s rust problems. Or, another reason to buy that 4-into-1 exhaust 
So yea, as I work my way through my GS Project, I am starting to think that finding an old bike or car that has been sitting in storage behind someones house… that it is not always what it’s cracked up to be…