what did you wrench on today??

[Buffalo Bill]

Excellent video, amazing build.
Did not like his method of putting a saw blade on a grinder, no thank you.

[Carter Turk]

Hey Bill, unfortunate about the low side. Off camber so hard parts were closer to the pavement .
Did anything touch to cause the low side? Just curious

[Suzukian]

Excellent video, amazing build.
Did not like his method of putting a saw blade on a grinder, no thank you.

I use a produce called "Alumaloy". I've used it for decades. I've fixed my aluminum ladders, lawn mower engine cases, etc. The stuff is amazing. The way that guy built it up is quite amazing. I usually put a piece of steel behind the surface I want to build up, as it will not stick to steel. I've milled this stuff, when I had to fix an aluminum cylinder head on a car, and you could not see the area I had filled with it. There's an actual exchange of electrons, so this is more than a braze, it's actually binding to the surface on an molecular level. You will be able to grind that as smooth as you wish to without worrying about affecting it.

https://www.alumaloy.com/

[joequesmith]

Washed out my diaper. Onto what appears to be an instrument cluster problem. The coolant temp bounces between cold and over temp. Sensor and wiring to ECM all appear good.

diaper.jpg

[joequesmith]

Inserted a fixed resistor in place of the sensor and the temp indicator is still jumping. Dug out my tablet, plugged it in and the temperature is stable as the cluster's indicator continues to jump.
The cluster uses a basic serial interface. Nothing near as advanced as CAN. The reset of the cluster appears fine so time to pull it. This is the second cluster I have had fail. The tach died on one which turned out to be a bad IC which I can't seem to source. Time to bust out the soldering iron.

This GS is a pretty old but compared with my GS1100E's, it's a rocket ship. ECM, what's that? lol.

cluster.jpg

[joequesmith]

Testing the cluster on my home made simulator.
HIL.jpg

[joequesmith]

I was able to replicate it with the simulator. It's really an odd problem. The simulator drives a fixed signal into the ECM. The logger shows the quantization noise but that's it. The cluster on the other hand just wanders. The other bad cluster had the stepper driver fail. Maybe this is a similar problem. I found a few damaged clusters that I hope to scavenge to repair the two problem clusters. One looks like it was in a fire crash, the other had hardly anything left. As long as the ICs are still alright, I should be able to use the. In the mean time, the last working one was donated to the bike for now.

I wasn't aware TI bought Pierburg, but now that the electronics, fuel pump and motor are sorted, time to start putting it back together.

[bobgroger]

I was able to replicate it with the simulator. It's really an odd problem. The simulator drives a fixed signal into the ECM. The logger shows the quantization noise but that's it. The cluster on the other hand just wanders. The other bad cluster had the stepper driver fail. Maybe this is a similar problem. I found a few damaged clusters that I hope to scavenge to repair the two problem clusters. One looks like it was in a fire crash, the other had hardly anything left. As long as the ICs are still alright, I should be able to use the. In the mean time, the last working one was donated to the bike for now.

I wasn't aware TI bought Pierburg, but now that the electronics, fuel pump and motor are sorted, time to start putting it back together.

Ferrite beads on the signal wires? Suppression ignition wires?

[joequesmith]

Ferrite beads on the signal wires? Suppression ignition wires?

Ferrite would normally be used for higher frequencies. The simulator doesn't really have ignition wires. It uses a custom wound pot core to simulate the coils. The ECM reads the analog signals and then sends that data to the cluster over a digital serial bus. The cluster then decodes that information and drives the various gauges. These are mostly stepper motors. So basically its all digital.

Because it is digital, I can sniff the serial bus with a PC and some software, basically making my own cluster. When I look at the data the ECM sends out, it's fine. Everything on the bad cluster is stable except for the coolant temp.

When the gauge is first powered up, each gauge's needle will go to their maximum position, then to their minimum as a sort of self test. There are no problems during this self test. This particular GS (gen 1, K6) uses the temperature gauge to warn the driver of a problem. Don't ask me why they did it this way. If the check error is displayed, the coolant temperature gauge will read max but the over temp LED will remain off. I guess it was done because the driver may not notice the CHEK on the LCD but the over temp may get your attention. This all seems to work correctly.

In this case, there are no faults and the coolant temperature acts like an analog gauge, moving around.

The tachometer on the other bad cluster is the problem. I can heat the stepper controller and it will start to work but it's not a soldering problem. It appears the IC itself has gone bad. Once I get the junker cluster, I will try and sort it out.

[joequesmith]

Guessing someone died on the bike this one came from. That's some major damage. The circuit board was damaged with several components tore from it. The main controller IC is cracked right down the middle. Still, a lot of good parts and that stepper controller is what I needed to repair the first cluster. Lucky, that side of the cluster was not damaged. The one needing repairs was made prior to them conformal coating the boards. Made it easy to swap out the controller. Appears to be 100% functional now. Plan to let it run for a few hours and then will have a look at the other cluster. cluster1.jpg

[Baatfam]

Changed the oil and filter in our 2011 Dodge Durango....7 quarts of synthetic oil, plus filter.
Went OK, but my drain pans don't hold seven quarts of oil, so I had to use two and swap half way through. Messy.
Also, changing the filter resulted in several cuts from the plastic under tray....Cool!!

[Grimly]

Chasing down the overheating gremlin...
Start from first principles and check ignition timing - I had a suspicion the bob weights were worn or the springs weak. Nope, nothing there - it advances properly at the right time and doesn't advance past the advance mark. However, I found the ignition was slightly advanced statically, so there's that - only about 2 or 3 degrees however.
Back to the carburettion - I'd fitted a fairly rich needle, but it was obviously too rich going by the smells, never mind the AFR (that was ok, actually). Better to err on the side of a bit of richness rather than run it lean for too long, while avoiding the bogey of bore-wash at the same time.
Fitted a leaner needle and it's happier, but won't know for sure until it's out on the road this week.
Checked cylinder compressions - 145, 146, 148, 150psi. All good.
The bugger never overheated prior to the top-end overhaul and there's only one thing majorly different still to change - the Delko exhaust. I have an almost new Motad chrome steel 4-1 that I was saving for a rainy day. Or I could put the old stainless Motad back on it, but the downpipes are paper-thin. Don't anyone believe anybody who tells you stainless doesn't rot away - it does, just takes 30 years to do it.

[joequesmith]

Finished up my cluster repairs. I left the oldest one stock. I forgot how inaccurate these are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epdQlV8dfss

[Suzukian]

Have to Heli-Coil some of the valve cover screw holes on my '83 GS750SE. I think the threads were made of paper. New top cover gasket. I found a used top cover that I am going to have blasted, and have a crinkle finish blue powder coating put on. My son wants to do and pay for it. Similar to what Ferrari. I got the valve cover for $24 bucks!!

[1978GS750E]

Not a bike, but still a special machine to me. I got my late fathers' 1976 Ariens Rocket 7 rototiller running again! It had only been sitting for about 25 years!

Had to replace the points, condenser and carb on it and clean the fuel tank.(Thankfully it is plastic.) After a few minor adjustments it's running as good as new after all these years.



I have lots of good memories of the times we spent together using this machine. Might do a full blown restoration on it this winter.