1981 GS450E Rebuild

[pete]

I also got first coat done on the fork lowers:





And second coat:



And I managed to get the swingarm bushes and spacer degreased, greased, and put back together which means it's starting to look like something resembling a GS again, yay!



My only problem at the moment is that there seems to be something drastically wrong with my swingarm mounting. There's about 2 or 3mm of lateral movement between the sides of the frame, so I'm obviously missing some washers or something. I'll get into the parts fiche and the manual and see what's missing.

[pete]

According to the parts diagram, I'm missing a number 9 on each side... just a washer, but that should fix it. Now I need to get a Saturday where I have access to a car and some spare time. If only bike shops in this city would open on Sunday...

[Macguyver]

Looking spotless Pete!

The frame looks like it was sprayed! Nice work!
I can't wait to see it all together again!
She will definitely be a sweet looking ride, and worthy of much GSR lovin'.

[pete]

Cheers Mac, frame looks good from a distance but up close you can see some brush strokes in a few places, but I'm still happy with it.

I did discover that I managed somehow to miss one spot on one of the fork legs with both coats... don't know how I did that! Oh well, when I'm painting the wheels I can touch that bit up and if I forget, it's on the rear inside of the fork so noone will probably see it anyways...

I'm keen as mustard to get this back on the road, I'm hanging to ride!

Seems like a never ending list of things to do at the moment, but I'm now actually seeing some results which is helping me no end.

[pete]

Well just had a long weekend and unfortunately all I have to report is I've ordered the two washers for the swingarm and the two bleeder screws for the fork legs and they should be in later this week for me to pick up next Saturday.

I had a look at the dealer's fork gaiter stock and they had the sum total of 3 pairs in stock, two of which were obviously dirt bike gaiters as they were waaaaay too long, and the other pair were a good length, but way too small a diameter.

They were really busy and weren't able to spend much time with me to find some alternatives either, but the guy said he had recently done something similar for an early Honda CB, so if I come back when they're quieter they should be able to help me out.

I also got my wheels and the drum brake all cleaned up with some Marine Clean.

Started cutting the footpeg/exhaust mounts but ran out of time before I could start polishing.

I now have some pitting on the fork sliders as well as the footpeg/exhaust mounts to take care of also.

No pic's this time I'm afraid, had less than 2 hours all weekend to do stuff, so pic's were low on the priority list.

[davidduarte]

Cheers Mac, frame looks good from a distance but up close you can see some brush strokes in a few places, but I'm still happy with it.

I did discover that I managed somehow to miss one spot on one of the fork legs with both coats... don't know how I did that! Oh well, when I'm painting the wheels I can touch that bit up and if I forget, it's on the rear inside of the fork so noone will probably see it anyways...

I'm keen as mustard to get this back on the road, I'm hanging to ride!

Seems like a never ending list of things to do at the moment, but I'm now actually seeing some results which is helping me no end.

Once you start riding it again, it will get all covered with road grime, and no one will notice

[pete]

Yes indeed I hope it does! Coz that means I'll be riding of course

We'll ignore the fact that I'm expending hours of energy to get rid of nearly 30 years of road grime currently...

[pete]

Received the 'phone call today... your parts have arrived

So as long as they're the right ones and as long as the work phone doesn't ring all weekend I should be able to pick them up on Saturday and maybe have my swingarm mounted properly by the end of the weekend.

Might even have some polished up fork sliders ready to roll also.

If I get to the dealer early enough, they may have time to look at some gaiters for me too as I was able to hunt down some part numbers...

[Scott W]

That's great Pete. Forward progress Keep the pics coming.

[pete]

Well here's hoping for some more time on it tomorrow.

I went in to the dealer today and picked up my screws (for the forks) and washers (for the swingarm) and this time managed to remember to take one of my fork legs in also.

Checked some part numbers I found for Honda CL350 and 450 gaiters and Suzuki GT380 gaiters, and all way to expensive at $60 - $80 each; that's $120 - $160 per pair!

After I picked myself up off the floor the guy told me they'd just had new aftermarket stock arrive this week...

I looked and yay! Got my fork leg and tried for size and they should go on nicely. My only concern is they're 250mm long and the fork apparently has 140mm travel, so hopefully that will be ok, but for $20 for the pair I'm more than happy to try

I also picked up some 15w fork oil so I can get them back together.

[pete]

More Progress Finally!

Finally got some more done yesterday after not being able to get to do anything with it for the last few weekends...

Firstly, here's what I brought back from the dealer the other week along with the washers and screws:



So the first thing I did yesterday was to get my polishing station working and polish up part of the rear brake arm:



And also the footpeg and exhaust brackets:



I finished up the fork stanchions as well and you'll see them in a bit.

There is still some pitting on the brackets that you can't really see in the photos, but I couldn't seem to get the balled up aluminium foil to do anything about them, I must be doing something wrong with that. At least that's something I can tackle later.

Once the brackets were done, I could get the swingarm mounted up properly with the new washers too, and it all nows looks and feels good:



Next up I pulled out the triple clamps and the rear brake shaft that links the brake pedal to the actuator and gave them all a good soak in marine clean and degreased the steering head bearings:



The bearings still looked good to me, good easy rolling and no obvious flat spots or anything, so packed in marine grease and back together again with everything finger tight for the moment:

[pete]

Now usually with this level of success, I'd be running out of time. However I still had some!

So, onto assembly of the forks... and done as far as getting the stanchions, damper rods, springs, and gaiters on, but no fork oil yet and the cap bolts are just finger tight to keep everything in place. I also need to get those cap bolts on the polishing wheels because they're quite bad:



And those gaiters are an absolute perfect fit, I don't think it's possible to get anything to fit better unless it was designed for it. I had to trim about 10mm off the sleeve on the bottom, but that's it, I didn't even have to struggle to get them onto the stanchion or lower, the diameter is just right:



I even found I had enough time to get the forks slid into the triple clamps and finger tighten the bottom clamp bolt to see how it will look:



So that's where it sits now, and next up will be starting on sanding and painting the wheels and and drum brake housing along with getting some fork oil in the forks, cleaning up the cap bolts and headlight ears, then getting the forks and steering head on and set properly.

On a side note, my birthday's come and gone and I managed to get a $100 Bunnings gift card and another $100 so I see a torque wrench and some Japan Industrial Standard screwdriver bits in my future

[davidduarte]

looks like it's coming along nicely. I can't wait to see you get it back on the road!

[Ricko19]

Fantastic job mate - great to see her starting to take shape WIsh I could do half that stuff myself

Can't wait to see her back on the road - great thread!

[pete]

Cheers guys, I can't wait to get it going either!

It feels real good to see some results and to get some sense of accomplishment even though it's not all done yet.

And Ricko, if I can do this, anyone can... all I know about this side of bikes is reading my Haynes manual, asking questions here on the forum, and using plain old common sense. My biggest challenge will be getting the motor back together as I'm finding the thought of that quite intimidating at the moment.