1980 GS1000S Reluctant Rebuild

[Nessism]

In order to prime your carbs using the leverless petcock, you first must turn the petcock slot to the appropriate position then draw a vacuum on the vacuum port. A bump from the starter should be all you need to get the fuel to start flowing. The petcocks back cover has a rubber check valve that holds the vacuum once you get that pulse. To turn off the prime turn the slot back to the run position. Problem comes in because the check valve often fails. In order to prime the carbs then you need to crank and crank. I bought a brand new petcock and it was bad right out of the box. Didn't realize until much later though. Everytime the bike sat around for a week or so it took extended and protracted grinding on the starter to fill the float bowls. Not sure if this is the case here but you might want to check.

Good luck

Thanks Mike,
Couldn't find a container suitable to soak the pipes in so I just soaked the short single headers from cylinders #1 and #4.
They just fit into a Rubbermaid bin with a bit of wrangling.

The mufflers were not too bad and I used the polishing/buffing wheel on the parts that needed it, and then finished with Autosol by hand.

On the end caps I used a small stainless brush to clean up the oxidized black paint and it polishes the center part which looks quite good, did the same on the other Cooley set. Thought that new black paint would look too new, so I just cleaned up the existing paint and it looked great so I left it that way.

You can see the end cap in this photo.



Cheers,

Hi Dave

I may have missed this -- did the L pipes fit ok -- any mods required?

[Kiwi Canuck]

Looking great David! What a nice quality job you are doing.

Thanks Trevor, see what you got me into now.


Charlie, Wally has a nice shop alright and plenty of nice machines and tools.
He has a pretty nice lathe and milling machine, but he also has a frame straighten jig and a full powder coat setup that can handle a full size frame as well, pretty impressive.
Good guy to know.

[trevor]

Looking great David! What a nice quality job you are doing.

[Charlie G]

I hate waiting for parts to. Nice shop he has.

cg

[Kiwi Canuck]

Race Relations

I took the swing arm over to Wally Routledge's to help with the removal of the bearing race.

He has a nice set of Snap-on inside bearing pullers, he found the correct sized puller, installed it and then attached his largest slide hammer.

I didn't get any action shots as I needed to hold the swing arm while Wally gave it heck.

Took about 10 -12 whacks and the remains of the bearing race came out very cleanly.


Here is wally setting up the puller, and then attaching the slide hammer.







Here's the bearing race removed, looks like the penetrating oil I used got down the sides as it was nice and oily when it came out and fortunate that it was not seized.


Now I need to wait until I get the new bearing and bushing before I can get it back together, dang I hate waiting.

[Kiwi Canuck]

Your bike is looking great.

Thanks, look forward to seeing your project coming along too.

Cheers,

David

[Kiwi Canuck]

I think with a little stainless steel expanded metal you could use that swing arm for a BBQ. Yea, sometimes the helpful hints that are posted aren't in the most tactful way, but I think they mean well. Nice looking photo of your bike.

cg

Thanks Charlie, I didn't take the comments personally, thought it was perfect advice, as I was being a bit to careful with it.
Thanks for your comments, good to see you are still following along.

Cheers,

David

Your bike is looking great.

[Charlie G]

I think with a little stainless steel expanded metal you could use that swing arm for a BBQ. Yea, sometimes the helpful hints that are posted aren't in the most tactful way, but I think they mean well. Nice looking photo of your bike.

cg

[Kiwi Canuck]

Swing Arm fun

When riding the Boise Beauty lately, I noticed a little wiggle from the rear of the bike in right hand corners, it didn't happen every time but enough to know it wasn't the road surface.

On Saturday I went looking for the issue, and I wanted to cleanup the swing arm as it looked like it had a little damage from battery acid and was just very grimy around the chain area, so a good enough reason to investigate.
I had the Canadian Cooley wheels on the bike and had installed new bearings in them so I knew it was probably not the bearings, unless I'd messed up with installing them.

Did not take me long to see that the problem was the swing arm as it had a lot of play in it.

I did not have any spare parts, so I new if I started to pull it apart I was going to have both Cooley's in pieces, unless I borrowed the swing arm from the CC for my Sunday ride, I would putting the VStrom into service.

Seemed like too much work to get it running so I just rode the VStrom this morning.

Here is how it was left.



Anyway, back to the swing arm job, I removed the nut and took my soft faced hammer and gave the bolt a few raps, but nothing happened. I reinstalled the nut and used a block of hardwood and a bigger hammer, I ended up with my 8lb mini sledge and it was still not budging.

Finally put out a help request under General Maintenance and got some advice which was something like "don't be a pussy, heat it up and hit it properly"
I got out my MAP gas and heated each end of the bolt, trying to protect the paint from burning off the frame, used a washer and a wheel spacer over the bolt.
Then I used a drift and my 8lb mini sledge and hit it very firmly until it finally broke free, but not before I had moved the bike almost 18" across the garage, as it was moving an inch or so every time I hit it.

Never expected that, but good to have managed to get it apart without any damage to me or the bike.

The right hand bearing was seized solid and the bushing had been banging around in there as it was very loose.
I have ordered just one bearing and bushing as the other side is pretty good and the bolt is a little worn where the old bushing was but still usable.

A few pictures of the nicely cleaned swing arm, is that crazy, I could eat my dinner off that.



Here's the good side.



Here's what's left of the bearing race after I removed the insides.



Here's what came out.



Now I need to get the remainder of the race out, I was going to use a Dremel to cut it in sections but our shop Dremel is missing most of it's cutting wheels, so I will drop it off to Wally and he will pull it out with his bearing puller.

Hopefully have the parts here within a week or so as the weather is still looking good here.
Unless I get them locally and pay the premium and have the others as spares when they arrive.

[Kiwi Canuck]

Got the Boise Beauty Running

After the debacle on Sunday, I removed the battery and put it on the charger overnight.
Finally got some time this evening to see what's up with it, as it just wouldn't start after I had adjusted the valves and rebuild the carbs last weekend.
Well tonight I installed the battery and the remote fuel bottle and she fired up instantly, shut her down, reinstalled the tank and buttoned everything up and took her out for a road test.
The warm up took about a minute and was able to ride on the choke if I wanted to, but a little after a minute I pushed the choke in and she ran beautifully.
Nice and crisp all the way through the rev range.

Very nice.

I am stumped as to what caused the problem, only thing I can imagine was by the time the fuel had got through to the carbs the battery was almost dead and didn't have enough spark to start her.

I'll need to check on the clutch as it's a bit grabby and I get a pretty good clunk when I put it into 1st gear.

Other than that she is pretty good.

Oh and I still need to rebuild the front brakes and the ....... yes, I have more work and I'm OK with that.

Thanks to everyone still following my rebuild thread, it's been a blast these last 6 months or so.

I will have some pictures of the completed Canadian Cooley soon.

Cheers,

David.

[Kiwi Canuck]

There is one in my town that the original owner just restored. He found new pipes and a few other things he needed. Have not seen but hinted to his brother I was interested in buying it.

He doesn't seem to want to part with it but people are funny. I'll stay in touch with him. Always loved the S!

Good luck on your project!

w

Thanks and good luck on getting the guy to sell it now that he's restored it. If he's anything like me it would be tough to part with.

Unless you happen to catch him on the right day

[Kiwi Canuck]

Awesome rebuild man! Very impressed.
Got off to a rough start, but it's a thing of BEAUTY now!

Thanks for your comments sneezy

There is one in my town that the original owner just restored. He found new pipes and a few other things he needed. Have not seen but hinted to his brother I was interested in buying it.

He doesn't seem to want to part with it but people are funny. I'll stay in touch with him. Always loved the S!

Good luck on your project!

w