Kiwi Canuck tries his Luck with a Six Fiddy

[Nessism]

Stunning bike David! You have done an awesome job. In my opinion that's one of the nicest looking GS's on the site here. The 650 is hard to beat!

[simmoto]

Agreed. Your 650 is beautiful. Outstanding job.

[Kiwi Canuck]

Stunning bike David! You have done an awesome job. In my opinion that's one of the nicest looking GS's on the site here. The 650 is hard to beat!

Ed, I feel humbled to be getting that sort of a compliment from you, thank you it means a lot.

David

[Kiwi Canuck]

Agreed. Your 650 is beautiful. Outstanding job.

Thank you for following along and for taking the time to comment on my rebuild.

David

[Kiwi Canuck]

Another shot of the bike from a different angle, we took a few pictures and submitted them for our Annual BC Classic MC Club Calendar.

I'm also replacing some of the photobucket pictures with IMGBOX images, my new hosting service that promises to let me use 3rd party hosting for no charge.

Should get most of them done in the next week or so.

Here's a review on IMGBOX if anyone is interested.

https://www.vyteo.com/2012/01/imgbox/

[busa1300]

Best looking 650 I have ever seen.... I don't think I have ever seen a chain drive 650 in person before, only shaft drives I believe in the states...

[Kiwi Canuck]

Best looking 650 I have ever seen.... I don't think I have ever seen a chain drive 650 in person before, only shaft drives I believe in the states...

Busa, thank you for the complement, you have some pretty nice bikes yourself, especially those 2 strokes. I love the colour of your 72 GT750, always wanted one of those in that exact colour.

Cheers.

David.

[Kiwi Canuck]

For whoever asked about the decal set, I was browsing Z1 Enterprises as I needed a few shims, (they have awesome pricing on the shims) and saw this.

A full set of decals for the 1981 GS 650E for $91.00.

https://www.z1enterprises.com/catalog/product/view/id/10710/s/gs650ex-1981-complete-decal-set/category/482/

Who knew and a very fair price as well, I definitely would have bought that set if I knew about before as it has the elusive SUZUKI decal for the rear tail.

David

[Mr.humbucker]

Thanks, that was me who asked. I found this too shortly after we exchanged pm's. I have recently picked up a rough old 82 GS650G that I will be restoring frame up for my winter project. I will soon start a thread on it for all to see. Figure it is my turn to share the experience as I have really enjoyed seeing what others have accomplished. First order of business is to pick up an airbox which I have arranged to do on a business trip to the UK in a week or so. It is the hunt for parts and the final assembly that makes it all worthwhile!

[Kiwi Canuck]

So it's been a while since I updated here.

The bike had been running, but not well, it would only run on all 4 cylinders once warm and then it would not rev above 6,000 RPM.

I had the carbs off several times and dipped them and then put them one by one into the ultrasonic for another hour or so each.

Same result and I was a bit puzzled as to what the issue was.

A few weeks back I got the urge to get to the bottom of the issue.

I went through the carbs with my new high powered magnifying glasses, they are awesome for carb work.

I went with the ones that focus at 8", there are several focal lengths available, real quality kit and makes close up work a breeze.

https://www.kbctools.ca/default.aspx?page=item+detail&itemcode=1-700D-DA-5&catlist=11774&parent=9779

I found that the main jets were not all the same sizes and that the seat in the needle jet on carb #3 was corroded so was not sealing properly.

Then onto the electrical, I did a resistance check on the primary and secondary of the coils.

I found many issues, plenty of corrosion and one burnt resistor, so I robbed some parts off the Canadian Cooley to make the GS650 ones good and then ordered a new set of OEM caps for my Cooley.

Once the carb parts were in I reinstalled everything and took the bike for a test ride, low and behold the bike was so much better, rode very smoothly and revved to 8,000 plus with no issues.

Man that feels great, I was getting a little down on myself for not being able to figure that out and almost lost interest in getting it completed, but knew I couldn't hand the bike back in that condition.

Glad that's done and I can deliver it proudly.

David.

[Kiwi Canuck]

I also have a reason I needed to get the GS650E to it's new owner, as a new bike has shown up and I need the space.

I tried this bike out when I was at the Horizons Unlimited Travelers Meeting in Nakusp B.C. back in August and loved the ergos, also like the look of it.

I'd never seen one before and it wasn't even on my radar, but when I was at a dealer out my way I saw it again and I managed to get a good enough deal on it to bring it home.

2018 Honda Africa Twin Adventure Sports DCT.




What a fun bike, just love it.

David.

[steve murdoch]

Congrats on the new ride. It looks great.
I rode an early 2000 750cc version and it was fun....while in motion.
It was just too tall for me in getting on and off.

A search says your is close to 34" seat height. Any issues?

[trevor]

Congrats David....very cool bike! Is that the automatic model? If so, how do you like that? I hear very good things about the Auto transmission...just not sure if I could bring myself to riding without changing the gears myself.

Cheers,

[Kiwi Canuck]

Steve, the seat height on the Adventure Sports is adjustable, I have mine on the tall position and I'm 6'2" and have a 35" inseam so can flat foot both feet in the high position.

That was what I loved about the bike as soon as I sat on it, fit me so well as it's a tall bike.

The Standard Africa Twin is a little lower, about 1.5" IIRC.

David.

[Kiwi Canuck]

Trevor, the DCT is something that I was a bit concerned about when I was researching the AT and never thought I would buy the DCT model.

If they had both in the showroom I probably would've bought the standard, but they didn't as this was the last one in BC for sale, so I made the plunge.

After the first few rides and figuring out how to put it into Sport 3 mode I was hooked.

I've not tried manual mode yet, using the thumb paddles on the left handle bar control pod, but I do occasionally use the downshift button to drop a gear when needed.

The DCT encourages me to ride briskly, the gear changes are almost seamless, and I love the auto blip when it's shifting down through the gears, the only gripe is the shift from 2nd to first can be a bit sudden in certain modes.

As most testers have noted, the DCT tends to upshift a bit earlier than a rider would, but that can be overcome by using manual mode or riding in Sport 3 mode.

I sure love the bike as a package and expect that I'll keep this bike a while.

David