1980 & 81 GS450S His & Hers Restoration Project

[Guest]

My significant other an I picked up our first set of project bikes a little over a month ago. She has no riding experience other than on the back of mine as a passenger, and I have been riding for close to 10 years on street bikes, and about 20 years of motorsports as a whole as of writing this post. These will be the 3rd and 4th bikes that I have owned, however they will be the first significant projects that I have undertaken, so I am nervously excited.

The bikes are a 1980 Red Suzuki GS450S and a 1981 Silver Suzuki GS450S. They were sold to us by the original owners who bought them when they were younger as his & hers bikes, but have been sitting since about the 90's or so. The red one was unfortunately stored both indoors and outdoors during its lifetime and is going to need significant work done to it, including either an engine rebuild or replacement. The silver one was luckily stored inside for its entire life, so aside from some dryness, corrosion/rust, and some gummed up fuel/oil, it seems all in all decent functional condition.

The goal with both of these bikes is to first and foremost get them running. We intend to get the silver one up and running first so that my significant other can learn to ride and practice on. Once she feels comfortable riding, we will begin the full restoration process of getting everything cleaned up and repainted. Given how much work the red one is going to need to it, I fully intend this to primarily be a winter project and to pull the engine from the chassis to work on tearing it down to see what all is needed. The goal with the red one is the restore it a majority of the way to original, then potentially shift it slightly into a scrambler style build. I also fully expect both of these to take a significant amount of time to complete. But, luckily we've already made some good headway, learned a lot, and even had a good amount of frustration (mostly in sourcing parts!).

It has been quite awhile since I have posted on a forum, let alone keep track of a project with updates and pictures. So I hope you'll follow along, but also be patient with how irregular my updates may be. If interested in getting an update on the project and I haven't posted in awhile let me know below!

I'm incredibly excited to begin working on these and taking on a project that I've never been through before.

 

[Guest]

Ohh, look - A blind date! Nyuck nyuck nyuck nyuck! Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[Nessism]

Good luck with your project.

Sadly, other than the first photo the others are not showing up.

 

[Guest]

Good luck with your project.

Sadly, other than the first photo the others are not showing up.

Fixed! Thank you for the heads up and the luck!

 

[roeme]

You (both?) got your work cut out for you! Looking forward to follow along.

 

[Guest]

Project update #1


Confession here, a lot of this work was done prior to the original post being made simply because I hadn't found this forum until a couple of days ago.

Lots of good progress on these bikes in such a small amount of time (so I keep telling myself since the significant other is not pleased with how often I want to pick up parts to get them going). Neither of these bikes had power going anywhere (even with fresh battery) due to how long they've been sitting. Luckily from what I have found so far, all of the cabling appears to be intact and unmolested! Due to the sheer amount of work needing to be done to the Red one, we are focusing our efforts on the Silver one first to get it up and running hopefully in enough time before riding season is over, so we can take her out to a parking lot and try it out.

So we picked up some initial parts to simply see what it is capable of doing as is. Quick oil change (more like addition) and a new battery and we thought we were ready to see if she would turn over. But alas, no lights. Anywhere. Cleaned up the connection to the battery but still no luck. Starting tracing the wiring back, checked the fuse, all looked good. Well, today I learned that a fuse can be bad even when it's not blown. It appears over time one of the end caps to the main fuse corroded away from the inner fuse line causing there to be no connection. Quick run to the auto parts store, popped in a new fuse and behold!

With that out of the way, next was to try the starter. Key on, ignition switch on, button press, and!..... Nothing. Disappointed, I went through and cleaned up all the connections in the side panel electricals, but still no action when pressing the ignition button. Spent the next few days looking at the wiring diagram and determining which part I thought failed and looking up to see how much it would cost to replace.

After a few days of mulling over what part to buy I decided to go back into the cabling and make sure I didn't miss anything. While doing that I also took the dash apart and got all of the lighting back up and functional. The gear position indicator is a really cool feature on these bikes! My 2014 Triumph doesn't even have that!

While I was in the dash I decided to pull apart the handle controls and check the electricals going through the switches and buttons and wouldn't you know it, there lies my starter problem. The hat on the ignition button was corroded enough to prevent an electrical contact from occurring when pressed. With that taken care of, I finally got to make sure this thing would even turn over...

https://youtu.be/twsT4utKwjQ

Another success! Knowing that the motor turns over is a huge relief to me, as I've never done extensive work on an engine's internals before. Stay tuned for when we get to the red bike. I'll likely be digging into every single component of that engine. At least until it I determine it is out of my league and end up ordering a replacement engine. (The goal is to restore, not replace though!)

So with that crossed off the list, we decided to pop a little fuel in the tank and see if she would start. A couple of turns later and she started right up! Another resounding success!

https://youtu.be/Juw0_MeA-dM

So the stall at the end of that video is entirely expected. We have air boxes for both of the bikes, however after sitting for so long, mice took hold. Neither one of them has a filter currently, and only one has the remains of a top cover for the box which has been chewed through (if anyone has a source for those, I'm all ears!). We have a filter clip and filters on the way, but I know right now it is not getting enough fuel for the amount of air it is receiving. So with that, we called it good for the week, pulled the spark plugs to inspect and replace, pulled the carbs to disassemble and replace orings/gaskets, and did some more general cleanup on the bikes.

Which puts us into the weekend where we took a break on working on these. My task over the last two days has been disassembling the carbs, learning their layout, and giving them a good cleaning. I currently have one of the two carbs completely disassembled and thoroughly cleaned inside and out. Diaphragm is fully intact and pliable, but the other gaskets/rings definitely need replaced. So I put an order in today so we can get it put back together, clean up the other carb in the assembly, then pop it back into the bike and see the results.

In the next post, you'll get to see the results of my cleaning this disgusting mess:

P.S. Bonus picture... Here are the carbs off of the 1980 Red one... Not sure how salvageable these ones will be, and does not give me promise for what the inside of that engine is going to end up looking like...

 

[dorkburger]

Wery cool. I love those 450 E or S bikes. Did they come with the fairings?

 

[Guest]

Wery cool. I love those 450 E or S bikes. Did they come with the fairings?

Side paneling and rear cowl are there for both. Neither have the front front cowl unfortunately. The red one came with an aftermarket paint matched fairing, but it's a bit large for my tastes given the styling of these bikes. I may look at getting a replica front fairing when I get to the point of painting these, but I'm a long way from that.