1985 GS450L warmed over

[Macmatic]

I picked up this GS450L about two years ago as a basket case. The bike was low mileage (under 9,000) and complete but also completely apart, down to the suspension and engine being off the frame. At least most everything was bagged & tagged when I got it and the few missing parts I already had on hand.

I started on it last Fall and finished up this Spring and so far I've put 15.4 glorious miles in it... runs good but I'm trying to figure out if this whining noise I keep hearing is normal or a problem developing. Basically I gave it a going over as I reassembled the bike but I did do a few mods here and there.

Carbs are cleaned, painted and rebuilt with black wrinkle caps, silver bodies and black bowls. The engine case covers are also wrinkle finish and I repainted the cylinders and head in engine black with a file finish on the outside fins.
I rebuilt a set of GS550M forks so it's ready to have a dual disk setup bolted on, stripped the finish on the lower legs, smoothed out the surface and then did a brushed finish with baked on caliper clear paint over that. Internally they have whatever springs were in them which I think may have been progressives...or stock, plus a set of knockoff cartridge emulators and a preload spacer of about 1". These forks are about 1/2in shorter if I remember correctly.

I did my caliper carrier rebushing mod and installed a stainless brake line with a rebuilt master cylinder and carrier.
Put on new bars to replace those insane elk horns and managed to get away with creative cable routing, adjusted the valves and gave it a new filter & oil, did the coil mod and cleaned up all the grounds.. so far so good but no money to track down a Honda R/R for it yet. I still need to pick out some mirrors but it's pretty much done for now. Another 100mi or so of shakedown runs and it'll be off to its new life as a First Bike.

Oh yeah... I'm building a faux foot rest setup to protect the cases when the bike gets dropped in a driveway or has a low speed dump. I'm building a small box section to bolt between the engine mounts with two downward and forward facing arms. Those will slide into a slotted piece of pipe and get welded together and then some BMX footpegs are going to be in the ends of the pipe, connected by all-thread. I figure this will stiffen the frame a little with the box between the front mounts and offer some protection in minor spills but still probably "give" before the frame gets tweaked by folding or breaking off the bmx foot peg.

I'm okay with the seat


P1050821 by Pnoder, on Flickr


P1050823 by Pnoder, on Flickr

 

[Guest]

Mate that's well done! :clap:

Neat little custom touches to make it all yours, very tidy indeed!

 

[Macmatic]

Thanks Pete!

There is more I want to do to it but I'm not going to spend more time prettying up a "first bike" until it's past at least it's first season. I've sold it to a buddy of mine for a song with the agreement that I get to buy it back at the same price if he decides not to keep riding or moves up to a bigger bike. So, I always have first refusal if he ever sells it...
We've talked about a few other mods down the line later this year or over the winter. #1 is cutting up a GS500 header to fit (I know, port direction) and wrapping that in header wrap to cover the patched together outer tube, building a new seat, shortening/replacing the rear fender, a fork brace and a 520 chain conversion.

For right now though it looks pretty good and goes great for a 450. A little flat on top but I'm not used to the small engine for the 6th gear so I'm not making any changes until I do some plug chops.

The knockoff cartridge emulators work great so far. I might play with the preload adjustment on them or the oil level if I were going to ride the bike because they might be a little soft but I'm going to let the 80lb lighter new owner see what he thinks.

/\/\ac

 

[herostar]

Looks good!

What is this "coil mod" you're speaking of?

Why would you do a 520 conversion?

 

[Macmatic]

Looks good!

What is this "coil mod" you're speaking of?

Why would you do a 520 conversion?

Hi Herostar,

The coil mod or coil relay mod has been covered on this forum many times over the years and is probably easy to find detail on with a search. The short version is that it's a simple wiring change to use direct battery voltage (via a fuse and relay) to the coils rather than run the power through the 20+ year old wiring. The reason for this is that the voltage tends to drop off, it may have been perfect when it left the factory but corrosion, poor repairs and frayed wires can all add up to significant voltage loss. If I remember correctly I was dropping about 2 volts between the battery and coils with the OEM setup.

You can check your voltage at the coils by measuring between one of the Orange coil wires and battery ground. It SHOULD be the same as between battery + and battery - directly. If it was me I wouldn't bother if you're losing less than a volt, if you're losing more the mod takes under an hour to do a nice, neat job and can be done quick'n dirty in about 10 minutes once the tank and covers are off.

The 520 conversion is mostly just because. I think it has slightly lower resistance and lower weight which isn't going to hurt anything. I'm going to do the same conversion on my GS750EF for the same reasons and to allow clearance for wider rear rim and tire swap coming up when my Avon's wear out.

/\/\ac