Am I throwing good money after bad money

[brower]

I purchased my gs1100e last year and put some miles on with little trouble last year. However, this year I have had more trouble and it seems like more is on the way.

My spring tune up included:
New clutch springs
New Avon Road Rider tires
New Stator
New plugs and caps
Polished cases
re-jetting
minor electrical work
National Cycle deflector DX fairing

However, this year the problems include:
leaking oil AFTER new gaskets and a tune up.
The carbs seem to not be syncing propery.
The gas tank is leaking, not horribly but will require ~100 dollars to fix. Due to the problems with the individual K&N pods I'm going to find an original air box.
The battery is not charging
I am having troubles with the bike popping out of gear (third to be precise)
It is VERY difficult to downshift on certain occasions.
Possible fried oil pump

Purchase price was $1800 + $1100 for tune up and tires and windshield.
THe bike has given me multiple problems on rides over 4 hours, such as over heating and running rough.

I was planning on riding to Maine and Canada this summer but not after what has happened so far. As my only sorce of transportation I am wondering if I'll be having continued problems. I'm not against stringent maintanence but I do have a problem with unreliability. Unfortunalty, trade in value for this bike is ~$1000 and I do not want to keep throwing money at the 'pit'.

Please let me know if any of you fellows have had an issue such as this and if I'm close to having it resolved or if I should look at this as 'learing experience'. I am leaning toward selling it to recoup as much money as I have spent and buying a V-Strom 1000.

Let me know.
Brower

 

[Buffalo Bill]

Maybe not the right bike for you.

Maybe not the right bike for you.

Don't drag a cross around, sell the bike to one of the guys on this site. You're not cut out for DIY.

 

[rapidray]

I have to agree with Bill here. It just doesn't seem like your heart is in this bike. Those of us that love & work on them KNOW there are things that have to be addressed & we always see the light at the end of the tunnel. I hope you find a bike that you can afford that is newer & more suited to you not having to work on. Good luck, Ray.

 

[posplayr]

I bought my 1100ED for $1400

I bought my 1100ED for $1400

an quit counting on the upgrades/rebuilds after I had put over $5K on top of that.

No, keeping a 25 year old 1100E bike on the road this is not cost effective, so you better enjoy the process because it will cost you.

If you want a rider 1100E you probably should have spent $2500-$4000 on a low mileage well maintained bike (they come up every so often here) and figured to still do some basics.

There are some guys that are good enough pulling things apart and know things well enough that they can avoid swapping things out unless they really need it. On the other hand, I figure once I'm in there I'm going to swap any wearing parts or rubber just so I know it is fresh and I dont want to go in again anytime soon.

If you have to pay someone do do that work for you, well that really doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you have money to burn and know someone that is good to work on your bike.

Like Bill and Ray say, a newer bike might be best, and you just need to cut your losses.

Pos

 

[reddirtrider]

Are you paying a mechanic to do the work?

Popping out of 3rd sounds bad. The rest is fairly easy, but to work on the transmission you need to split the cases.

I'm not going to give you a figure on what it will cost to fix this bike to be reliable. My estimates are always low, just ask my wife.

 

[posplayr]

I am having troubles with the bike popping out of gear (third to be precise)
It is VERY difficult to downshift on certain occasions.
Possible fried oil pump

After reading about replacing tires maintenance I over looked this.
Belly up to the bar with splitting the cases or cut your losses.

Pos

 

[spyug]

In a word yes....if you're paying to get the work done.

Old bikes are not going to be as reliable as a new ride and, in the main, they will require substantially more maintenance and upkeep.

As mentioned, for most of us, they are a labour of love. True we bought them to ride and we do enjoy that immensely but wrenching is a big part of the fun for us. We know and accept the pitfalls of these bike and enjoy the challenges they throw at us from time to time.

For me personally I enjoy bringing back to life something that has started to rust away. They also bring me back to a simpler time when owners could and did fix their own machines of whatever kind. The satisfaction of making something work again cannot be beat.

If you want to ride and never wrench, buy something new. If on the other hand you want to challenge yourself, learn new things and do it yourself get a manual and get your hands dirty. Otherwise, cut your losses now and pass it on to someone who wants to sort it out.

Good luck with your decisions.

Cheers,
Spyug.

 

[brower]

Thanks for your insight. Anyone who's interseted in buying the bike let me know. I'll look to sell it in the wanted section of this sight

 

[schlyme]

i have to say i agree with the rest of the guys. although i did get mine for free, i have put $1500 into it and still need to redo the seat, maybe rear shocks. as far as mods i plan to give it the bandit swing arm swap i've heard of here . i also want to swap out the front forks, maybe also to a bandit fork assembly.i figure while i'm doing the mods i can do a frame off resto. labor of love indeed

 

[SqDancerLynn1]

Our old GS bikes are not necessarly unreliable. I have put 20K + on my 850 with nothing more that maintance. That is not including the first 6 months to redo the neglect she had suffered. They need to be redone when first purchased like any old bike.
Their in lies the problem, if you are good with wrenches it can be very rewarding to bring an old bike back to life. If you have to pay someone to do the work it gets too expensive. Thats reason many of them have sat idle for 15-20 years. Your $1100 repair would have cost less than $400 if you did it yourself
Even new bike need service work!!!

 

[gsgeezer]

Your $1100 repair would have cost less than $400 if you did it yourself
Even new bike need service work!!!

Doing lots of work on it yourself saves $$$, alright.
Thanks to all the info here and the helpful forum members, it has been kind of fun to work on mine. If you don't enjoy working on it, though, selling might be an option....

 

[twistedwankel]

As my only sorce of transportation I am wondering if I'll be having continued problems.
Let me know.
Brower

You live in NEOhio and this is your "only" transportation?

Wow. That really sucks. The snow belt on a 1WD is a killer (impossible to ride 4 months). I would be looking for a good used car for that $2500 and use the bike for fun only on weekends and summer trips.

 

[tkent02]

Please let me know if any of you fellows have had an issue such as this and if I'm close to having it resolved or if I should look at this as 'learing experience'.

No, it sounds like you are stuck with this problem.
You're not cut out for it.

 

[tejasmud]

Don't want to have to put money into a bike..........:lol:

Impossible.

 

[Gimpdiggity]

I have to agree with everyone else here. I don't think you're really cut out for this bike, because you want it to work for you without you doing any work for it.

I fail to see the logic in complaining about carb sync issues when one of the things you did to the bike last year was throw pods and a jet kit on it. Pods are absolute beasts on any bike to get tuned right...especially in a place like Ohio, where when you wake up it's 45 degrees but by noon it's 83 and muggy. It's like Michigan. Tuning my other bike for pods was an absolute PITA, but I eventually got it to the point where it's "good enough" and gave up on trying to make it perfect. Sure, I got it perfect...when it was 38 degrees outside one April afternoon...but then three weeks later I was running rich again when it was 77 outside.

I, for one, bought my GS for two reasons:
1. I wanted a bigger bike to ride around.
2. I NEEDED something to work on, wrench on, modify, whatever.

I have a Ninja 250 that is as race prepped as a 250 can get. There are litereally ZERO parts for it left for me to buy. And I hate to say it, but the joy of owning that bike went downhill pretty quickly when I didn't have SOMETHING to wrench on with it. Sure, there are a couple of parts that I could still throw on, but I've had them on it before and didn't enjoy them, so there's no point in putting those parts on if I don't actually like them at all.

Now I have the GS, and I've enjoyed working on it immensely. I've put some new seals and gaskets in. I've done some body work and paint. I've done some modifications to the bars and lights. I've done a new seat. I've done a new seat cover. I've polished and cleaned. This weekend I'm doing a carb super clean and rebuild, along with intake boots and cam chain tensioners.

I agree 100% with what Lynn said up above...these bikes were sitting and not being ridden for a reason. More than likely that reason was because someone didn't want to do, and couldn't afford to have done, some piece of maintenance that needed to be done. The first few months worth of ownership and repairs SHOULD take care of quite a few of the major concerns, and then you'll be back to just routine maintenance...which may seem like more than a new bike, and it is, but think about it this way...20 years ago routine maintenance was a lot more involved than it is on ANY brand new engine.

Also, if you can't, or don't want to, do the work on your own, then it is probably just best to let this bike go. I noticed you mentioned that you started having an oil leak after a tune up and new gaskets. Which gaskets?? Where is the leak coming from?? Do you even know if it's one of the gaskets that was replaced that si leaking??

The ONLY thing that I won't do to my own bikes is mount tires...and I only don't do that because I don't have any feasible way to balance them, and I don't have any easy way to break the bead on a tire without damaging the rim. EVERYTHING else I do myself...and if I can't do it myself, I seek out help on a message forum for anything from advice and how-tos to actually asking someone local to come and give me a hand for a case of beer.

Good luck with whatever you do...

 

[TheCafeKid]

I have to agree with everyone else here. I don't think you're really cut out for this bike, because you want it to work for you without you doing any work for it.

I fail to see the logic in complaining about carb sync issues when one of the things you did to the bike last year was throw pods and a jet kit on it. Pods are absolute beasts on any bike to get tuned right...especially in a place like Ohio, where when you wake up it's 45 degrees but by noon it's 83 and muggy. It's like Michigan. Tuning my other bike for pods was an absolute PITA, but I eventually got it to the point where it's "good enough" and gave up on trying to make it perfect. Sure, I got it perfect...when it was 38 degrees outside one April afternoon...but then three weeks later I was running rich again when it was 77 outside.

I, for one, bought my GS for two reasons:
1. I wanted a bigger bike to ride around.
2. I NEEDED something to work on, wrench on, modify, whatever.

I have a Ninja 250 that is as race prepped as a 250 can get. There are litereally ZERO parts for it left for me to buy. And I hate to say it, but the joy of owning that bike went downhill pretty quickly when I didn't have SOMETHING to wrench on with it. Sure, there are a couple of parts that I could still throw on, but I've had them on it before and didn't enjoy them, so there's no point in putting those parts on if I don't actually like them at all.

Now I have the GS, and I've enjoyed working on it immensely. I've put some new seals and gaskets in. I've done some body work and paint. I've done some modifications to the bars and lights. I've done a new seat. I've done a new seat cover. I've polished and cleaned. This weekend I'm doing a carb super clean and rebuild, along with intake boots and cam chain tensioners.

I agree 100% with what Lynn said up above...these bikes were sitting and not being ridden for a reason. More than likely that reason was because someone didn't want to do, and couldn't afford to have done, some piece of maintenance that needed to be done. The first few months worth of ownership and repairs SHOULD take care of quite a few of the major concerns, and then you'll be back to just routine maintenance...which may seem like more than a new bike, and it is, but think about it this way...20 years ago routine maintenance was a lot more involved than it is on ANY brand new engine.

Also, if you can't, or don't want to, do the work on your own, then it is probably just best to let this bike go. I noticed you mentioned that you started having an oil leak after a tune up and new gaskets. Which gaskets?? Where is the leak coming from?? Do you even know if it's one of the gaskets that was replaced that si leaking??

The ONLY thing that I won't do to my own bikes is mount tires...and I only don't do that because I don't have any feasible way to balance them, and I don't have any easy way to break the bead on a tire without damaging the rim. EVERYTHING else I do myself...and if I can't do it myself, I seek out help on a message forum for anything from advice and how-tos to actually asking someone local to come and give me a hand for a case of beer.

Good luck with whatever you do...

Easy as pah...well most of the time. Get a big ass C clamp to break the bead with, and a pair of tire spoon/irons whatever you want to call em, and a couple of jack stands. Break the bead, pry the tire off, install the new one, balance with the axle of the wheel on the two jack stands....

Well, it generally is pretty easy, tho Steve and I have had a bear of a time with a couple as well..