Cylinder Head is off, Now What?

[Don-lo]

Ryan, the lowest gasket (under the cylinders) is the base gasket. If you have broken that loose, then you will need to pull the cylinders, scrape off the old gasket (difficult, usually), and replace base gasket, teardrop o-rings, and big o-rings around the cylinders. Your original post said the oil leak was in the head gasket, which is the one above the cylinders. As blokv1100 says, it takes attention and patience to slide the cylinders back on, so be careful. Since your compression is so good, I wouldn't mess with the rings or honing. These bikes are keepers, so I would just ride it for 3-5 years, at which time a 1085 piston kit would be a nice upgrade.

 

[RyanBiggs]

Thanks again everyone. Yeah, speaking of o-rings, just about all of them on this bike that haven't been replaced are hard as a rock, so I'm sure the ones at the cyl. base are no exception. I'll bite the bullet and get an extra pair of hands to help me pull the cylinder block, freshen all the gaskets and o-rings, and hopefully put 'er back together with my good ol' piston rings. I've had this bike for 10 years now, so this is sort of part of an anniversary overhaul. I'll be keeping it for many more!

 

[first timer]

Just a heads up , when you pull the jug 9 time out of 10, the channels of the inner studs will be caked with road grim and dirt, making it a bit of a challange getting the jug out. just take your time wiggle things up down left right and spray the holes alot with wd-40 or the like to loosen up the grim. That should help make the jugs slide up easier. Also if you have a shop vac to suck up as much crud as you can while you are doing this it helps keep it from falling in the engine. Just take your time and be vigilant of the grimp so it doesn't fall into the engine.

 

[tkent02]

Just a heads up , when you pull the jug 9 time out of 10, the channels of the inner studs will be caked with road grim and dirt, making it a bit of a challange getting the jug out. just take your time wiggle things up down left right and spray the holes alot with wd-40 or the like to loosen up the grim. That should help make the jugs slide up easier. Also if you have a shop vac to suck up as much crud as you can while you are doing this it helps keep it from falling in the engine. Just take your time and be vigilant of the grimp so it doesn't fall into the engine.

If the engine is out of the frame you can flip it over so the dirt falls out instead if into the engine.

 

[tomcat24551]

From an article in the August 2000 issue of Motorcyclist about the GS1000S: "When idling below 1000 rpm, most two-valve GS engines emit a metallic slapping or knocking sound. This is caused by the cam-chain design; at low revs, the chain slaps a bit. It's completely harmless, and has a simple cure: ignore it." I swear I had heard about this previously as well. Am I really the only one here with this quirk?

Motorcyclist is probably wrong on this. It's very likely cam endfloat, where the thrust rings on the cams hit the head where the cam bearing caps are bolted to the head. 49er has designed an ingenious fix for the problem and if you PM him he'll probably send it to you. Since you have everything apart, now's the perfect time to cure the problem!

The job does require some accurate measurements and a good machine shop to do some work on the bearing caps.

The fix he's come up with should be made a permanent part of this website, like the carb tutorials!

Tomcat