First road bike - 1982 GS550L

[rphillips]

I'm with Block, they look, though you can't tell till you ride with them, likee they should be good. The bar makes little difference, but personally I like chrome.

 

[Nessism]

Ok I was looking in the back of that file like you said. It's further up. Why can't you just put shims in there rather than sand down the original part? I guess either way would work.

Dude, I wrote that instruction tutorial. I'm trying to help, but you have to read what's there.

Reducing the thickness of the plastic spacer on top of the needle clip results in a richer mixture. Old plastic spacer can be sanded down or replaced with a washer stack thinner than original spacer.

 

[cdahl383]

Dude, I wrote that instruction tutorial. I'm trying to help, but you have to read what's there.

Reducing the thickness of the plastic spacer on top of the needle clip results in a richer mixture. Old plastic spacer can be sanded down or replaced with a washer stack thinner than original spacer.

I worked a 15 hour day that day when we were talking on here. I was just taking mental breaks checking the forum. My brain was shot.

Whenever I get the carbs off and apart I'll reread that tutorial again.

 

[cdahl383]

Lucky for you stator covers are easy to come by…

Bars are highly personal, I get that. I’m tall and lanky so the elkhors never suited me… anyway as promised I dug up a couple of pictures of the ex’s old bike with the dirt bike style bars, the cross bar was odd to me at first but coming from a dirt bike background, she loved them. I will say that the height, width and pullback were fantastic on that bike. That said, it’s the only L I’ve ever ridde and again, it’s a personal thing for sure… you’ll be the best judge at the end of the day.

Having had a heap of these… recommend hunting everywhere for air leaks before playing with jetting. I could go on about this all day…But the short version: the usual suspect method never worked for me. Now I start at the exhaust and work my way back to the snorkle. Every gasket, every joint, every bit of rubber. They are all guilty until proven innocent lol…
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Good idea on the air leaks. Typically with air leaks I've had issues with idling and hanging idles, etc. This bike doesn't really seem to do that at all. It idles nicely and comes back down to idle after letting off the throttle. Regardless, I'll keep that in mind and look it over.

I have several dirtbikes so I'm used to riding a bike in a more upright position. It took some getting used to riding this GS. That said, while I like the current bars I just put on, I think they're almost a bit too low and come back too far for my comfort. I ordered a different set off of Ebay that I'm going to try that come up higher and not as far back. I agree with you, bars are subjective, what one person may like another may hate.

The photos of your old bike look great. Nice clean looking bike!

 

[scratch]

Good idea on the air leaks. Typically with air leaks I've had issues with idling and hanging idles, etc. This bike doesn't really seem to do that at all. It idles nicely and comes back down to idle after letting off the throttle. Regardless, I'll keep that in mind and look it over.

I may have let my past frustrations run away with me on those air leaks... and I'm not discounting the value of needle shimming... I just like to get to a nice factory baseline first if possible.
via a thorough,meticulous air/fuel workdown. On the bright side, getting there is pretty satisfying.

The photos of your old bike look great. Nice clean looking bike!

I can't take credit for it, it was an ex's bike and she put it together from boxes of parts and a roller. She went through all the fuel/air headaches, jetting for the pipes rebuilding all the brakes and so on etc... The only thing I can take credit for was not getting in her way and locating a matching left side cover...

Anyway, good hunting my man!

 

[cdahl383]

I may have let my past frustrations run away with me on those air leaks... and I'm not discounting the value of needle shimming... I just like to get to a nice factory baseline first if possible.
via a thorough,meticulous air/fuel workdown. On the bright side, getting there is pretty satisfying.



I can't take credit for it, it was an ex's bike and she put it together from boxes of parts and a roller. She went through all the fuel/air headaches, jetting for the pipes rebuilding all the brakes and so on etc... The only thing I can take credit for was not getting in her way and locating a matching left side cover...

Anyway, good hunting my man!

It's a nice looking bike for sure!

I just took mine out again for a ride yesterday. I put another set of new bars on the bike. These I really like. Much more comfortable than the other bars I installed. Just did a short 25 mile ride around near my home on some country roads. It started and ran well. It just needs the carbs dialed in a little better. We have maybe two more weeks of riding weather left if that. I'm just going to ride the bike as much as I can now and then mess with the carbs over the winter and into spring.

 

[cdahl383]

I tried adjusting my fuel screws the other day. I found they were all set at about 2 1/4 turn out. I turned them out to 2 3/4 turn out and the bike seemed to run better. Idled better and more steady, no more delayed drop in RPM at idle, and seemed to run smoother going down the road while cruising as well.

How many turns out are most of you running for your fuel screws? I read in that tutorial to start at 2.5 turns out and adjust from there. I was thinking I might try 3 turns out and see how the bike responds. Looks like 4 turns out is the max before needing to step up to a bigger pilot jet.

I'm thinking maybe the bike would benefit from shimming the needle up some more as well. The previous owner said he already did that, but I don't know how exactly he accomplished that or how much he shimmed it. I've got about a week or two left of ride time before it gets too cold. I'll have to wait until next spring to mess with it at that point.