H
HogsRear
Guest
Hey guys, this is my first post on here but I have been cruising this forum for the past month since I bought my first bike. I picked up a running (but not running well) 1977 GS550 with 34k miles off of Craigslist last month and have been working to bring back up to spec since.
It looks to be almost totally stock (with the addition of that killer sissy bar
) which is cool for me as it will serve great for a learning experience. I don't have a mechanical background at all, but I wanted to buy a bike I could learn to work on.
The good news is overall it's not in too bad a shape externally for having this many miles. Engine casings are dinged and scratched as is to be expected but the chrome and wheels especially look great. The exhaust doesn't show too much rust either. I had the compression checked and it is all in good shape thankfully. However, upon getting it home and in the garage, I quickly found out the air filter element was missing (it actually looked like it had withered away as there were some foam chunks sitting at the bottom). I figured that and the poor sealing on the air box lid could probably be a well enough reason to mess with the carbs and affect the engine running properly.
Since then, I have done the following:
- new battery (starter seems to work fine, but I have no idea if there are any other electrical issues)
- oil & filter change
- new Uni stock air filter element installed
- old gas drained (tank looks ok), new gas put in
- pulled the carbs out, gave them a few day long dip in PineSol, have yet to reassemble (with new gaskets & o-ring kit from www.cycleorings.com)
- pulled airbox out and cleaned all the crap that was in it (not as bad as I thought)
Current To-Do's:
- reassemble and reinstall the carbs and airbox
- check the valves (learned that this should be done after a short search on the forums)
The goal as of now is just to get it running well in it's current shape before I choose to do any other mods or upgrades. Open to any other suggestions for things to check or change. This forum has proven to be one of the most valuable tools I could find in everything I have done so far, so thanks and cheers!
It looks to be almost totally stock (with the addition of that killer sissy bar
) which is cool for me as it will serve great for a learning experience. I don't have a mechanical background at all, but I wanted to buy a bike I could learn to work on. The good news is overall it's not in too bad a shape externally for having this many miles. Engine casings are dinged and scratched as is to be expected but the chrome and wheels especially look great. The exhaust doesn't show too much rust either. I had the compression checked and it is all in good shape thankfully. However, upon getting it home and in the garage, I quickly found out the air filter element was missing (it actually looked like it had withered away as there were some foam chunks sitting at the bottom). I figured that and the poor sealing on the air box lid could probably be a well enough reason to mess with the carbs and affect the engine running properly.
Since then, I have done the following:
- new battery (starter seems to work fine, but I have no idea if there are any other electrical issues)
- oil & filter change
- new Uni stock air filter element installed
- old gas drained (tank looks ok), new gas put in
- pulled the carbs out, gave them a few day long dip in PineSol, have yet to reassemble (with new gaskets & o-ring kit from www.cycleorings.com)
- pulled airbox out and cleaned all the crap that was in it (not as bad as I thought)
Current To-Do's:
- reassemble and reinstall the carbs and airbox
- check the valves (learned that this should be done after a short search on the forums)
The goal as of now is just to get it running well in it's current shape before I choose to do any other mods or upgrades. Open to any other suggestions for things to check or change. This forum has proven to be one of the most valuable tools I could find in everything I have done so far, so thanks and cheers!
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), ask yourself how lucky you feel. :-k
