GS 550L Gets a make over

[Redneck]

Project tragedy has struck! I received a phone call this morning from Adam. He had gone out to the garage and noticed that there was a large puddle on the floor and the garage smelt of gasoline. Sure enough somehow my carbs had leaked all the gas out of the tank. and to top it off the petcock was on off. The true tradgedy is that all the paint was eaten off my chain and sprocket cover and the crankcase. He said it is pretty much bare aluminum. I have not been over to see but will post pictures when I asses the damage.

I am not thrilled about this.

Paul

 

[Toasty]

Aw man, bummer . Hopefully the paint damage isn't too bad.

 

[Guest]

Dang that sucks. And so close to the end too. Good ole Murphy shows up at the worst times. At least nothing blew up!

 

[Flyboy]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.........

Damn, that is terrible news, jeeeeez Paul, I feel so bad for you now, sorry man, I can only just imagine how you must be feeling.

 

[Guest]

Project tragedy has struck! I received a phone call this morning from Adam. He had gone out to the garage and noticed that there was a large puddle on the floor and the garage smelt of gasoline. Sure enough somehow my carbs had leaked all the gas out of the tank. and to top it off the petcock was on off. The true tradgedy is that all the paint was eaten off my chain and sprocket cover and the crankcase. He said it is pretty much bare aluminum. I have not been over to see but will post pictures when I asses the damage.

I am not thrilled about this.

Paul

Awww man! What a bugger!

Repainting the chain and sprocket covers will be easy, crankcase... well... you could potentially get a plastic drop sheet wrapped around everything else to get that repainted.

Sorry to hear it Paul, especially at this point! Hopefully you can recover quickly...

 

[Redneck]

Why we shouldn't take shortcuts

Why we shouldn't take shortcuts

So there we are electricals done. So we spend some time trying to get the carb bowls off without, trying take off the carbs realize its not going to happen so we take off the carbs. Reset the floats, put em back on and apply the gas. No overflow after letting it sit for 15 minutes on prime. Yay the floats are working again, and she is cranking without the choke and idles beautifully and when you rev her up to about 6k it is smooth all the way up and all the way down. Now I know i had set the floats before installing but I must have messed up the math conversion or something because I was useing a standard Depth Michrometer and had to convert the right setting from metric. But that problem is solved. We snaked the chain in from the back of the gear box over the sprocket and back in so we would not have to remove the foot peg gear shifter and side cover to access the sprocet. Hook up the chain cut off the extral links, peen over the rivets on the master link. Life is good to go. We put it in gear to make sure the wheel is turning straight and are preparing to take her off the stand for her first test run. Clunk clunk growl growl. What is that noise. trying to figure that out when Oil comes gushing out from under sprocket cover. Kill the bike. Remove foot peg, remove gear shifter, open sprocket cover. When we snaked the chain through we forgot about the clutch rod. The chain had managed to go out past the sprocket before it curled back and so it was around the clutch shaft and the sprocket. Looking from the back of the sprocket cover this could not be seen. It is now good and bent. Only good news out of this is the seal was not damged just got pulled down a little with the bend in the rod and when we put a little oil back to make up for the spill and ran the engine with the clutch rod out a bit no leaks. All this minutes before the test ride. Lesson to all you kiddies out there don't take short cuts. I think I have a plan for straightening out the rod. Anyway I will post videos of her running and the bent rod this evening when I get home.

Paul

 

[Guest]

So there we are electricals done. So we spend some time trying to get the carb bowls off without, trying take off the carbs realize its not going to happen so we take off the carbs. Reset the floats, put em back on and apply the gas. No overflow after letting it sit for 15 minutes on prime. Yay the floats are working again, and she is cranking without the choke and idles beautifully and when you rev her up to about 6k it is smooth all the way up and all the way down. Now I know i had set the floats before installing but I must have messed up the math conversion or something because I was useing a standard Depth Michrometer and had to convert the right setting from metric. But that problem is solved. We snaked the chain in from the back of the gear box over the sprocket and back in so we would not have to remove the foot peg gear shifter and side cover to access the sprocet. Hook up the chain cut off the extral links, peen over the rivets on the master link. Life is good to go. We put it in gear to make sure the wheel is turning straight and are preparing to take her off the stand for her first test run. Clunk clunk growl growl. What is that noise. trying to figure that out when Oil comes gushing out from under sprocket cover. Kill the bike. Remove foot peg, remove gear shifter, open sprocket cover. When we snaked the chain through we forgot about the clutch rod. The chain had managed to go out past the sprocket before it curled back and so it was around the clutch shaft and the sprocket. Looking from the back of the sprocket cover this could not be seen. It is now good and bent. Only good news out of this is the seal was not damged just got pulled down a little with the bend in the rod and when we put a little oil back to make up for the spill and ran the engine with the clutch rod out a bit no leaks. All this minutes before the test ride. Lesson to all you kiddies out there don't take short cuts. I think I have a plan for straightening out the rod. Anyway I will post videos of her running and the bent rod this evening when I get home.

Paul

Awww man, you just can't catch a break at the moment can you?

I did a similar thing last night wiring my new dash up, although nowhere near as drastic consequences...

I was connected the ground lead and thought, I don't need a bullet connector, I'll just solder it.

Afterwards I realised I hadn't routed the wiring through the frame yet, so if I left it like that it would be on the outside of the frame and getting jammed under the tank... guess where a bullet connector went after all?

 

[Good Times]

Dang it Paul. Sorry to hear about that. That's the stuff that makes you crazy. But soldier on and keep going. You're almost there!

 

[Redneck]

Well I managed to get the Clutch pushrod straightened up and smoothed down. I have a Master Link, on order and it is suppose to be here tomorrow. I also have a set of brake pads for the rear brakes on order. The ones I got from Suzuki Boulevard were the wrong size and it is easier to just get them locally for a few bucks more. Promise pictures will be up tonight.

Paul

 

[Guest]

Well I managed to get the Clutch pushrod straightened up and smoothed down. I have a Master Link, on order and it is suppose to be here tomorrow. I also have a set of brake pads for the rear brakes on order. The ones I got from Suzuki Boulevard were the wrong size and it is easier to just get them locally for a few bucks more. Promise pictures will be up tonight.

Paul

Cool, back on track, always a good thing

 

[DannyMotor]

Now... just double, triple, and quadruple check every nut and bolt before you take it for a spin...

 

[Redneck]

Well Danny seeing as I now have to wait a week for my master link to come in I will be going over the bike this weekend with a fine tooth comb.

As promised here are some pictures of the issues.

First up the sproket cover that is no longer black

The bent choke rod

The nut driver that laid in the gas over night

Now the good

The battery cover with fuse box attached

And of course the video



Well the choke rod is now straight. The wiring has been all straightened up. The floats have been fixed and I have the brake pads. I am going to register the bike tomorrow, since i did not do it last year because it was not running. Master link will not be in till Tuesday, so in the mean time as Danny said I am going to check every nut and bolt I can at least two times. Hopefully next week we will have video of me riding the bike and I will get her inspected.

Paul

 

[Guest]

You've recovered well Paul! Pity about the cosmetics, but as long as she's mechanically sound they can be sorted later right? Looking forward to the finished video

 

[GateKeeper]

2 steps forward 1 step back,,,,,never fails, but as Pete said, you have recovered well, and most of the bad is cosmetic, nothing a little bit of paint won't fix up and make it look good again....I think the nut driver got the worst of it, and fortunately it's a cheap replacement....

Push on......

 

[Guest]

Hehe, love that nut driver Paul. A nice momento to hang on the garage wall as a sort of "trophy" if you will of all the wonderful hard work and dedication it took to actually build something that most people would have just junked. Onward we go!

 

[Redneck]

Hehe, love that nut driver Paul. A nice momento to hang on the garage wall as a sort of "trophy" if you will of all the wonderful hard work and dedication it took to actually build something that most people would have just junked. Onward we go!

You know the validity of that statement is often true about our bikes and the original bike I got was definitely the case but the bike I received as a parts bike but ultimately became the restoration was not in all that bad of condition. It was given to me by a specail forum memeber who did not have time or money to properly restore it and would rather see one of us make use of it. I think I have done it Justice even with the couple of setbacks. Hope they like the final results. I know I do even with the setbacks. This is nice looking bike and will provide me with many good times I am sure, not to mention save me a ton of gas over driving the 2005 Dodge Dakota Quad cab 4x4, with optional V-8. BTW thanks to everyone for there supportive comments. I will be getting my new master link on Tuesday so I hope to have video of the test ride then or Wednesday.

Paul

 

[Redneck]

Okay so after two days of feeling like I had been beat down with a nine pound sledge hammer, I finally got up and got the final items done. I went and picked up the master link which finally came in, was suppose to be next day ended up being a week. I also picked up a new blinker relay. The one I had on the bike only worked when you squeezed it. So we got the old links removed and got the new link on. Gave my PC buddy a call and he was available so we decided to push the test drive off for a day in order to get the cover PCed. So we did a little touch up paint on some of the spots that have been scraped off due to getting things together. Its engine enamel so hoping that it will bake on better when i get her up and running. So needless to say i put the helmet, license plate, and jacket in the truck this morning. Today is the day rain or shine. I am going to take that bike out for a test drive. All we have to do now is put on the side cover and it is go time. Pictures to follow this evening.

Paul

 

[Guest]

Come on Paul, did you get her done yet? Can't wait!

As for the engine enamel, any high temperature paint needs a few good heat cycles to cure properly.

 

[qisteve]

Don't leave us hanging like this!!!

 

[Guest]

Update, update!!