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GS850GL engine year identification

M

mrbrndn

Forum Newbie
Long time lurker, first time poster...

Is there a way to tell which year the engine that I have is from? The bike itself is a 1982 GS850G and decades ago, I replaced it with a GS850GL after catastrophic failure. I'm starting to restore the bike after years of neglect and I'm finding differences in parts from one year to the next. The engine is marked by the oil fill port as GS850-154403.

Thanks!
 
The '82 has a different ignition system, compared to the earlier 850's. And at some point, not sure exactly when, Suzuki changed the head/valve cover bolt pattern. Most other aspects are the same. What "differences in parts" have you seen?
 
So far, I've only looked at bolt kits to replace the pan head Philips bolts on the engine with Allen heads. The 1980-81 kits have more bolts than the 1982-83 kits. It was enough to give me pause and wonder if there's a way to find out which year engine I've got since I can't recall.
 
mrbrndn said:
So far, I've only looked at bolt kits to replace the pan head Philips bolts on the engine with Allen heads. The 1980-81 kits have more bolts than the 1982-83 kits. It was enough to give me pause and wonder if there's a way to find out which year engine I've got since I can't recall.
Click to expand...

Some differences I've seen in the 850's I've had are:

(As mentioned) the additional bolt near the center of the head cover

Engine painted black

Slightly different oil filter covers

cam chain tensioner knob changed from metal to plastic

tachometer drive sleeve design went from two piece to one

I think a clutch cable holder was added to an intake boot on the head

And those JIS (Phillips looking) screw heads changed to hex head bolts

Unfortunately I didn't take note of when these changes happened. Of course you may find a model made late in the year that already had changes, or one made early in the year and the factory was still trying to use up the previous year's parts.

Post a few pics of what you have so we can all argue about....I mean help you figure out what you've got.
 
The later year engines using hex head bolts on the engine covers is a tell. You can check partzilla and check application, that's a good way to judge interchange of parts.
 
The "choke" system is different on the '82 and up carbs.
The shape of the clutch cover is different on '82 and up.
The black engines started in '83.
The hex head bolts started in '82.
The extra cam cover bolts started in '82.
 
Camshaft cover showing bolts on front cam
 

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I checked suzukipart.com and it looks like 1982 had two versions of the camshaft cover. One with 4 bolts along the front, and the other with 5 bolts.
5 bolt - https://www.suzukipart.com/oemparts...linder-head-cover-model-z-e-no-155015-model-d
4 bolt - https://www.suzukipart.com/oemparts...4e5fe/cylinder-head-cover-model-z-e-no-155014

The cover on the engine I have is 4 bolts. I also looked at suzukipart.com looked for differences in the clutch covers, but 1981 and 82 looked the same to me.
I mistakenly thought I had the JIS screws on the engine covers because I was looking at carburetor parts when I made the first post :p Looks like they are hex

Thanks for all the help thus far!
 

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Well, it's definitely from an L. The ignition cover has the DOHC instead of SUZUKI.

According to the parts phiche, that tachometer sleeve (part#20) with the plate that holds it in (part #23) was standard in 80 and 81. Starting in 82 you could get the single piece but the older one still shows up in the drawing.

There's also something different about the cam chain tensioners in the drawings between 81 and 82. The never has an extra O-ring. Not sure it's worth dismantling to verify that, haha.
 
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Mystery solved! I did some more research and I noticed the difference between the '81 and '82 clutch covers. It turns out that I've got a 1982 GL engine :) Thanks for the help and search suggestions folks!
 

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The later (82+) clutch cover is angled. (if you're looking down at it from the top), and the earlier one is flat.

I've run across mongrels in the wild; Suzuki's motto is "waste not want not", so you have to pay close attention to the engine in front of you.

Speaking of the clutch cover, beware of thin low-rent cut gaskets from fleaBay; these can cause the end of the shift shaft to bind against the little stopper cast into the cover. (Go on, guess how I know...)

The other major difference that affects gasket ordering is the earlier 16 bolt valve covers vs. 19 bolt valve covers on later models. 82 models are a mixed bag; maybe they were using up older cylinder heads.

In addition, there's a one tooth difference in fifth gear on some 850GL models. This makes little difference in use, but it does slightly drop RPM.

Later on, they stopped using the rectangular o-ring in the cam tunnel; with the updated head gasket part number, you just leave it out, even on earlier engines. It didn't do much anyway. They also consolidated the head gasket part number with the 8-valve GS1000 engine, which has a 1mm larger bore.
 
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