My 1980 Suzuki GS850G

[Barlow]

picked this up about 8 years ago, after it sat for 13 years, i thought for $200 it would be good to play around with. it took me about 2 days of cleaning the tank and carbs of the old gas that had sat so long it turned from a full tank to less than 1/2, with an inch of thick varnish in the bottom. i got to ride it less than one season when the regulator/rectifier went out (i now think it could have just had bad connections), and at that time i could not find one, even used, for under $100 and just could not get it fixed, having had lost my job, so it sat for another 7 years. about a year ago i found some universal r/r on ebay for about $16, so i grabbed one, even though i could not get the bike to where i live now. now i have a good job (cnc operator) and a house, so i made the trip down and brought it home about 2 weeks ago. fortunately, my friend that rode it last was nice enough to empty the carbs and tank (tank was coated with red kote) so it did not take much to get it started. yep, it needs a little work still, but i am no stranger to that. i am going to get some pod filters (yes i read the noob pose saying not to) and to make up for the free flow of the pods, i am going to wrap them in filter foam to stop it from being to lean until i can get the parts to connect the carbs to the air box, i have them, but they are so hard and shrunk they will not go on, so if you are reading this and have some in good shape to sell, pm me with a price with shipping. i already made the new key i needed because i lost them years ago, i need a front brake cylinder i will get off ebay new, both tires, a battery and then i think i can get it out on the road again, wednesday i will order a few parts, and get primer and paint, along with a new o-ring for the petcock ... i had it running up and down the dead end road by my house, and it sure felt nice to ride it again ... i have a 2015 bashan storm 250 with about 600 miles on it to ride, so i can take a few weeks and get the gs running good and for it to be safe ... the funniest thing is, after 7 years outside, the $20 durabrand radio still works ........

 

[Steve]

Kinda hard to read that ONE paragraph, but I will still welcome another '80 850G with an AERO fairing. :encouragement:

You can click on the link in my sig to see mine.

Question: why bother installing pods if you are going to intentionally restrict them? You are just setting yourself up for failure.

Before you go gung-ho on getting it on the road, get it ready.
- Do a valve adjustment. Plenty of help available here, including the offer in my sig
- Clean the carbs, replace the o-rings. O-ring kits available from cycleorings.com
- Replace the R/R with an SH775 regulator from Polaris.
- Get an AGM battery. That is a construction style, not a brand name.
- Clean/rebuild the brake calipers.

This is not a list of things that would be nice to do, they are things that MUST be done to ensure a safe bike.

.

 

[Barlow]

i already replaced the r/r and it seems to be working fine, the o-rings are changed as well, and cleaned the carbs and tank ... the reason for thinking about foam around the pods is because they breath way better than the stock setup, and i dont want to buy jets now, just to change them back later (because i want to stay stock in the end) ... i know slow ans steady wins the race, but i want to ride a big bike again ... i am not going to hurt the bike or myself to do it, but right now i have to keep cost down ... then next season i can get it back to stock, and looking nice again, but mt 229cc has given me the itch for a long ride again

 

[Guest]

i already replaced the r/r and it seems to be working fine, the o-rings are changed as well, and cleaned the carbs and tank ... the reason for thinking about foam around the pods is because they breath way better than the stock setup, and i dont want to buy jets now, just to change them back later (because i want to stay stock in the end) ... i know slow ans steady wins the race, but i want to ride a big bike again ... i am not going to hurt the bike or myself to do it, but right now i have to keep cost down ... then next season i can get it back to stock, and looking nice again, but mt 229cc has given me the itch for a long ride again

Duct tape works, or at least I have seen quite a bit of it anyway on pods. Mix in a couple of returns (or enters) and break up your posts a little bit. That first post is tough to read

 

[alke46]

Agreed....

 

[Steve]

Your R/R might seem to be working fine, regulating the voltage and all that, but the "universal design" unit that you got is most-likely the old-fashioned SHUNT style. Yes, it will work and everything will seem to be OK, but any excess current that is produced by the stator and not used by the bike is shunted back through the stator. That gets the stator very hot, shortening its life considerably. Look at it this way: the windings on the stator are excited by the magnets in the rotor as they pass by and make some current. The faster the engine spins, the more voltage is generated. When the R/R senses that the voltage is too high, it simply shorts out the output, taking the output to ZERO for a short time. Now that the voltage is too low, it switches back to full output. Meanwhile, the stator doesn't know the difference, it is pumping full capacity, ALL THE TIME.

With a series-type R/R like the SH775, instead of shorting the output to reduce the average voltage, it merely stops conducting. The output is still zero, but the current through the stator stops, which reduces the average current, therefore the heat, as well.

And it still baffles me why you would want to spend money on pods that you don't intend to keep, when, for just a few dollars more, you can get what you are wanting to get anyway. You will also not have the aggravation of trying to block off the pods to match the airflow to the available jetting. Consider that if you don't have enough air blocked off, you WILL be running lean, and a lean engine is a HOT engine. Hot engines don't last very long.

Good luck with your project.

.

 

[alke46]

Some really good advice here from someone who knows his stuff. Pay close attention to what Steve is telling you. He is not called the GS Whisperer for nothing. Good luck.

 

[80GS850GBob]

i already replaced the r/r and it seems to be working fine, the o-rings are changed as well, and cleaned the carbs and tank ... the reason for thinking about foam around the pods is because they breath way better than the stock setup, and i dont want to buy jets now, just to change them back later (because i want to stay stock in the end) ... i know slow ans steady wins the race, but i want to ride a big bike again ... i am not going to hurt the bike or myself to do it, but right now i have to keep cost down ... then next season i can get it back to stock, and looking nice again, but mt 229cc has given me the itch for a long ride again

I'd suggest looking for a stock airbox, myself....look to the for sale forum or post a "I need" in the wanted section.
Btw- welcome aboard...nice bike!

 

[dantodd]

You could probably cobble something together from some plastic and duct tape that will work as an air box and save you the cost of the pods. Cheap pods are also generally bad at actually cleaning air and crummy build quality. (At least that's what the folks here who have tried them are reporting.)

 

[Guest]

Best bet is to just break down and buy some airbox boots

 

[Cipher]

What text editor are you using that insists on dropping all capital letters from the start of sentences? Pagination is half of all literary art according to Addison. Or some dead guy....maybe it was Terentius?

Nice bike btw., One rarely sees such an unmolested version of a bike especially with bright clean solid looking exhausts.

 

[cowboyup3371]

i know slow ans steady wins the race, but i want to ride a big bike again ... i am not going to hurt the bike or myself to do it, but right now i have to keep cost down ... then next season i can get it back to stock, and looking nice again, but mt 229cc has given me the itch for a long ride again

It can be very difficult to force yourself to wait for something you want, trust me I'm an expert in killing myself, but having a properly running bike from the get go without stopping for aggravating issues will be very satisfying in the end. Get the bike running the way it should completely then worry about the long rides you want to take.

 

[argonsagas]

Re carb boots: new ones can be found, but if you prefer a DIY approach, this is a subject that has been discussed on GSR previously, and a number of people reported success with oil of wintergreen, as used in this process:

http://v4musclebike.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13477

 

[Barlow]

Re carb boots: new ones can be found, but if you prefer a DIY approach, this is a subject that has been discussed on GSR previously, and a number of people reported success with oil of wintergreen, as used in this process:

http://v4musclebike.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13477

Well, my thanks to you ... for the price of a set of pods, i got this oil, and it seems to be doing it job. Now maybe people will stop giving me the stink eye about the pods . I will be getting the carbs off one more time to be sure all is good and recheck the floats, but i still need to get the rear tire changed first ... Getting close now.