My GS850G ongoing issues and maintenance.

[Steve]

I have found that most "mufflers" in the aftermarket world tend to have a section of perforated pipe down the middle. The chamber between that perforated pipe and the outer shell is what usually gets filled by wrapping the perforated tube. It is my opinion that the overall noise level is directly related to the diameter of the tube. The wrapping only serves to control the echo in that chamber. It might change the overall TONE a bit, but not the overall VOLUME. A smaller-diameter pipe would be a bit more 'streetable', but might cost a couple of ponies in the process.

I like your idea of the Supertrapp disks. Keep us informed. :encouragement:

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[Grimly]

I was having some success with taming the pulse, using the heavily-modded H-D muffler, but decided to use the silencer that matched the downpipes and collector just to see if they'd managed to do it. A couple other users of Delko 4-1 systems had complained about a similar pulsation, too.
The cone section of the muffler is filled with a cone-section baffle internally filled with absorbent wool, and running centrally through that is a tube with a dome on the end, the dome facing into the gas stream. The gas passes over the dome and is forced into close contact with the inside of the baffle liner.
From first start, it was loud, and out on the road it was damned loud. However, if not actually giving it welly, it wasn't obnoxiously loud.
First thing I noticed was the noise pulse had gone, the engine was smoother all the way up its range. This remained so for the duration of the test.
So, nasty pulse gone, engine smoother, but bloody noisy.
Given the gases are now flowing through the Delko system as they were designed to, I'm reluctant to interfere with the internal workings, and adding on something to simply rob them of some acoustic power at the exit is what I hope might work, without causing too much obstruction or resistance to flow.
The Supertrapp unit might do exactly that - I don't expect it to restore factory quietness, but if I can achieve a level of noise which doesn't attract attention from LEO or annoy the neighbours or citizens, I'll be happy with it.

 

[Steve]

I don't expect it to restore factory quietness, but if I can achieve a level of noise which doesn't attract attention from LEO or annoy the neighbours or citizens, I'll be happy with it.

I have a pipe on my 850, about which I have posted several times. It is of unknown origin, so I have no idea to whom to give credit. If Photobucket is playing nicely, you can click on the link in my signature to see it. The collector dumps into a straight-edged silencer area that is low enough to go under the saddlebags, which is the primary reason it's on the bike. The afore-mentioned 'perforated tube' exists in that area, but it's a bit different. It's about 1 1/2" in diameter and just over a foot long, but has a disk in the center that makes all the exhaust go through the perforations in the front half of the tube, through the outer chamber (where packing would normally reside), then finally through the perforations in the rear half of the tube and out the back. Having all the exhaust go through the perforations instead of going straight through the tube does reduce the noise level to just about stock levels. I have spent many a day going hundreds of miles without having my ears ringing at the end of the day.

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[Grimly]

I have a pipe on my 850, about which I have posted several times. It is of unknown origin, so I have no idea to whom to give credit. If Photobucket is playing nicely, you can click on the link in my signature to see it. The collector dumps into a straight-edged silencer area that is low enough to go under the saddlebags, which is the primary reason it's on the bike. The afore-mentioned 'perforated tube' exists in that area, but it's a bit different. It's about 1 1/2" in diameter and just over a foot long, but has a disk in the center that makes all the exhaust go through the perforations in the front half of the tube, through the outer chamber (where packing would normally reside), then finally through the perforations in the rear half of the tube and out the back. Having all the exhaust go through the perforations instead of going straight through the tube does reduce the noise level to just about stock levels. I have spent many a day going hundreds of miles without having my ears ringing at the end of the day.

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That's pretty much the solution I adopted for the Dyna mufflers on the XJ900F. I saw that H-D had used a simple baffle disc in the centre of the main baffle tube and then noticed the distance from the front of the muffler was different in each - to account for the different length downpipes. Once I equalised them, they worked quite well.

 

[Grimly]

Supertrapp abomination - pass.
Last week I fitted the 3" Supertrapp disc pack to the end of the Delko silencer, and while it did knock off some of the worst, most penetrating noise, it was still bloody loud.
Today I took out half the discs, leaving 5 or 6 in (don't recall) and gave it a whirl.
Pleased to hear that it's now quite tolerable and has a nasty snarl at 6k upwards.
More farting about needed to make sure of the effect on the mixtures up the rev range, but it does work. The AFR gauge seemed to be tracking things fine and it's not showing anything off the wall.
However, I did notice that wazzing through the gears it wasn't quite as quick as last week.
You don't get something for nothing, after all.

 

[Grimly]

Time to start on the rebuild of the other engine.
I have a fair amount of spares, including a good crankshaft, but it got submerged in the flood and it's not felt right since. So, I bit the bullet and got a relatively low-mileage crankshaft via ebay.com for a reasonable price. Other jokers wanted less money for the shafts but wanted to rob me on shipping. This one cost more for the shaft, but has the ignition triggers and a rotor still attached, plus the shipping is less than half of what the others wanted.

 

[Grimly]

A while ago I bought a pair of cheap Black&Decker style Workmates, in a 2fer1 deal. It occurred to me they'd be useful for quite a few things, balancing wheels being one of them.

 

[1948man]

Looks to be working well but my judgement might have been clouded by the mesmerizing soundtrack.

 

[Grimly]

Update: August 2021...
During Covid times of no travelling allowed, I was restricted from going out to the motorway for a high-speed blast, having to just toddle around the backroads to and from the shops instead, so was unprepared for what happened when I finally got out there...



Whale oil beef hooked. Never expected that, especially when the AFR gauge is telling me the mixture is OK.
Working on the assumption that the AFR gauge might be lying to me, I decided to go richer with the SU needle, but there was only one problem - I'd pretty much reached the limit of 0.09" needles, so that left only one option...
Fit a 0.10 jet and move to the B-family needles.
Luckily I have a fair few of them kicking around from the HIF44 carb.

 

[Grimly]

Still getting overheat problems, and I finally got around to physically fitting the oil cooler I bought last year.
Ugly but hopefully effective.
I seriously suspect there's something going on with the airflow under the fairing chin, as when I look at it from the side, there's a clear shot to the head and barrels, with nothing much forming a barrier to clear air flow. That leaves the possibility of some weird airflow swirl which might give rise to stagnant air right in front of the head. It's just a theory...
Anyway, decided to remove the heat from the troubled area and dump it somewhere into clean air. Not much point fitting an oil cooler right in the suspect area, where most are, so rigged it up at the nose.


Not sure whether to have the cooler upside down (leaving oil in it) or fit it conventionally, but that would mean refilling it every cold start.

 

[Cipher]

Still getting overheat problems, and I finally got around to physically fitting the oil cooler I bought last year.
Ugly but hopefully effective.
I seriously suspect there's something going on with the airflow under the fairing chin, as when I look at it from the side, there's a clear shot to the head and barrels, with nothing much forming a barrier to clear air flow. That leaves the possibility of some weird airflow swirl which might give rise to stagnant air right in front of the head. It's just a theory...
Anyway, decided to remove the heat from the troubled area and dump it somewhere into clean air. Not much point fitting an oil cooler right in the suspect area, where most are, so rigged it up at the nose.


Not sure whether to have the cooler upside down (leaving oil in it) or fit it conventionally, but that would mean refilling it every cold start.

Ugly aas can be.........did you check the oil pressure? Is it possible a hose degraded internal layer and is blocking flow?
There is a pressure valve that is dependent on viscosity in suzuki sump that ar eplumbed for an oil cooler. It to can fail. THere is always a nice flow routing diagram in the manual.

 

[Grimly]

Ugly aas can be.........did you check the oil pressure? Is it possible a hose degraded internal layer and is blocking flow?

Until now, there have been no hoses in the oil system, it's factory stock.
But... hmm... when I had the top end off, I decided to clean the oil pan and found the strainer was fairly well clogged with bits of old clutch material. I'm now wondering if there has been another accumulation of debris, but where it's come from I can't figure out. New clutch at the time, too.

There is a pressure valve that is dependent on viscosity in suzuki sump that ar eplumbed for an oil cooler. It to can fail. THere is always a nice flow routing diagram in the manual.

More investigation needed. I'll update this when I find anything or nothing.
I've got a set of 750 higher flow gears and the pump came with them, so I'll be fitting them next week, probably. That will give me an opportunity to eyeball the internals a bit more.
First thing I'll be doing when the pipery is in place is simply turn the engine over and see what shoots out the oil pipe.

 

[Grimly]

Bloody oil pressure lights.
I expected the OP light to take a little while to go out, with the extra cooler lines (although I'd filled the cooler), cranking and cranking away.
Left it then went back to it and realised I'd been waiting for the neutral light to go out - the OP light had gone out long since.​

 

[Cipher]

Bloody oil pressure lights.
I expected the OP light to take a little while to go out, with the extra cooler lines (although I'd filled the cooler), cranking and cranking away.
Left it then went back to it and realised I'd been waiting for the neutral light to go out - the OP light had gone out long since.​

Are you colour blind? lordy my neutral is green.

 

[Rich82GS750TZ]

Dave, just curious, do you happen to be red/green color blind?

 

[Grimly]

Dave, just curious, do you happen to be red/green color blind?

No, but I recollect this was not the first time this had happened. It stems from charging lights being red on my cars of the past (don't know how current that idiot light is on modern cars).

 

[Grimly]

I was a bit concerned with the battery state when I went to charge it up after all that cranking. It never got down far enough to go slow, just a normal top-up charge. However, I discovered the so-called smart charger wasn't doing a very good job of addressing the AGM, clicking off into green status far too soon.
I ordered up a more modern charger that definitely has an AGM mode and sorted it out yesterday.
The Motobatt that's currently on the 850 is nearly eight years old and looks like it's got a good bit of life left in it yet.
I probably caught it in time, as one of the causes of early demise of AGMs is under-charging, which that old charger was doing. I'm fairly sure the bike's charging system was bringing it up enough when I was doing longer runs, but in the winter it's only in and out of the shops once a fortnight, so was getting the occasional top-up from the old charger.

 

[Grimly]

Finally got out and about today, as the cupboard was looking a bit bare. Excellent opportunity to test the oil cooler, and since it was a day of 5degC outside, I expected the gauge to be low if the cooler was being effective.
Yep, it certainly works. Max temp it reached on the motorway was around 75degC and from the shops to my house all it got was barely off the stop, which is good.
I'm considering whether it's worth buying an oil stat or just making a cloth sock for half the radiator.
I'll try a sock first, as it will cost nothing, and my opinion on stats is not high - just something else to malfunction.
Old....



New...

 

[Rob S.]

I just twist tie a piece of cardboard to the front of the cooler in winter. However, I can't say my 'thermostat' has any effect at all. The cooler itself made an almost unbelievable difference; from much too hot in summer to barely 200 f winter or summer, cardboard or none. Supposedly too cold to burn off condensation in the crank case.

Has anybody ever noticed any condensation or other problems from running too cold?

 

[Grimly]

I just twist tie a piece of cardboard to the front of the cooler in winter. However, I can't say my 'thermostat' has any effect at all. The cooler itself made an almost unbelievable difference; from much too hot in summer to barely 200 f winter or summer, cardboard or none. Supposedly too cold to burn off condensation in the crank case.

Has anybody ever noticed any condensation or other problems from running too cold?

Water vapour will evaporate out way below boiling point, so a good long run of say an hour or two every so often will keep it clear. Only thing I've ever noticed about water contamination on some engines is a tendency for emulsion to form under the filler cap or rocker cover - when that happens you know it's time to address the issue (by not doing so many short runs).