part of being new is being in over my head right?

[GodSpeed750]

Hey there -
I've been living in the mountains for three years in northern california ripping around on a honda 1986 XL250r and vt700c - now im living in the city. the xl250 got stolen about a month ago because i forgot i wasn't living in the mountains anymore and people are...people suck in the city sometimes (welcome back to society, we missed ya!) and i had to leave the vt700 on the coast because i decided to bring the dirt bike in the back of the truck instead of the street cycle. ANYWAYS - i was without a bike so i decided to spring and purchase a bike. found a little guy on 'letgo' (less obnoxious craigslist for those not in the know) a gs450L - guy wanted 500 bucks for it but when i showed up and saw that it wasn't in running condition and he didn't know what was wrong with it i knew i might come up on something good - took one look at it and saw that the contacts were all corroded - without checkin compression i decided to take a chance and snatch it - talked him down to 250 cause...'who knows whats wrong with this bike...'' deff the electrical system though. Anyways got it back to the house and logged on -
it wasn't firing up so i figured there might be a neutral safety switch or something - yeah that switch was toast. so i got around that and the bike fired up and ran decent - had a climbing idle tho - so i shut it down
ordered new o rings
dipped the carbs
cleaned out the air filter although i think i should jsut buy a new one cause this one looks pretty...well ya know-
spark plugs/replaced battery/cleaned off all contacts
unfortunately im hung up on the electrical at the moment - prev owner must have been a chipmunk or something cause theres nicks and cuts all through out the wiring - the head light was replaced with some silly amazon LED bs and this morning when i went to turn it on the electronic ignition button started smoking.
ripped that off and decided to call it a day there but im looking forward to getting back into it.
the whole electrical system is pretty much in tact but the amount of tinkering somebody did in there (bad butt connections and enough electrical tape to wrap a telephone pole)
anyways everything else is sound im hoping the amount of harness work is minimal. got some weird connections to clean up and wrap properly and a switch to replace and hopefully it fires up!
anyways here she is not bad for 250.

 

[steve murdoch]

Nice intro and welcome to the site.
Previous-owner-syndrome is a common complaint on these old bikes.

Those ape-hangers alone are worth your buy-in price!

 

[Redman]

Sounds like you have done some work, and got it running.

Good.

............. the electronic ignition button ..............

??

.

 

[LAB3]

Welcome to the site! People here are pretty good with answering question, often withing a couple of hours now that summer is winding down. Just rehabbed a 450t myself last winter.

 

[sam000lee]

I'm partial to the GS450's so am glad to see another one. If the wiring harness is really in that shoddy condition, I would consider just finding a used on on ebay. That way, you can un and then re-wrap it to your liking and make sure all the contacts are in good shape. It sounds like you've got a pretty good knack for troubleshooting and you'll really get to know the bike, too.

BTW, do you need replacement side covers? I have extras that I'm trying to get rid of. I didn't see any turn signals in your pictures and can help you out there, too You can have 'em for shipping costs.