Broken GS engine: here we start with the works

[The Buddha]

You opened up that motor and closed it back in under a week. OK you definetly were justified in opening it. If I had been working on it, I'd have found the problem, hammered it out with my sliding hammer. And it will be collecting water right now. Yea water, cos its rained and fogged so much the last few weeks over here. Now you replace any of the bearings inside ? they say you should, but well, if you're fitting it exactly back as it was, I cant imagine if it be too big a deal.

BTW I pressure washed my vulcan motor one time and it took all the engine paint off. It looked like crap. But well, kawi is famous for putting shitty stuff in their bikes.

Cool.
Buddha.

[Kurlon]

I'll be doing a similar tear down and inspection this winter I hope.  Got an 89 basket case that will be donating it's motor to my race bike.  Before it goes in, I'm going through it top o bottom.  Nice to see some shots of the inside so I know what I'm about to encounter.

Anyone got suggestions for must do things for racing while I'm in there?  I know the counter balancer bearings are getting replaced as they take a beating when raced, any other items I should just replace for good measure?

[GenTLe]

Some good news

1st of all, for 0.5€ (40 cents) I got 3 new bolts of the most strong type: 12.9 steel (the bolts, for the ISO standards, are divided in different classes of resistances, grades: 4.6, 5,6, 6.8, 8.6, 8.8, 10.9, 12.9).


Here you can see the different consumption of the 3 broken ones (from left to right, the 1st and the last broken) and the resistance class on the new bolts:


So I screwed them to a more appropriate value (the manual says 18Nm -13lb-ft, I tightened them at 30Nm -22lb-ft) with a good amount of medium threadlocker, and I assembled the part on the crankshaft, tightening it at 125Nm as from manual.
I covered the part to avoid metal chips to stick on the magnet surfaces:


Then I checked that the camshafts are good and in tolerance (with my girlfriend's hands ):



After this, I temporarily (I'm still waiting for the gaskets) assembled cylinder block and head so I could take the valve clearances and order the new pads with the correct values.
But I had an issue: I discovered that the feeler gauge was not so precise, so I checked all the 32 leaves with a Mitutoyo micrometer (0,001mm)...



Here the head with the correctly positioned camshafts:
ATTENTION HERE!
Look at THIS http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=46805.0 thread if you don't want to mount them wrongly!!!




As you can see the mounting is temporarily (look at the nuts):


Now let's wait for the gaskets

Alex

[The Buddha]

Hey man we were having a discussion about your motor.
Were the bolts  sheared before you got the motor apart ? was it what was causing the noise. Or did they shear as you tried to remove the rotor.
Cool.
Buddha.

[GenTLe]

Hi Buddha,
Of course they have been sheared before (when the bike was in the hands of the previous owner). This was the reason of the noise he heard, and the reason of the engine being stuck (when the last one was cut).
And the reason the starter engine was blocked too.

- 1st one bolt being cut... The owner continued to use the bike starting to hear some strange little noise. The bolt head in fact is heavily worn.
- 2nd the 2nd bolt being cut... The owner continued to use the bike hearing some more little noise. That bolt head is worn but not like the 1st one.
- 3rd, the 3rd bolt being cut... The freewheel started to seize with flywheel and the engine died. Fortunately when the owner was stuck at traffic lights, so light damage happened.

You previously asked me about internal bearings: I checked their clearances with plastigauge and they were perfect, so I left them.

Bye, ALex

[The Buddha]

OK that was my thought, thanks.
Cool.
Buddha.

[GenTLe]

Today I retired the gasket pack  and the new valve pads (plus the filters)


Last week, I opened again the block (Not a big problem: 1h job ) because I saw that part of the red paste was squeezed out from the contact surfaces when I tightened the screws, and I was worried about the possibility that this "stuff" could be removed from oil and brought around, with the risk to close some oil passage...
This time to close it I used a different gasket paste, black one, and I removed part of it from the most internal surface parts:




The squeezed part, externally, appears in this way:

and it's ok (anyway I removed it, where I could).

These are the copper gaskets that must be placed under the head nuts. In order not to buy them again (25US$!), I (with my girlfriend's help) re-cooked them.
Copper, to act as a gasket, must be malleable, so it can adapt itself to the surfaces it has to seal. The problem is that copper, if exposed to stress, is subject to strain hardening effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_hardening), so to re-use the old gaskets, I had to anneal them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annealing_(metallurgy)), bringing them to red cherry color with butane flame and immediately after, putting them in 35% Hydrochloric acid  .
This is the result:


Then I discovered that they were comprised into the gasket kit (they weren't in its description...) 

This is the block ready for cylinders installation:


I oiled ALL the new gaskets, because I don't want to be in trouble again in case I have to open a carter cover...

And after the cylinders installation:


Then I put the head, I checked the valve clearances with new pads and finally I closed the thermal part:


Tomorrow I'll finish to assembly the clutch side (I'm still waiting a couple of oil seals for the pinion shaft and gear command shaft) 

[malcman]

One of the best threads I've read GenTLe, almost makes me want to tear mine apart at some point and rebuild it 

[BeerGarage]

Great pictures, Great work.  Thank you.

[Weston]

I bought a gasket kit and want to repace the side cover gasket (the side in the last pic) From what you can see will i need to drain my oil? Great thread by the way!

[ke7syv]

I had to anneal them. Bringing them to red cherry color with butane flame and immediately after, putting them in 35% Hydrochloric acid  .

Heating up then cooling quickly would harden the metal not anneal it. Why hydrochloric acid?

[GenTLe]

I bought a gasket kit and want to repace the side cover gasket (the side in the last pic) From what you can see will i need to drain my oil? Great thread by the way!

I'm not sure (because when I opened it the oil was just drained) but for sure if you want to put the bike on central stand, and most probably also in case of lateral stand. Anyway if you use a clean container to put the oil in, you can re-use that oil
Remember NOT to tighten the oil drain screw too much, I've seen many damaged threads because of this. If possible use a dynamometric Key (23Nm - 16.5lb-ft).

Ciao, Alex

[GenTLe]

Heating up then cooling quickly would harden the metal not anneal it. Why hydrochloric acid?

This is true for steel, instead for copper is the right way (I've also tested it on a spare copper piece)
The best was to use Sulfuric acid, 10%, but I don't have it here. Another possibility was using HCl, starting from 30% concentration. IT's used for the pickling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickling_(metal)) 

[bill14224]

Thank you so much for the excellent tour of engine tear-down and rebuild.  Great work, and I'm glad you had fun doing it, but I think there's a lesson here for all of us.  When you own a GS 500, splitting the cases is the LAST thing you should do as long as you don't run it out of oil.  After some thought, I think I know what caused the problem.  I'll bet the owner pressed the starter button on many occasions while the engine was running.

[The Buddha]

He is making me eat my words. I chided him for not checking if the motor had external problem (goats is external IMHO) ... but he's definetly put me to slience.
Cool.
Buddha.

[fred]

More amazing photos. Thanks again for sharing this process with us. I know taking photos slows down the work, and I think its great that you're willing to take the time to share this process with us.

[GenTLe]

Maybe these will be the last images; maybe I'll post some other ones when the bike will be completely finished 

In any case, thanks to all for the support, I loved your enthusiasm and I liked to see that this job generated some discussions too. It's always a good thing, when it comes to learning.

So, this is the oil pan, all is ready for the closedown:


and also the clutch side is ready to be sealed:


this is something important if you want to be able to open the covers again without to change the gasket: OIL THEM!:


ATTENTION HERE!
Look at THIS http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=46805.0 thread if you don't want to mount them wrongly!!!
the ignition sensor for the recent models: 1 pick-up only, so the timing chain must be set with the line near to L ° T positioned on sensor middle <- THIS IS WRONG!!! TAKE CARE!!!:


then I've seen that the air breather metal hoses (plus a couple of other parts with some rust on them) weren't in a nice condition, as like as their screws, so i decided to use acid (HCl) to clean them properly, and, after this, I used this paint (that must be cooked at 160°C - 320°F to finally dry and support until 800°C - 1470°F): http://www.dupli-color.de/webgate/WG_5_2.nsf/ContentByKey/PKXR-52JA2C-EN-p

The parts after acid:


and after paint:


And, finally, the completed engine:



Ah, there is another part that I'm fixing, but it's not engine stuff... It's the rear passenger handle. The paint was not good, some of it was inconsistent, with bubbles under... So I used another chemical stuff (DANGEROUS!!! take care if you use it! It HURTS a lot if goes on the skin, and it's a venom, containing methanol and dichloromethane!!) that produces this effect:


and, after removal of detached paint, this is the result. You can see the Al oxide that was present below the original paint:


I'm going to re-paint it with glossy black paint, with a previous treatment with sand-paper and a good epoxy primer

See you guys!

Alessandro - Milano - Italy

[coll0412]

Looks good!

When you are putting the gasket maker on the case halves, I usually stop about 1/8"-3/16" in front of the bearing surfaces. It squeezes out a bit(depending on how much you put in) and that prevents it from oozing into the bearings themselves.

Also for future reference for those in the US and Canada, you can order a nice Veshra Gasket set for $68 shipped from partsnmore.com, which includes everything that the OEM gasket set includes

https://www.partsnmore.com/motorcycle-gasket_sets.php?make=suzuki&category=gasket_set

[commuterdude]

Your engine looks and is better than a new one from Suzuki.

[playmemuzk]

Im in way over my head (after looking at this thread)....I'm rebuilding (2) 2004 engines and putting one in my '89....  I couldn't find a gasket kit for a 2004, did you use one from 89-96?  Or did you find a gasket kit for late models?