Newbie's wrenching experience

[jdw03n]

Figured you old-timers would get a bit of a chuckle out of this, so I wanted to share with you guys my experience...

My mechanical background is nil - you want me to solve a math problem, I'm your guy.  Thus far, I've been able to change the oil successfully. 

So I bought a K+N lunchbox, wanted to put it on.  Stock exhaust.  Consult the forums, find out you need to rejet for the lunchbox, but there's no clear guide for the jets when doing it with stock exhaust.  In addition, I appeared to have a gas leak...gas was slowly dripping from the left carb drain nipple.   I figured, hey, good time to do the jetting while I'm figuring out the leak, and this gives me a chance to see what makes carbs carbs.  After consultation with the Buddha, I decide to wait on the K+N until I get a new exhaust, but I've still got to deal with the gas leak.

I've also been flirting with the idea of repainting my bike, so I figured here was a perfect opportunity, since I was going to have the plastics off.

So I get my handy Clymer manual, my tool box, gloves, shorts and t shirt, glass of homebrew, and out I go to attack the bike. Figure out how to get the tail plastics off, tank off, and I'm doing well so far.  Its only 80 degrees in April here, so I'm sweating buckets at this point, but I'm having a blast, right?

F'ing Clymer manual doesn't say you have to pull the frame mounted petcock to remove the factory airbox.  I finally figure this out, get the box out, carbs off.

Paint the tail plastics, get them back on the bike:


Using the manual, disassembled and cleaned the carbs.  Float bowl gaskets were crumbly on both sides, so I ordered new gaskets / o-rings all around.  Also noticed that one of the jet needles was bent in the last quarter inch.  It isn't obvious in the picture I have, so I'm not going to post the pic. Ordered new jet needle also.  Tore up the needle jets trying to get them out of the carbs, new needle jets ordered for both sides.  Jet kit ordered from the Buddha.  New allen screws to replace all the phillips ones.  Thorough inspection to see if I could see any cracks or damage to the carb body.  Packed up the carbs until all my parts could come in.

Parts come in, I reassemble carbs, washer on the needle, new jets, new screws, new o-rings and gaskets, ready to go.  Take a Friday afternoon off work, new homebrew, ready to reassemble.

Now I took lots of pictures of the hose routing and drew diagrams during disassembly, so I know my stuff was rerouted correctly.  Carbs back on, airbox back on, hoses reconnected, tank petcock back on, frame petcock to prime, AND..........    .......no start.

Bike would turn over, wouldn't fire up. 

Tank back off, check hoses, notice only a few drops of fuel in the line between the petcock and the carb.  Check the tank petcock, its open.

Reassemble everything again, AND..........  .......no start.  Same situation.

Rinse and repeat for +/- 4 hours.

Finally, I get all pissed and call the local mech, they come pick it up.  Call me back yesterday, they said when they reopened the tank petcock, the carbs started pouring fuel. 

Upshot is I'm going to be out about $375 to fix whatever I screwed up   

Good learning experience though lol.  S'why I bought the GS in the first place!

Let the mocking commence!

***Updated - they said I had the wrong size o-ring on the float, that was causing part of my problems.  Bikebandit may have sent me the wrong part, oddly enough...I ordered the specific one from the schematic.  also, I apparently hadn't tightened the jets as much as I should have, and the floats were not equal.  Will know better for next time.

[TurkeyChicken]

Sounds like something that would happen to me

That's why i'm taking my bike in tomorrow to get the chain replaced.  I don't want to f%$k that up and then be stranded.

I'm fine with changing the oil, oil filter, light bulbs, indicator lights, etc, but when it comes to things that actually make the bike run (chain, carbs, etc) i'm still a noob

[bassmechanicsz]

I am glad you posted all that since i going to be tackling rejetting my carbs installing a K&N lunchbox and new exhaust next week once the jet kit gets here from the buddha.  Now i know that once i put it back together and it won't start i can tear it back apart and try those and then realize i still did something wrong and then call the dealer.  Hopefully that doesn't happen.

[5thAve]

Great post. Glad you had fun. I started enjoying wrenching much more when I decided that there was nothing I could do to the bike that TIME or MONEY can't fix. 

[ke7syv]

Just remember this, 180* from OFF is OFF. On is between the two OFFs. I had everything put together and No-Start. I checked the float bowls and no fuel came out. I just traced the problem back to the tank. Took me about half an hour of head-scratching until figured it out.