2006 gsF - Gabby

[Snake2715]

What tail light are you going with?

Looks good!

[steezin_and_wheezin]

Thanks mang! Not looking to get too custom crazy on this bike, I leave the cutting and chopping to my mopeds haha.

I'll probably get this smoked integrated tail. Had one on my first GS and really liked the look, and integrated blinkers. According to the site the new version comes with built in resistors and even has factory plugs.

[steezin_and_wheezin]

Well some good and bad.. I got my brakes sorted, filled with dot4 fluid, and finally bled. Took me a handful of times to get good pressure in the front brake. I was close to swapping parts for the spares i had in the shop, but finally got pressure. Rear foot brake had just enough clearance to fully lock the rear wheel before hitting the exhaust pipe! So that's good.

After a quick break for lunch I went over the bike again with my torque wrench, and put new cotter pins in the wheels. Next I flushed the tank and put in some new ethanol free gas in and was getting close to my first ride! Flipped the petcock to prime and hit the ignition. Crank, crank, crank, nothing. Sounded like I was out of gas.. DOH. Been a while since I had a tank petcock. Grabbed my screw driver and turned the fuel flow on. Key on, tank chicken on, frame chicken to prime. Hit the starter and vroom started right up. Then the bad; My right foot felt funny looked down and she was dumping gas out of the left carb on my foot. Flipped the frame chicken off prime to reserve and the leaking stopped. With my frame chicken on the Reserve position I attempted to start again. It started to life but then immediately started dumping gas out of what i believe was the vent hose.

I knew the float needle and its assembly felt like they were binding when i had the carbs apart. I was hoping I could get away with it for now. Negative! haha. It might also be my carb/vac lines or a clogged breather line. I did removed the PAIR system from this bike and may have missed something there as well. 

Needing the float assembly ASAP, so I've placed an order on Amazon with free shipping for a pair of rebuild kits(seals and float assemblies) also grabbed a couple k&n oil filters

Next I'll be double checking my fuel/vac hose routing, checking oil for gas(most likely will change it while I'm at it.) Going to get my friend to ride his GS over to double check all my hosing against his. Then when my float assembly kits get here I will rebuild the carbs. She needs to be running and reliable by this Saturday..

[BockinBboy]

I read this thread all the time, and just realized I wasn't sub'd!... 

I really hope you get it figured out for Saturday.  You've made such great progress!  Gabby really looks good.
Be proud, and keep goin!

- Bboy

[Slack]

I'll be pissed if we spend several hours on the side of the road Saturday instead of several hours on the road, lol.
Get-r-Running - else I may have to carry the banner myself.

[steezin_and_wheezin]

Really appreciate it Bboy! I was starting to really stress as the date closed in. Luckily we have a couple gs'ers around that will be able to meet Jester.

Slack - That's my fear.. Would hate to hold up the whole planned trek with a malfunctioning bike.

Bike only has 127 miles on the clock, and my floats were shipped out from TX yesterday. Just guessing, but I say the parts will be in Friday. Which means finishing, hoping it runs well, risk riding in WV w/o proper time to break engine and tires in, double check all torque settings, and all that good jazz. Hoping they come in tomorrow, which will leave friday to test/tune.

All in all though, this has spurred me onto actually making some progress on the project. I too think she's come out looking really sharp. After the chin fairing and paint it will be a dream come true.

If i don't make it this weekend, hopefully I will be able to touch the baton maybe on its way north or heading back south.

[steezin_and_wheezin]

And she's road worthy!! Got to take my first ride outside the neighborhood today. Such a great feeling

Yesterday I got the new float needle assemblies installed and it solved my gas overflow problem! Took it around the neighborhood last night and it ran ok, but needed some more air in the tires for sure.

Got up this morning and put some air in the tires. Pulled out my new morgan pro carb sync, and got the carbs synced up. It was such a change in the sound of the idle once synced up. I still have a slight backfire in the left carb though.

Took it on a 20 mile ride today and its really feeling great. Still needs a bit more tuning though, I'm going to change the oil tonight.

Enough ramblings its time for some photos!!

[jacob92icu]

Congratulations! It looks awesome. I'm glad you got to ride! Be safe and have fun as always!

[steezin_and_wheezin]

'Preciate it Jacob!! 

[cbrfxr67]

(applause!)

[steezin_and_wheezin]

Haha classic photo per usual cbr!! thank ya thank ya

Rains holding off today so i took her to get inspected. Got shut down at the first shop due to no blinkers. VA law states that if you have blinkers they must function, but if there are no blinkers present hand signals are to be used. Dude was in a real monday mood, and wasn't having it.. He did make a valid point that if blinkers were installed from the manufacturer they must be present to pass inspection. Luckily they didn't take my info first so i didn't have to deal with a rejection sticker!

Called another shop and asked, "what if my bike doesn't have blinkers" he checked with the expert and said it would be OK. I didn't hesitate and took it straight down there. Half hour later Gabby is fully street legal!! Now I won't be worried about riding her around

Going to ride a bit more tonight and get attempt a couple photo challenges. Loving every minute out there!!

[Drastik]

Hey Steezin - I'm in Lynchburg (couple of hours from you) and just finished a somewhat similar project (getting non-running GS back on the road).  Of course, as soon as I finish my To-Do list, this storm front moves in and brings several days of rain, so I haven't gotten to ride it much since the repairs.

Here's what I'm thinking.  You load up half of the tools, I'll load up the other half.  We'll give the bikes a thorough test drive and be prepared for when one/both of us have any issues, lol.

Here's what I'm working with...

EDIT: Removed oversized pics.

[Snake2715]

Got those same Pro Grips pretty comfortable actually!

[steezin_and_wheezin]

Looks good Drastik, stoked to hear you're finishing her up. You should make a project thread too, we love reading other members wrenching adventures! If you don't mind, could you edit your post and set a width to your photos so they are overpowering my project thread? If the first image bracket put this info in and it makes it so you can click and enlarge the photos. like this; [img width=500]   'Preciate it!

Don't think i'll be riding her too far away from home until I have jetting 100% sorted. Still have a few kinks to work out, but should be good after some needle shimming. Once that's sorted I plan on riding as much as possible to see how many miles I can get out of the bt003 tires i'm running. We'll should definitely meet up and cruise around sometime. My gma is up in lynchburg, so i'll be up that way for sure

I hear ya on the grips Snake! Its nice having good grips, might have to change the 30 year old ones on my shredped to some nice gel grips. They are too cheap and comfy to not pick up a set or 2!

[Drastik]

My apologies.  The pics were directly uploaded from my PC, so I couldn't edit them.  I removed them so they won't continue to bog down your thread.  Keep up the progress!

[steezin_and_wheezin]

No worries mang, thanks again! I always like to hear other Twinner's story, but also like a nice clean project thread haha

Definitely start you a project thread and keep us posted on the updates!! I'm hoping the rain holds sometime this weekend. I'll be riding this thing every chance i get once it clears up

[steezin_and_wheezin]

Well after a hell of a lot of rain(heard if it doesn't rain anymore until November we'd still be over our average rain fall ammount) I finally pulled the tank off to give shimming my needles a go. I knew with the needles in stock position that was my likely culprit of the 1/2 throttle surging.

I didn't have any washers around the shop and was too lazy for the hardware store. So I found a couple orings that were suitable. My plan was to start with 2 washers=1mm shim to the needle(saw somewhere that noted the washers to be .5mm thick) Oring was just under .9mm, perfect. Close enough to tell me if it would solve my 1/2 throttle surging. Popped the tank off shimmed the needles. Left the mixture screws set to 2.5 turns out. Everything was going so smooth. Backed the bike out of the shop, walked back in to grab a helmet and CCCRUNCH. I stepped on what i thought was a massive bug, turned out of be one of my slide spring


That was the end of that night..

Ordered some springs from adidas and a few other bits i needed from ronayers(will be using them instead of bikebandit from now on! thanks to whoever mentioned it on the east coast parts site thread) went back to my mopeds while i was waiting for the parts to arrive.

Forgot to cover the gs and the ebc rotor surface rusted over again I'll be going back to a nice oem rotor i've been saving.

Got the springs and other parts on Wednesday. Dropped the missing slide spring and she started up great! It was sprinkling outside again, but I had to take it on a test ride. After a few laps around the block I was soaked, but 1/2 throttle response was night and day better!

Yesterday I got a bit longer ride in, and I'm so stoked on the bike!!! Before i was just glad to have it together, but then the 1/2 throttle surge was just ruining the ride. Couldn't take a smooth turn w/o it buckin. Now she just gliiiides around. Sonic springs, r6 shock, and bt-003 tires are feeling superb. Wearing my chicken strip out now, and still need to dial in the r6 shock.

I'll be getting a few washers and will reshim the needles to get in 100% tuned up. ENOUGH of my ramblings, MORE photos!

Home from her commute ready for a longer ride






She turned 2 on the way back form the lake!

[steezin_and_wheezin]

After clicking over my first 500 miles, I'll have to say- I am really enjoying myself out there!!!

Got to ride yesterday with the owner of my first GS. We rode out to test my new pistol at the range, then cruised the back roads home. Haven't got to ride with anyone through the twisties much so that was a blast for sure.

Suspension feels great, still need to dial in the R6 shock though. BT003 tires are feeling superb, really felt at home yesterday in the turns. Even though I've put mostly straight line miles on them, the soft rubber isn't showing a flat spot out as quick as i thought they would. I probably won't buy another set of the 003's for the street, but might pick up a set to keep around in case i make it to the track.

Snapped a quick photo of the tire wear yesterday




I have my carb needles shimmed up .9mm right now, but I think i may shim them up to a full 1mm as i still have a tiny bit of lag on cruising 6th gear ~1/4 throttle.

[cbrfxr67]

i just come here for the pictures 

[steezin_and_wheezin]

First day back on two wheel bump!

Didn't get much done over the winter.. I've clocked 30 days so far shredding in WV so tool time has been low. Biggest thing I did was moved a set of base cabinets into my other parts room to give Gabby a permanent spot in the shop. Did a couple small things on her as well; regeared from 15 back to stock 16 on front sprocket, fixed tach, fixed low beam, and started trimming the chin fairing to fit cool lines and exhaust.

All my camera equipment is up in WV, so excuse the low qual cellies;

The shop during the winter(an occasional ped project trickles in..);


Just a bit more trimming and the Gimbel chin will be ready to go on. Thinking of attempting a Tombstones81 quality rattle can job to help it match to bike until full paint


Fixed my low beams, but drained my battery in the process. Let her sit over the winter and the clutch started stickin.. So I finally ordered a trickle charger. With a charged battery and a couple turns over she roared to life! Warmed up and clutch started cooperating again. Took it for a test ride last night and finally got her on the road today for first the daily commute of the season!



Starting this years To Do list

Things left to finish;
-Dial in R6 Shock
-Fork reflectors(rear reflectors?)
-Check Valves
-Figure out nissin brake mounting
-Trim and mount Gimbel chin fairing
-Polish buddha's cover to better match engine color
-Install R&G shark fin
-Fenderectomy
-Install adjustable fork caps

Things left to purchase;
---New Horn
---Smoked integrated tail light
---Rim tape