oh y'know, just another build thread.

[iamhiding]

cant remember if i mentioned before but ive suddenly developed a cold start problem. usually it starts on the button but now it takes a good few tries and a couple of backfires to get it running which is no use really, especially early in the morning or late at night  haha so first things first i pulled the carbs yesterday for a quick once over.



left hand seat was hanging out but still firm in place



some gunk and corrosion in the seal area. also looked like some instant gasket had been used in the past to help seal the o-ring. i dont remember doing this but i very well could have. either way i cleaned it up and pushed it in with pliers, really quite difficult so im assuming theres a good seal, same with other side but there wasnt any build up. note to self: order some o-rings.



finally found my spare carbs!  although it turns out ive got 2 spare sets, all the o-rings are shot on the needle seats though but i robbed a vacuum cap to replace the one i had to repair ages ago.

cleaned everything and fired it back together, bike started much easier but the temps are warmer right now. cleaned the plugs and it improved, took it out for a quick 5min run and the plugs were funny afterwards, lhs = fouling rhs = a bit lean. pitch black and frozen id had enough  carbs are fine, plugs were odd so this leads me to think its either ignition related or down to valve clearances.

this morning i noticed that at idle when cold and full choke it seems to drop onto one cylinder and come back to 2 intermittently, with a bit throttle it'll jump onto 2 as well. symptoms disappear once warm although it might be reciprocating when warm and on full throttle under load, im not certain if it is but obviously vibration and heat give gremlins places to hide. also noticed that once warm and running you can remove the lhs plug cap and the bike will drop to one cyl and thump away happily, same goes when you remove the right it will thump away happily so neither side shows weakness in that regard.

after a good 12 mile thrash, basically full throttle to my door and engine off, i whipped the plugs off and although looking a tad rich they were equal this time.





not spot on equal but close enough, excuse the build up on the side of the rhs, missed it when cleaning the first time 

i dialed the air/mix screw back in a quarter turn to see if it makes starting it tomorrow any easier. cant remember now but i think it was out to 3.25 or 3.5 the last time i was playing with it months ago. think i'll need to drop a main jet size on this current exhaust configuration. that readings quite rich for it being at 4/4 throttle.

i'd also planned on testing the coils, leads and wiring back to the icm/cdi unit today but the day has run away so that'll be a job for tomorrow, just want to rule it out before diving into the valve clearances and timing. also plan on gapping the plugs and i should hopefully be picking up some straight bars in the evening

so its slightly better than it was and i've ruled something out so its a win in my book.

//





couple of pics for showbiz 

with the headlight off it actually looks a bit darker in person

[iamhiding]

oh yeah, check this! 

this was the carbs originally on the bike many a year ago, the pilot jet had a stripped head and threads were damaged so once i got something to grip it i couldn't spin it all the way loose. long story short the casting cracked whilst trying to remove the pilot 



so yeah lots of spares haha and im really not sure where the 2nd spare set came from. really handy because they'll share parts with a lot of other suzikis. 

[ShowBizWolf]

Awesome!! I still love the look of the beefier forks you put on too... my eye gets drawn there in every pic. Thanks for taking them!

I completely understand about the vinyl on the helmet visor... tbh I only ever put my visor down in the day time... mainly on the highway. I like knowing it's there, how I did my two custom helmets it would look silly without the print on the vinyl and I can flip it down anytime I want but for the most part I ride with it up and have riding glasses I use inside my helmet. Found ones on ebay that are super comfy and I have them in clear, sunglasses and also a pair that are yellow tinted for the night time (although I prefer the clear ones over those for some reason lol)

Ugh I would love to be able to keep riding even when it snows. My dad used to back in the day but he was like, "Yeah I fell down a lot haha... got tired of burning my leg on the exhaust so I finally got smart and stopped..." but I don't believe he had the proper tires and if I know my dad he didn't have proper gear either 

[iamhiding]

haha yeah it makes me smile every time i see it, its like ohhhh god what did i do  most people dont seem to have any idea what it even is.

i was meaning the tint on the headlight but yeah the same would apply for visors. ahhh okay i guess you do a lot of city riding with the visor open then or youve got quite a low speed limit near you? i tend to open the visor in built up areas, think it help visibility a bit but yeah i couldnt ride open visored most of the time here for weather and crud kicking up off the roads, spend most of my time 80+

haha thats brilliant yeah i definitely give kudos to the folk riding all year no matter the weather and anyone who's ''done their time'' doing so. it can be gruelling at times and im really glad i only do 20 mile round trips max during winter the right gear helps, i know people who still go on about doing it in jeans back in the day. and in the last 3 years ive only had that one recent winter related slide so i think ive been quite lucky.

i reckon my tyres will be awful when its icy but alright on snow as long as im behaving. i figure theyre more likely to lose traction however they should be more likely to re-find it, winter riding is really just about riding to the conditions really. its all part of the fun, looking forward to the slidey stuff. 

[iamhiding]

well coils, leads and plug caps check out as does the related wiring. main ground gave me some funny readings but the cable tests fine however battery to engine or frame shows a little more resistance than id like. the signal pulse generator checks out and so does its wiring, made sure everything was doing as its meant to. momentarily one of the wires was spiking about the place but tested again and it was fine. so theres potential signs of weakness there but really i need to test these things again on a really frosty morning.

i dont suspect it to be coil related as typically they are fine when cold but act up when hot whereas im finding the opposite.

cleaned all the connections and gave them a squoosh of wd40, bike started on the button with no hesitation but it wasnt exactly minus temps so it doesnt really prove that its been resolved.

potential gearbox issue still hasnt revealed itself so happy days there. 

gremlins... yeugh... see what happens, i'll be happy if something actually brakes or fails, at least then i'll be able to sort it indefinitely rather than just having a fiddle and everything seems fine again.



^ modified ignition timing pickup plate for a little bit of advance, you'll see the 2 main mounting points have been ground round to allow the plate to be rotated anti-clockwise ie making it spark slightly sooner. done it years ago but from what i recall, there wasnt a noticeable power gain however the throttle response just felt a little bit sharper which was good. theres a guide on one of the gs pages if you have a look. thought id take a pic whilst the cover was off.

[ShowBizWolf]

Lots of small trips for me yes... it's only 2.5 miles from my house to my work and the highest the speed limit gets between here and there is 35 LOL... even on the weekends when I'm going to work at my dad's garage, the highway is only 55 for the speed limit... I'll try to keep around 65 but when I tuck everything in and get behind my windscreen I've noticed 80+ comes up realllll fast haha 

And I can imagine what you said about the forks... most people really wouldn't have a clue what ya did and it's like ugh !!

[iamhiding]

Lots of small trips for me yes... it's only 2.5 miles from my house to my work and the highest the speed limit gets between here and there is 35 LOL... even on the weekends when I'm going to work at my dad's garage, the highway is only 55 for the speed limit... I'll try to keep around 65 but when I tuck everything in and get behind my windscreen I've noticed 80+ comes up realllll fast haha 

And I can imagine what you said about the forks... most people really wouldn't have a clue what ya did and it's like ugh !!

ahhh right  yeah all our single carriage ways i.e one lane traveling either direction are 60. some single track roads are 40 which no one really obeys and our dual carriage ways (2 lanes travelling either direction) & motorways (3+ lanes travelling either direction) are both 70 with the exception of some dualers being less but we dont really have roads like that on our doorstep and our villages, towns an cities are all 30 unless stated otherwise. spend most of my time flat out around the back roads that are 60 zones here as im like 15-20 minutes in any direction to get to a city. the gs is quick enough getting up to 80 but i always found it to just struggle a bit beyond that until i got it breathing a bit better.

yeah haha in towns its loud, obnoxious and everyone about snaps their neck turning round to see it  not necessarily a good thing hahaha but the looks of disgust i get from non petrolheads is brilliant, you can usually spot the bikers pulling the ''what the fk is that'' face its not often i can park it up without someone wanting to talk about it, between that and the gsxr11 it can be a nightmare when you're needing to get somewhere. but yeah because it doesnt say gs500 on the side most people are oblivious, had lots of people ask about my bandit and im just like ''... i've never had a blandtit?''    always entertaining i guess but no one gets why ive done it to a gs

//

bike started on the button this morning (wasnt too cold) but was a little boggy till warm so that to me says fuelling but ive known this for long enough.

its not been quite the same since i switched exhaust can so i'm dropping from 152.5 mains to 147.5 as the plugs read pretty damn rich. i lost a set of 150s unfortunately, they fell out my pocket or i would've thrown them in to see what like.

once i dial the fuelling in again and its back to doing what its meant to do i'll be getting some brisk plugs (br12 zc) fancy multispark plugs that are meant to be the bee's knees. theres a few interesting brisk options but the br12's are the race oriented ones. should have it running a bit better and 'should' see an increase in power output but really such claims are nothing without back to back dyno charts, it will however give better throttle response without a doubt. i think they fall into the same heat range as the standard ngk dpr 8ea 9's so it wont be changing its thermal and self cleaning characteristics. i think there was a post years ago from the late and great addidasguy on here about the brisk plugs. a lot of people will say theres no point but all these little things you do to make it just a little bit better really do add up to being a profound difference, its just a little sharper and a little more on point but obviously its never going to make the same difference as jumping on a bike with a set of hot cams or a big bore haha

still planning on skimming the head to increase compression at some point, porting the head and playing with bigger carbs its a shame there isn't a big bore kit available anymore and any custom big bore is going to be more of a headache than its worth unfortunately.

think thats it for today but yeah it started much better so it might even have just been a connection needing cleaned... gremlins... who knows  but it being so rich in the cold weather wont help so its just another step of getting it right and ruling something out. 

//

[emanuel_v19]

Hey what size of tires are you using?

[iamhiding]

Hey what size of tires are you using?

haha hey emanuel, they're not actually that big, its a 150/70/17 mounted on a proper sized rim and a 120/70/17 mounted on the proper sized rim the tread just makes them look massive.

[emanuel_v19]

And when you say proper sized rim, you mean a different rim other than the stock one right?

[iamhiding]

And when you say proper sized rim, you mean a different rim other than the stock one right?

correct  the 150 & 120 mix aren't ideal on stock rim widths. have a look through the thread and you'll find the answer to what you're likely about to ask =P

[iamhiding]

annnnnnd another post.

after lots of trial and tribulation... and things 'testing' fine on multiple occasions i got to the bottom of my hard starting. left hand side ht lead had stripped itself from the coil and was sitting loose so that it would still run but give weak spark and intermittent problems, its been like that for ages, obviously it explains why one plug had been fouling and one was running slightly lean. luckily i had a spare coil set in my pocket as I've been waiting for something to fail so i popped a new lead and cap on and boom no more problems. had the bike stripped down at the side of the road to sort and accidentally left the new coil on the back of the bike and its fallen off or at the side of the road  damn... couldn't find it again. so I've lost a new coil. the bike is running sweet again on both cylinders though, I've felt like it was just a bit lethargic for ages and finally its back to normal.

//

excuse the sooty plug on the left, been playing with the carbs a lot recently and i'm still dialling the tune in. got my new brisk plugs, bike is running much sharper on them  however my ngk r's are a couple of years old and have been fouled countless / cleaned times so i couldn't say they were hands down better but its running crisper than the ngks were when freshly cleaned. just need to dial in the tune still haha like maybe one day i'll finish fiddling with the carbs, thats it running well enough that I'm not just pi...ss...ing against the wind with them. oh back to picking a main jet again

[iamhiding]

turns out that even on the new ht lead and cap albeit lesser i was still having issues with what is a wet weather running issue. aka 13/14 days because scottish winters are awesome   

just to show whats causing the problem here,



every time i'm out in the wet this area is bombarded by water and road grime. not ideal really, our roads are gritted with salt at winter. so yeah i was out the other night and the bike started dropping a cyl again after have thought it was remedied so i pulled up, wiped the water from the coil and lead and boom the bike burbling away happy again. it's kind of understandable when you see how much muck is getting sprayed up at them and it doesn't help that the tyres are shitflickers haha

so the solution.





should've taken pics with it off the bike but hey ho. what i've done is use some amalgamating tape (self bonding, no adhesive, magical fix everything silicone based tape) to seal the ends of the ht lead before putting the cap on, rubber seal and on the coil end i've put in on the inside of its seal and over the outside once screwed into the coil as well. both left and right ht leads and cleaned the connections up with wd40. that should be it sealed up right but i'm going to need to make a shield to stop the shitflicking up into the coil area and up over the engine and carbs. the oldschool way of insulating coils and leads would be to use bicycle inner tube to wrap the whole thing.

turned out the rhs ht lead had stripped itself on the coil end as well, so that has been replaced.

//

think i've got the carbs in a state of 90% tune, bike was slightly hard starting when cold and smelt very fuelly' from the exhaust at idle so i took the air/mix screw in a quarter turn and it seems to be very happy to start. there is however a tiny bit of bog in between 1/4 & 1/2 throttle which i'll need to play with. all it will take is a hour or 2 to get it dialled in to 99% but finding the time is a challenge. i think with tuning theres always going to be a bit of sacrifice, like top end power usually is better when its a little on the lean side but then you don't want to be running flat out lean for lengthy periods do you.

current tune is back on

150 mains
40 pilots
needle lifted one notch
and i think i'm on 3 & 1/4 turns out on the air/mix.

//

finally shimmed out the headlight clamps so that they don't rattle about  what a difference for night time riding hahaha

had to replace the front left indicator as it disintegrated basically. luckily i had a spare one to match.

also took the bike offroad for the first time, it was only for a little bit but the tyres sure grip in. also bottomed out the forks on an unexpected hole off road... OUCH, did i say ouch? yeah ouch hahaha  definitely not enough travel on those forks for anything serious.

really need to give the bike a good deep clean, think its been another week of filth since that picture.

[iamhiding]

wee update:

still been having a spot of bother with the left cyl dropping out and being an intermittent dickhead when it pleases but everything ive done so far to remedy it makes it seem to stop happening for a while but then again it might just be doing what it does regardless haha so whilst i was checking everything out previously i noted that the ignition pickup for the left coil was giving out funny readings, ie reading in spec then jumping out then jumping in but sometimes multimeters can give readings like that so i didn't think much of it. after the last success of sealing up the connections to the coil and it running almost spot on again the problem came back. ordered up a ignition pulse generator.

prior to installation i started the bike effortlessly and it idled like a champ, tested the new pulse gen and it was in spec, so had to crimp a new terminal on as it had been damaged by the PO



no biggie but crimping non insulated terminals is deeply satisfying.  so anyway once installed the bike wouldn't run on both cyls...  so it wasn't that causing the problem. once checking that there was actually spark on the left side i then proceeded to run test wire from the cdi box straight to the left coil connections just to prove there wasn't a fault in the wiring causing it not to spark in relation to the pulse gen, this solved nothing. electrically there is only the cdi box itself which is open to question but it looks like theres good strong consistent spark so i'm straying away from it being an electrical problem for now which leaves the fuel side of things and valve clearances. its not typical that valve clearances give intermittent problems like I'm getting, typically they just don't run right when hot as the clearance tightens up even more and respectively if they were loose i would hear it. mines has been hard starting then once warm or if you give it some revs it springs back into 2 cyls usually but it's been getting worse as of recent.

anyway with the above issue still happening ie. strong spark but not firing on left side, i chapped the bottom of the carb bowl just to make sure the needle wasn't sticking shut or something this didn't aid it in running after a good couple of tries to start it so i pulled the k&n off so i could see into the inlet to visually check the fuel misting and boom it started on the button as happy and lively as ever... odd so after a couple of revs i turned it off, threw the filter back on and boom started on the button again. pulled the filter off again just to continue checking the slides were working right and that visually everything seemed alright.

definitely there was a spark problem to begin with even if it was just a couple of things adding up to create weak spark. at this point ive got an incline towards it possibly being fuel related but for the time being its back to behaving itself and its running better than ever with all the ignition elements getting refreshed.

trouble shooting when you're dealing with symptoms like this is a colossal pain, they're completely illogical 

i've obviously been through and cleaned the carbs countless times, i need to check that the float is still doing its thing and check the levels, also replace the needle seat o-rings for peace of mind but for the time being she is A-OK again... if the issues redevelops i'm going to set up my spare set of carbs and throw them on just so that i can rule something out, i really dont think there's anything in regard to the carbs thats causing this kind of problem, it's the intermittent nature throwing me.

i could do with visually checking with the filter off when it's refusing to run on both cyls just to see whats happening there.

//

once had the filter pop off by itself so i keep it secured, got a wee bit of safety wire on it this now.



made up a wee shield to aid in stopping the sprayback in wet weather out of a cut up inner tube, haven't been out in the wet yet but here's hoping its enough to stop the coil area and carbs getting bombarded by road grime. see what happens.

[iamhiding]

well... i've been having a riot sliding around on the gs last night when there was a good dusting of snow and then again today when there was 3-4'' in places    

really quite impressed with the tkc80s on snow not so good on sheet ice but then other than studded tyres or tracks... what is 

[the_63]

If my bike was together it wouldn't even consider thinking about beginning to try to start in these temps, and its only been down to -1 here in Norwich! Glad you're having a great time though bud, ride safe 

Chris

[iamhiding]

If my bike was together it wouldn't even consider thinking about beginning to try to start in these temps, and its only been down to -1 here in Norwich! Glad you're having a great time though bud, ride safe 

Chris

haha yeahh gotta say the bike starts on the button at the moment, even in the subzeros although the carbs are still in need of fettling cheers though man haha still waiting for some more snow to play in  its so much having a bike that if you drop it you just shrug it off and slide about some more.

[iamhiding]

so its the dreaded mot time at the end of this week, going to have to amend a couple of things prior though so i'll be off the road for a wee bit. insurance and tax are up the same day as well.

shock knuckle bearings need done again... theres a bit of swingarm play, ive bought another knuckle but it seems to need a bearing. think ive sussed out a cheap way to do it rather than pay for suzuki's non standard size bearing. think its a 20x27x26 needle that atatches the knuckle to the frame but its a speciality to suzuki and costs £30!! i've found 20x27x25 which means its 1mm narrower but that shouldnt make any odds to its use and at £5.39 its worth trying it out.

^ the second knuckle i got is from a 92' bike and is a much more substantial looking item to the the usual gs one that everyone has, i'll throw a pic up when i get a chance. different part number as is the relative dogbones / shock so i'm hoping its still the same geometry but i'll just have to see what like it is. looks like it will be easier to clean but theres no other advantage.

i also need to put some appropriate brake lines on so i'll need to measure up what i need and take it from there.

front brake has a sticky piston. i hate 6pots 

also need to mount the speedo a little sturdier and throw the chain guard on.

just a couple of small things really, it would probably pass as it is but theres no point mucking around.

[iamhiding]

update.

insurance etc is up at the moment. bike was running like crap again so pulled the filter off and ran the bike, it was stumbling, cutting out then spitting back through one carb. soo... its likely valve clearance time.

pulled the carbs for a clean, some debris in the bowl but not too bad. pulled apart and setup my spare carbs to see how it would run on them using the best of parts combined and reset the float height. i didn't expect it to make a difference it was purely experimental. it made zero odds to the bike running



i remember why i wound up with 3 sets  spares had a pilot with a stripped head. managed to free it with some abuse to open it out and then a torx bit hammered in.



the needles in the spare set (middle 2) have a completely different taper to the typical 5dh9 pre 01' needles, ive got a sneaking suspicion that they might be dynojet.


turns out the other knuckle i picked up isn't any different haha i'm just a nugget.

someone has punched the bearing out and pressed a brass collar into it though which kinda sucks



whereas it should be needle bearing like this knackered one



i reckon the brass collar has been someone's cheap fix in the past but its not exactly ideal, need to get it pressed out and see hope the knuckle wasn't altered to make it work and that i can throw  bearing in.

[iamhiding]

purely for my own entertainment purposes, bent an allen key from the spares box to hold the exhaust. rewired the bottom one as the other allen keys i tried to use just wanted to snap. 







using spare lines that are also miles too long i thought i'd share the front line routing i'm going to go for. think i spoke before about how i was going to go for an over mudguard style setup, i had everything measured up and was about to bite the bullet but had a realisation. i plan on going for a high mount mudguard eventually which would make and over the mudguard style setup useless. so using a bit of forethought i want to put a clamp to the bottom of the bottom yoke/triple and run the left hand line up the fork leg to that point before transferring to the other side and meeting the right hand line, all going well this should give me a bit more flexibility in the future. the build really has strayed away from my original intent, its not so much about making something with a bit more handling prowess is it, i guess i can always put road tyres back on it... right 



also measured my static sag to take into consideration the line length, my sag 17mm, is far too little haha but obviously you need to think about the line not getting pulled tight when the forks extend fully. really need to drop a little oil out the forks to help get the sag a spot closer and soften things up but its not important right now. ive gotten used to it but it's still brutally stiff.



marked the centre of the banjo on the line, rounded the 17mm sag up to 25mm to allow for wider bars and the routing perhaps needing changed a little. need to get a second set of hands to hold the line out straight so i can get measurement on the red lines though. hopefully get the new ones ordered up tomorrow.

bit of a boring update but i guess but a lot of people don't really post this stuff and unless you've thought it through you're not likely to get line length right so hey it might help someone out.

the weathers been pitiful so i haven't managed to get into measure the valve clearances, its a job for tomorrow if its not raining though.