I have a couple of things to do to the GS

[moe_tunes]

I was trying to avoid an accident happening in front of me and ended up clipping the back corner of a tip truck. The bike and I went down and under the front wheel of the tip trucks trailer and were dragged down the highway.  The back wheel is buckled and gouged, the axle head is ground down, the swingarm is crushed at the ends and bent, there's some plastic damage and the footrest hanger and shifter are bent from the trailer wheel rolling on them.

At first I thought the exhaust was bent into the wheel but when I could move around a bit again I put the bike on the center stand and it was obvious the swingarm is bent.



I am suprised the rest of the bike is ok. Front wheel, forks, handlebars, engine and frame are unscathed. The bar end mirror doesn't have a scratch on it. So with a replacement swingarm and back wheel, some hammering and plastic welding it should be ok for the road again. I just need to be a bit more mobile to start that.
Meanwhile if someone around South East Queensland has a back wheel and/or/ swingarm or a parts bike I know a bloke that's looking

Cheers

[herennow]

Sorry to hear that, good luck getting it all back together. Are you OK?

 I had a front ender when someone cut me off. I got new forks, sidestand, footpeg mount handlebar etc slowly for ebay ad got it back together.

[DarkCyDE]

Just glad you survived even if your bike didnt fare so well.
You might want to take a hard look at the frame as well. Best of luck with your repairs

[moe_tunes]

Sorry to hear that, good luck getting it all back together. Are you OK?

 I had a front ender when someone cut me off. I got new forks, sidestand, footpeg mount handlebar etc slowly for ebay ad got it back together.

So far I am 13 weeks on crutches with a badly broken tibia, suprisingly there was very little other damage.
There is an OK motorbike wreckers near me that I'll hit up for the parts. I do like to see and touch what I am buying before handing over cash...

Cheers

[moe_tunes]

Normally with the GS on the centrestand there is about 15mm between the tyre and the ground so I shove a 19mm thick fence paling under the tyre which makes removing and replacing the rear axle super easy. In its' current configuration with the swingarm bent the tyre is hard on the ground so I expected removing the rear axle to be a battle but it ended up being relatively easy.
I removed the rear wheel to make sure there was no load on the swingarm so I could see if the swingarm shaft was hard to remove due to a bent frame or not. It came out easy so the frame isn't bent in a way that binds the swingarm shaft. That makes me happy to continue with the repairs

Here is a pic of my improvised mechanics seat (Not Recommended)

[moe_tunes]

I am starting to be a bit more mobile now. I can walk a little bit without the crutches which means I can carry things again. On Wednesday I thought I would do some simple maintenance tasks on the GS like lubricating the cables. The clutch cable was easy: I move the plastic cover out of the way, turn the adjuster so the slot is facing up, pull the lever in and as I release it I drop oil on the exposed cable. I do that a few times and repeat the process in between doing other things.  The switchblock has to come apart to oil the throttle cables which I have done 5 times on this bike and I have had to pull it apart twice to service the starter button. I just couldn't get the JIS scewdriver to engage the screw heads at all this time. I grabbed the RD400 mirror I have been using as a mirror_on_a_stick for thirty years and couldn't believe what I saw. It looked like someone had taken a drill to the screwheads! Why? Since it is only me that works on the bike it was my problem to deal with...
I added some more oil to the clutch cable, took all the fairings off, loosened what handlebar controls I could and rotated the bars forward as much as I could. It then occurred to me that maybe someone had used a phillips head bit in a drill or impact driver to wreck the screwheads. Why? Hotwiring a motorbike doesn't happen at the killswitch...  I could use a vice grip on one screwhead and luckily it was when whoever was tryng to undo the screw that it was wrecked but the other screw is in a bit of a recess so no getting a vice grip on it. I hammered a screw bit from a variety pack I have in as best I could and with a 3/8th socket on it, pushing as hard as I could, I got it out.

On Friday I went for coffe and pastries with a friend and on the way home dropped in to my favorite nuts and bolts store. I showed the lady behind the couter the two butchered screws and asked for 4 zinc socket head bolts in each length and ten nuts saying the shanks can't be longer but if I have to cut the thread to length that's ok, fully expecting to have to cut them. Ten minutes later she came out of the dark recesses of the store room, plonked a plastic bag of shiny bolts on the counter and asked if it was cash or card. I told her cash and while she was putting my purchase into the system I checked the bolts out. It had taken her ten minutes because she was looking for a perfect match for each screw. I don't know how they make any money with people like me shopping there which is why I always buy more than I need, it came to four hundred and forty five cents. As always when I shop there I was very happy.

I'm off to add more oil to the throttle cables now.
    Happy holidays

[moe_tunes]

I have a replacement rear wheel. The local bike wrecker made it too hard for me to give them my money so it came from ebay...

Anyone know what years had silver wheels? It must be from last century.
One bearing is super crunchy and the other only turns about 20 degrees but knowing I was going to buy a second hand wheel I had already  bought an All Balls wheel bearing kit. A couple of years ago i went to my local Suzuki dealer and asked for steering head bearings and was suprised that they gave me an All Balls kit. The bearings were Japanese made so I was ok with it. This wheel bearing kit has a sticker on it with large print, almost like a warning, MADE IN CHINA. Anyone used bearings made of Chineesium?

The same ebay seller also had a swingarm so he has more of my money now.

Inside the arms was very rusty, they all are rusty but this was pretty bad. I did my best to scrub the rust with a scourer on the end of some fencing wire, blew the rust out of the arms, filled them with vinegar and let the acetic acid do its' thing for five days. After emptying the vinegar out I filled each arm with a warm water and baking soda solution to neutralise the acid and scrubbed them with a scourer on a bit of fencing wire again. I gave them a couple of flushes with hot water and sat the swingarm in the sun to dry. It is summer here in Gods_Own_Zone so within an hour the swingarm was too hot for me to pick up so it stayed there until the sun started going down. I brought the swingarm in and sprayed a bunch of fish oil in each arm a couple of times for some rust protection. With the way the arms are shaped I have no idea of the coverage at the pivot ends but I sprayed enough fish oil to be somewhat confidant.
The bearings seem fine so I greased them and have penciled in replacing them in the winter if needed.

I am mobile enough now to flail around on the ground like a beetle stuck on its' back so the suspension and swingarm should be out this week.

Cheers

[herennow]

At general type stores (Candian Tyre equivalents?) you can get what they call "cavity spray", its an aerosol with a waxy anti rust content. It comes with a long hose with a jet at the end and you can feed it in and coat the inside of cavitys. I've used it quite a bit. Might be good for this application.

Keep up the good work.

[moe_tunes]

At general type stores (Candian Tyre equivalents?) you can get what they call "cavity spray", its an aerosol with a waxy anti rust content. It comes with a long hose with a jet at the end and you can feed it in and coat the inside of cavitys. I've used it quite a bit. Might be good for this application.

Keep up the good work.

From some of the youtube vids I have watched I have become envious of folks that have access to places like Canadian Tyre and tractor supply stores, they seem great, but we have nothing like them here.Too small a population I guess... I'm sure that with the back wheel in and a hundred km's done the rust in the swingarm will become a faded memory.

The rear suspension and swingarm are out


One of these is not like the other


Here's a pic of the R6 shock I have been running for about 90000kms. It still seems fine so I will probably run it for another 90000


Cheers