Oil change and Air filter done, and boy was that a dirty air filter!

Also attached a left tank bushing as it was missing and had a bit of trouble getting the tank to sit level on the frame, Adidasguy later pointed out that the rear tank bracket was missing both top bushings. It looks a bit crooked too so probably bent bracket as well; something to address when we take off the tank next weekend and do cables and other assorted stuff in there.

Bike is coming along great!!  I really like the mods on it so far.

Quin got a nice ride on Vashon Island today (Wow! The sun came out in Seattle!).
Overall he runs really good. A little hesitation at 45mph in 6th gear and hitting WOT. Kind of like a typical 1992 GS500.
We plan to play with carbs. I have a few sets on the shelf. One rebuilt older set that has some odd needles in it. A few sets of 2004+ carbs - throw one on just for fun and see what happens. Then there is one set of 2001-2002 carbs but they should be cleaned.

This will be fun!

First, though, is to re-bleed the rear brake. There must be a bubble in the upper loop of the new brake line. Then new fuel lines to take out the in-line filter and clean the tank out.

We had fun today!
What could be better?
Sunny day
Ferry ride to the island
couple hours of twisties with a break for hot cocoa and key lime pie
Then wine tasting before catching the 4:45 ferry back to West Seattle.

It is so much nicer to end a ride with a ferry ride home rather than 45 minutes on the interstate. I LOVE that Vason ferry terminal is 5 minutes from the Bike Cave.

BrianRC will post more photos. I think we have shown that Quin is now road worthy! Did he mention we put on new chain & sprockets? New rear brake rotor, caliper, SS brake line, new rear master cylinder and new brake reservoir? (Well, nearly new parts from a 2009 bike  )

Video of all that work is being edited. A week or two from completion.


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That's it!  I'm moving to Seattle.  Ohio sux lol. 

Yet More Awesome Things!

Due to my parking situation I have decided it would be considerate to add a headlight switch from Europe, instead of waking up the neighbors at night with blazing light in the middle of the night. How about new bar ends too? Got em on!

Brakes are bled and are now WAY better, can lock up the brakes without much effort at all. (maybe not a good thing?)

Here is a pic of the chain guard and heel guard too.

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We worked a little tonight. main thing was to put on new fuel lines. Boy - was there crap in the fuel lines and the tank. There were TWO in-line filters. One from petcock to carbs. Another one from tank to petcock to frame petcock but only on the main fuel line. Brian has pictures of that.

Here's the gas as we were draining it from the tank. Not very pretty! Brian has photos of the gunk in the fuel lines as we cut them off.


Not sure what was going on inside the tank. It was weird!


Quin did run great - in spite of crappy gas. We tried another set of cleaned carbs but they were not happy. Seems floats were stuck so we put his dirty carbs back on and he ran fine again.

I will clean these again. They gave the long mixture screws. We had them set to 2.5 turns out. These carbs will be tried again in a week or two.


The orange tank: we could NOT turn off the petcock. It was stuck. Considering what was inside the tank - not surprising. So given the choice of:
1. Dark blue
2. Red with the pink squiggles
3. Dark forest marine green

#3 was chosen. Interesting choice as that set of tank and plastics came from Holland. Brian has Dutch warning stickers!


This color is so cool in person. Pictures do not do it justice. It changes from a marine blue to a forest green depending on how you look at it and the lighting. This color was not sold in the USA.
Orange fender will get changed in a week when we do the forks.
The white wheels really look hot with this Dutch color.

Brian owes the Bike Cave a LOT of PREMIUM micro-brew beers for getting this ultra-cool set of tank and plastics.

Nice job. I wanna move to Seattle

Sent while taking a dump

Thank you! We still have a few more weeks to go before we call Quin fully restored.

That Dutch sticker - it STAYS! What a conversation piece to have a Dutch warning sticker - an OEM one - on your bike!

Brian will post pictures of some of the work AND of the crap that was in  the gas tank. Believe me - Quin runs so much better now that he is running on 87 gasoline rather than something that has been aged in rust.

Brian will add photos. But I have to say that Quin is now one of the most beautiful (nearly) stock GS500's I have ever seen and runs so well I can't believe it.

Some of what we did today:

1. Put on new front fender
2. Fixed forks: to our surprise, they had progressives! But some idiot did not put in any spacers so there was NO PRELOAD! No wonder the front felt weird but not like old crappy sprints. Oil smelled nearly as bad as cat poop. So new 15w oil and 1.5" preload spacers installed. WOW!
3. New (almost) 2009 front brake caliper.
4. SS brake line (Goodrich brand is what I use)
5. New front brake fluid that was not a dark brown.
6. Front rotor was smooth and well within the required thickness so we did not change that burt did grease the wheels when we put the wheel back on
7. Replaced fork brace and now the front fender is straight
8. When reassembling things, many bolts replaced with SS allen heads. Seems most bolts on a GS500 are M6 so I restocked with boxes of all different lengths of the strong SS M6 bolts.
9. Probably did more. Brian will add his notes.
10. Went for a test ride in the rain (it is Seattle!) about 10pm after we finished the work.

Other things done:
* New fuel lines
* New rear brakes, MS, calipers and rotor
* SS chain guard (of course!)
* SS engraved heel guards
* All new plastics and tank from the Netherlands
* R&G bar ends
* New right hand control with light switch (from the UK)
* New levers
* Shorai battery
* New chain & Sprockets
* Lots more that I can't remember
* The correct OEM turn signals put back on to replace whatever garbage was there
* New rear fender to repalace a chopped one

Quin is pretty much a totally rebuilt bike.

We discovered someone had worked on the carbs: the caps had allen head screws rather than JIS phillip heads.
Someone worked on the engine. After Brian cleaned itm, we saw the side covers were new. That may be why Quin runs so well.

We did learn  that if the petcock seems to have the vacuum line pinched and it only runs in prime, to check the gas. We first stopped at a 76 and filled up Quin with 3.4 gallons of gas. That explains why he would stop of running in ON but OK in PRIME (prime uses the reserve line). 4.1 gallon tank of which 1 gallon is reserve. Doh! We though we put more gas back in than 3/4 gallon after putting on the new-Dutch tank.

Working on the front end.....


The New Quin! Fantastic!

Before.....


Tonight.....

 

I think Adidasguy covered most of what we did tonight, let me tell you that was some serious crud in the lines. For some reason the fuel lines had an additional layer of shrink tubing around them similar to wiring loom cover and it was hard as rock!Did do some good cleaning around the front and under the tank. There was mold on the wiring harness and all over the air box. Very strange.

Definitely a serious change with the installation of the Dutch tank in the bikes style. I will  miss the orange a bit; It gave the bike a real unique look, almost playful. Now its all down to business and quite sharp looking. The white wheels really set off the blue-green  colour changing nature of the new tank and plastics! 

Decisions to be made about what to do with the tank and plastics, Anyone interested in Orange tank and plastics? With a bit of refurbishing it would look great again.

I added fork leg reflectors and removed the stock ones for a cleaner look too.

Will have to tighten the throttle up a bit before the next ride, a bit loose

I have also had the privilege to swap rides with Adidasguy on the ride tonight. I am really liking the responsiveness of the later engines. The Gimble rear set and shifter give such a positive response while riding Phoenix compared to my stock setup. Its a totally different bike! The last 5 days off the bike must have made me rusty though as I stalled out 4 times getting used to the different clutch levers! 

Here is some pics of the gruesome mess:

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It is amazing that Quin even ran with the crud in the fuel lines and the brown, muddy looking gas. I have to say he runs so well with REAL gas.

It's a lot of fun working on Quin. Brian is a great  person and Quin is honored to have him as his new master. I know Quin will get all the love and attention he deserves - after some previous owners who did some good things but lots of neglect (like a chain with 3" of sag and all the o-rings fell off in the clutch cover!)

Quin is so awesome!

Brian is so lucky - the only other person to have ridden both Junior and Phenix!

Realizing that the tank and plastics are from the Netherlands and  that color was not sold in the USA....
....Quin is really a one of a kind! There is no other bike like him in the USA.
That Dutch warning sticker on the tank is really cool!

Quote from: adidasguy on April 21, 2013, 01:55:19 AM
Realizing that the tank and plastics are from the Netherlands and  that color was not sold in the USA....
....Quin is really a one of a kind! There is no other bike like him in the USA.
That Dutch warning sticker on the tank is really cool!

lol NICE work my friend/s the dutch sticker. will have ot look into that for the pig. and hte motozuki or suzibecane

Looks really good Brian.  Take good care of that bike now.  If you ever want to sell it, look me up lol. 

Here he is in the sun. You can get an idea how the color changes depending on the light.
Also, a sample of the gas that WAS in Quin. Surprisingly - he ran really well! Though with the Dutch tank and new gas, he runs even better!


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  goddam!!! .. looks like bad Miso soup!!

Quote from: adidasguy on April 21, 2013, 09:36:53 PM
Here he is in the sun. You can get an idea how the color changes depending on the light.
Also, a sample of the gas that WAS in Quin. Surprisingly - he ran really well! Though with the Dutch tank and new gas, he runs even better!

Ewwww looks like the gas that came out of mine when I bought it.

The Bike is running in top form! Three of us went on a day trip to Vashon island and did some good twistys. As a new rider I am getting more and more comfortable but still have a lot of riding to do to become better. I will be looking to accessorize a bit for longer rides and would like to add a few things such as:

Cushy new seat (stock is ok but has a few tears in it)
Rack for bags
Wind fairing (a few to decide from at the bike cave)
Inner fender extension (keep dirt from spraying up into the rear shock, keep things nice and clean)

We added a brake flasher as well that flashes 5 times on brake application to get people's attention. A worthwhile safety precaution I think!

Well I have been thinking to myself "All this work and I still haven't done anything to protect the engine in a fall".

I have been eyeballing a set of SW Motec engine guards for a while now and decided It is definitely the better set up over the factory options or any of the others which just stick out too far to look good. It is worth the cost I figure to protect the engine from oops. Plus they just look badass on Nortwest rider's "Dora".

So I grabbed them off the shelf and installed them when Adidasguy wasn't really looking. Don't worry man, I will pay you back! If you really want I suppose you can take them off, after all the bike is still in the Cave. But dam if they don't look good eh?:



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Quote from: GSBRY on April 15, 2013, 09:54:23 AM
That's it!  I'm moving to Seattle.  Ohio sux lol. 

you aint kiddin Eh? i want to ride vAshon on the goped