... downside- lowside. .. stupid auto correct!

Quote from: Janx101 on August 26, 2016, 10:04:16 PM
Errrm... simple downside did that to forks and axle?! ... when you and the bike went down... what did the bike hit after that while sliding? ... it takes some force or speed to bend stuff like that!

Well, when the bike went down, it did slide into a small ditch, and the ditch had some rocks at the bottom, so maybe it hit those weird. I was only going like 30 mph, so I'm as surprised as anyone lol.

Quote from: sledge on August 26, 2016, 09:36:49 PM

I think you should also check the wheel and brake disc for run-out too.

And if its done that to the axle-bolt you should consider replacing the wheel bearings, you may well have cracked a race 

Hadn't considered that, but that makes sense. I'll inspect that once I get the wheel back on.

Also, I'm taking the bike to get inspected once I fix everything that I know needs fixed. So, hopefully any issues that I miss get taken care of at that time.

30mph into a ditch with a sudden stop against hard objects would do it probably... in the world of speed,  30mph admittedly isn't fast. .. but in the world of impacts/force its significant!

Quote from: Janx101 on August 28, 2016, 10:04:47 PM
30mph into a ditch with a sudden stop against hard objects would do it probably... in the world of speed,  30mph admittedly isn't fast. .. but in the world of impacts/force its significant!

Good thing I was wearing all my gear then, I guess. Because all I have in the way of injuries is a slightly sore thumb lol.

Quote from: sledge on August 26, 2016, 09:36:49 PM
I think you should also check the wheel and brake disc for run-out too.

And if its done that to the axle-bolt you should consider replacing the wheel bearings, you may well have cracked a race 

Looked a bit at the wheel bearings, and nothing looks cracked. I think they have shifted slightly where they sit in the wheel, but it looks like I should be able to just push them back down. Not sure about the brake rotor yet as my new axle hasn't arrived for me to put everything back together. Will post an update when I get the axle and get everything put back on.

Lastly, I looked a bit more closely at the front cowling, and while it has a little bit of rash, and some very small cracks, it appears to be in okay shape. So, at least I don't have to replace that lol. New side fairing came, and rear fairings are supposed to be here today, so slowly but surely, I'll get this thing back on the road.

So I got the rear fairing today, and I made a dumb mistake since I was rushing to order all the parts. The one that I ordered was a left, center, and right fairing set with the seat lock assembly included. So, of course, I jumped on that since I needed all of those parts except the right fairing. I didn't notice that, in the pictures 3 of the 4 mounting points for the left fairing are broken. Dummy move on my part, should've looked more closely at what I was buying. So, now I've gotta return the set, order new left and center plastics and a new seat lock/cable/latch set.

Put a new fork in yet? When I crashed my bike the clamps/steering stem unit was bent too. Tried to put in a new fork and couldn't get the bottom and top clamps lined up properly because of this.

Quote from: kapiteinkoek on August 31, 2016, 11:42:21 AM
Put a new fork in yet? When I crashed my bike the clamps/steering stem unit was bent too. Tried to put in a new fork and couldn't get the bottom and top clamps lined up properly because of this.

I haven't put the new fork in yet, because of the axle, but I hadn't considered that the triple clamps may be bent up as well... I guess its just as likely that that bent too, given how fouled up everything else is. I'll check on that tonight, hopefully the forks go in straight. *fingers crossed*

I've got a front axle asm here if you need one. I know it fits the forks, it used to be in them   Was hoping to find someone to come get ALL the rest of this stuff, but a good amount of it is still here. Wheels, the titled frame assembly, mirrors, wiring harness. Both axles, headlight (slight rash on the rim, but functional and presentable). Good battery, tail light, seat in decent shape. Tank with bedliner on the outside. All four signals, foot controls, the carbs, airbag, front fender, and brakes (front lever bent, but all working fine). Anything else you need?

Robb in Sussex WI

So, update for you guys:

Got the axle today. When I went to install the new set of forks that I bought from Robb, I found that they did not slide in properly, as kapiteinkoek predicted. However, it was only ever so slightly off, just close enough to temp me to try and force everything in, but off enough that it would be an extremely bad idea to do so. However, I believe I now have a proper explanation as to how the front end suffered so much damage in what i thought was a relatively minor crash. As I was working, I noticed a few issues: The 2 parts protruding from the front of the frame do not appear to be centered properly, and the welds on them look thicker than I would expect (I could be wrong though). I am not sure what they're called, but here is a picture of the parts I am referring to (not my bike):



My current hypothesis is that one of the previous owner (probably the owner before the girl I bought it from, as she only had it for a few months) wrecked the bike pretty bad, and severely messed up the front end. These parts were "repaired" and new forks were put in. I imagine they ran into a similar issue with the triple clamps not aligning perfectly, but in the name of cost cutting, forced everything together, which created a lot of pressure in the steering assembly. So, when I had my relatively minor crash, the forces exerted on the forks and axle were much greater than they normally would have been, leading to them being bent up so badly. Does this seem like a reasonable assumption to you guys?

In any case, I am going to replace the steering assembly to fix it right this time.

Quote from: windingroads on September 01, 2016, 02:51:37 PM
I've got a front axle asm here if you need one. I know it fits the forks, it used to be in them   Was hoping to find someone to come get ALL the rest of this stuff, but a good amount of it is still here. Wheels, the titled frame assembly, mirrors, wiring harness. Both axles, headlight (slight rash on the rim, but functional and presentable). Good battery, tail light, seat in decent shape. Tank with bedliner on the outside. All four signals, foot controls, the carbs, airbag, front fender, and brakes (front lever bent, but all working fine). Anything else you need?

Robb in Sussex WI

I already bought a new axle, but do you have the steering stem assembly? And do you know if it will fit an '05 GS500F?

ugh the things people do !!!! 

    for you for fixing this GS the right way and taking good care of it 

Thinking more about it now, I guess it is within the realm of possibility that I did just bend the steering stem during my crash, which is why the clamps are misaligned now. No real way to know for sure It was the issues with those protrusions on the front of the frame that led me to suspect that the lower clamp was bent before my crash, but I have to admit, maybe I'm just reaching for any sort of explanation for the extent of the damage other than "It hit the ditch in a really unfortunate way" lol.

I still have the lower clamp with the steering stem, still in the frame in face. Snapped a pic, but this forum isn't letting me upload regardless of how much I shrink the file ... have a lot of trouble posting here in general, for whatever reason. Anyhow, maybe someone can confirm it'll fit your year, again mine was a '97. Let me know if you need it. Robb Z.

Quote from: windingroads on September 01, 2016, 08:24:37 PM
I still have the lower clamp with the steering stem, still in the frame in face. Snapped a pic, but this forum isn't letting me upload regardless of how much I shrink the file ... have a lot of trouble posting here in general, for whatever reason. Anyhow, maybe someone can confirm it'll fit your year, again mine was a '97. Let me know if you need it. Robb Z.

I definitely need it, and I would imagine that if the forks fit that the lower clamp/steering stem isn't much different. You still have my email, right? Just send me an email with the pics and a price and we can work it out.

Another thing:

I'm not sure I really explained the situation with the frame protrustion things (I'm just gonna call them steering stops from here on out since I dont know the real name but thats what they do) well enough. When I turn the handlebars to the left, they go far enough that my left hand controls basically hit the gas tank (actually made a small dent in my tank during my crash), but when i turn them to the right, the don't go anywhere near as far. This seems to be because the steering stop piece on the frame is cocked a bit to the left. Is this normal? I don't think I've ever seen another bike where this was the case...

I'll post a picture tonight when i get home. Hopefully I can get the new steering stem soon and actually get this thing back on the road.

Got new steering stem/lower triple clamp from Robb today. Installing it after work, hopefully I can get the front of the bike all reassembled and ridable tonight. Will post pics of post-wreck, the degree to which its disassembled now, and what it looks like all reassembled.

Quote from: qcbaker on September 12, 2016, 11:25:27 AM
Got new steering stem/lower triple clamp from Robb today. Installing it after work, hopefully I can get the front of the bike all reassembled and ridable tonight.

Update:

The good: Got the new steering stem installed and it made a world of difference. Forks went in almost effortlessly and I was able to get the front end assembled pretty easily. Basically, the bike is ridable now, I just need to put all the headlight and fairings and such back on. Bike still starts up with no problems, gonna add some oil and take a ride tomorrow if all goes well 

The bad: remembered to look closely at the handlebars (finally lol) and they are definitely a little bent. Not bad enough that the bike is hard to steer or anything, but bad enough that I should replace them. Also, I forgot to take any pictures, so I'm an idiot lol.

With all that stuff bent as badly as it is I would be looking at the frame as well and maybe the engine mounts. That has had a BIG hit. more than a reasonable chance the chassis and horror of horrors, maybe even wheel cracks. CHECK EVERYTHING including chassis alignment.
There is more than reasonable chance the bike is not safe. Especially as the frame is a bolt together system and distributes forces asymmetrically along the frame.

Quote from: gregjet on September 13, 2016, 01:09:27 PM
With all that stuff bent as badly as it is I would be looking at the frame as well and maybe the engine mounts. That has had a BIG hit. more than a reasonable chance the chassis and horror of horrors, maybe even wheel cracks. CHECK EVERYTHING including chassis alignment.
There is more than reasonable chance the bike is not safe. Especially as the frame is a bolt together system and distributes forces asymmetrically along the frame.

The tail is slightly askew, so the subframe seems like it is ever so slightly bent. But I inspected the rest of the frame and didn't notice any other alignment issues  or  issues with the engine mounts or anything like that. And the wheels definitely aren't cracked in any way that I can see. I'm reasonably certain that the bike is safe to ride now that I've replaced the front end. Of course, I could be wrong, but I'm confident enough in my assessment that I feel comfortable riding with the risk for the time being. Thank you for the concern though.

Also, I'm taking the bike for inspection soon and I plan on letting them know about the crash and asking them to be extra thorough to see if they notice anything that I may have missed. The place I'm taking it to has done right by my dad and my friends for years, so hopefully they wont just take that as an excuse to tell me it needs a million things for inspection lol.

Update: Last night, torqued the axle and pinch nuts to spec (I hadn't actually torqued them down when I assembled everything last night), fixed and reinstalled the front brake (i had fully compressed the caliper by accident when I was messing with the steering prior to replacing anything), got the new cowling brace and old front cowl installed, and installed my new turn signals and my new mirrors as well. Ran out of time doing this stuff, so I didn't get to take a ride last night, but tonight I will hopefully.

I REALLY like the turn signal set now that they're on the bike. They're closer to the bike, and a little smaller than stock, so they're less obtrusive, but they're bright as hell and nicely visible.

I posted in another thread regarding my mirror choice, and I'm satisfied with them. For anyone who cares, I bought a set of aftermarket mirrors that were meant for an older GSXR (no integrated turn signals) since they were much cheaper than any GS mirrors I could find. The mounting point was exactly right, but I had been concerned that the angle of the mirrors was going to be a problem. However, once I got the mirrors installed, I found that while they weren't exactly horizontal, they were close enough that I'm happy with them.

Only things I have left to do are get a new handlebars (may go with the superbike bars for now just since they're so cheap and similar to stock and then upgrade to the Suburban Machinery ones later), install a new seat lock assembly (hopefully buying one from Iarn on here soon) and reinstall all the fairings. Until I get the seat lock, I'll just leave the rear fairings off so I can take the seat off if I need to.

Awesome to know about those mirrors! If you haven't already, you should update your mirror thread with the information and pics!!!  Very glad it worked out for you and I know I've said it before but... +1 for superbike bars 

Quote from: ShowBizWolf on September 14, 2016, 01:15:47 PM
Awesome to know about those mirrors! If you haven't already, you should update your mirror thread with the information and pics!!!  Very glad it worked out for you and I know I've said it before but... +1 for superbike bars 

I will try and do that tonight. And yeah, the superbike bars are looking pretty attractive right now because they're pretty similar to stock and I don't want to be spending a whole lot more on this, especially since I'm gonna get it inspected soon.

Possibly final repair update:

Threw the fairings on last night and went for a ride! Bike handled fine, no alignment issues to speak of. Bike reeeeeally needed oil. Maybe I just read it wrong when I got the bike and thought it had more oil than it did, because it doesn't seem to be leaking anywhere but it took 2.5 quarts of oil to get to full. Besides that, haven't had too many problems. There is one issue with shifting from first into neutral when parking, but the bike did that a couple of times before I crashed so I don't think it has entirely to do with my wreck. And I'm gonna make a separate thread about that anyway.

Things left to do: chain needs cleaned/lubed, still need seat lock assembly and need to put the rear left fairing on (I have it, just not on because I need to be able to unlatch the seat), and handlebars need replaced.

Thank you to everyone who helped me along the way to getting my bike back on the road, I really appreciate it!