No pics, but I did hit a milestone over the weekend.

First thing though, since I will be riding my GS a bit before the Triumph is totally finished, I needed to get the pesky oil leak sorted out once and for all. For those late to the story, quick recap. Right after I bought this bike, it wouldn't run right and turns out it had bent exhaust valves so I had a local shop do a top end rebuild. They seemed to do the hard work right, but the easy stuff we all do was all screwed up, such as I didn't even get it home from the shop before it died because they forgot to connect the vacuum line to the petcock, then it was leaking a ton of oil and I discovered they hadn't tightened the bolts on the cam breather cover more than finger tight. Then I developed a right side crankshaft seal leak that was leaking oil onto my right foot, I wound up changing that seal twice before it finally quit leaking, and then I was left with one final oil leak, the cam cover gasket, which the shop doing the top end rebuild had not put together properly. So Saturday morning I pulled this all apart and redid that cam cover seal with RTV as God and Suzuki intended. My dad and I went for a 60+ mile ride yesterday and it didn't leak a drop. Finally, my Japanese motorcycle doesn't leak more oil than my British bike.

Anyway, I finished doing all of what I could on my Triumph at my parents house over the weekend and we brought it home. This meant putting the new brake and clutch levers, fitting the new exhaust, and putting the replacement stator cover on. Turns out I wasn't able to salvage the stator cover gasket so I'll have to redo that job again once a new gasket comes in, but it's easy and quick. Once it was all together the bike wouldn't turn over even though my battery tender had said it was charged, but we put it on a trailer and brought it home anyway with the plan to use my jump pack to start it. Well the jump pack was also dead, so we tried jumping it from my Jeep. It would turn over fine but didn't start after repeated attempts. Remember I have a very steep driveway so the only way to get a motorcycle up into it is by riding it in. No way to push it up the hill. We scratched our heads (my brother rode along to help loading and unloading), checked literally every single connector and fuse, retried, retried, and after sitting there connected to my Jeep's battery for 20 minutes, it started. So I rode it up into the garage and then we wrestled with the fuel line quick connector for an hour getting the tank off. Now it's parked and the tank is off and ready for me to run it over to the body shop for paint today.

My machinist is working on my rotor adapter so I can get the Thruxton rotor mounted up, and I'm still waiting on a handful of parts from BikeBandit which may never come. But it's really close to complete. Nice to have it home, that's for sure.

NIce update!  60+ mile ride sounds great too!

Seems as everything is on the mend!

I went for a ride on the GS today, short one, mostly to get gas and I also put in 6 or so of Seafoam in it.

So it doesn't leak oil anymore, but you know what? it also doesn't want to idle. No matter where I set the idle speed, it basically stalls at idle. It tries to idle at like 500 rpm. Either the idle mixture is extremely lean (unlikely), or the pilot jets are clogged (more likely IMHO). I was hoping the Seafoam would help unclog pilot jets without having to pull the carbs but that doesn't look very likely now. Runs great once off idle. Frustrating since it's my only usable motorcycle now.

Also it is very hard to start when it has been sitting. It takes throttle to start it if it's been parked just a few minutes, or like at every stop sign when it dies and you have to restart it.

Annoying. I really prefer fuel injection.

My hopes of getting the Triumph fully put together and rideable this week are basically shot. No word on the tank and body parts progress, but I guess it'll be at least another week. The rotor adapter has been delayed at least a few days, probably also next week. But I did get the gauge cups made and just need to polish them up and put them back on. Still waiting forever for parts from Bikebandit, like the gasket required under one of the gauge cups. I need to spend some time with an angle grinder, #1 making adapters to mount the fender 1.25" lower, and #2 to grind the edge on the rear brake lever where the road scraped 1/8" off, since that rear brake pedal is no longer available from Triumph. And seriously, Triumph? They made these bikes up until 4 years ago. It's a sticky out part that breaks in every wreck. I've decided to try to straighten the gear lever and buy a new one only later after the holidays. And the new hand grips I got are both throttle side (!!) and I missed the return window so I'll just keep the LH grip that's on there, it's only a little bit scraped up, and put one of the new throttle side grips on. That plus I have a new stator cover gasket so I'll probably spend Saturday getting ALL of this little stuff done so when the tank and rotor adapter show up next week I can put them on and just go ride.

Because, I'd much rather do that than pull the carbs off the GS. Which I hate doing. But maybe I'll do that too.

Quote from: mr72 on November 03, 2020, 10:30:54 AM
I went for a ride on the GS today, short one, mostly to get gas and I also put in 6 or so of Seafoam in it.

So it doesn't leak oil anymore, but you know what? it also doesn't want to idle. No matter where I set the idle speed, it basically stalls at idle. It tries to idle at like 500 rpm. Either the idle mixture is extremely lean (unlikely), or the pilot jets are clogged (more likely IMHO). I was hoping the Seafoam would help unclog pilot jets without having to pull the carbs but that doesn't look very likely now. Runs great once off idle. Frustrating since it's my only usable motorcycle now.

Also it is very hard to start when it has been sitting. It takes throttle to start it if it's been parked just a few minutes, or like at every stop sign when it dies and you have to restart it.

Annoying. I really prefer fuel injection.

My hopes of getting the Triumph fully put together and rideable this week are basically shot. No word on the tank and body parts progress, but I guess it'll be at least another week. The rotor adapter has been delayed at least a few days, probably also next week. But I did get the gauge cups made and just need to polish them up and put them back on. Still waiting forever for parts from Bikebandit, like the gasket required under one of the gauge cups. I need to spend some time with an angle grinder, #1 making adapters to mount the fender 1.25" lower, and #2 to grind the edge on the rear brake lever where the road scraped 1/8" off, since that rear brake pedal is no longer available from Triumph. And seriously, Triumph? They made these bikes up until 4 years ago. It's a sticky out part that breaks in every wreck. I've decided to try to straighten the gear lever and buy a new one only later after the holidays. And the new hand grips I got are both throttle side (!!) and I missed the return window so I'll just keep the LH grip that's on there, it's only a little bit scraped up, and put one of the new throttle side grips on. That plus I have a new stator cover gasket so I'll probably spend Saturday getting ALL of this little stuff done so when the tank and rotor adapter show up next week I can put them on and just go ride.

Because, I'd much rather do that than pull the carbs off the GS. Which I hate doing. But maybe I'll do that too.

The only thing seafoam ever did for me was to lighten my wallet.

You'll have those carbs off, cleaned out and back on in a few hours! 

Quote from: Sporty on November 03, 2020, 03:34:09 PM

The only thing seafoam ever did for me was to lighten my wallet.

You'll have those carbs off, cleaned out and back on in a few hours! 

Well I only rode it about 7 or 8 miles after putting the seafoam in, so maybe by sitting in the float bowls all night it'll do something. I'll give it another ride. Could also be the idle air orifices clogged, which Seafoam couldn't help even if it was a magical elixir. But I figured it couldn't hurt. I had run the tank down to reserve anyway so I thought maybe I got some gunk through.

The good news, I got the Bonnie's rear brake pedal fixed up yesterday afternoon, and I also got the stator cover gasket installed. As usual it was a real pain to get the old gasket off, and this time it was stuck to the engine case and not the cover like it usually is on a GS, making it double difficult to fix. I'm sure some bits of gasket made it into the oil. Oh well, let's hope that overbuilt Triumph engine has massive oil passages enough to carry whatever flecks of gasket are there can safely flow to the filter without clogging something.

Also, my machinist dropped off the 3D printed prototype of the brake rotor adapter last night, so today I'll test fit it on my old bent wheel and with the new Thruxton rotor, and note any adjustments that need to be made, sign off on the design and he says he will have the aluminum part made by the end of the weekend. So that's awesome news.

It's glorious weather this week, best of the entire year here in Central TX. But I just don't love riding my GS with the dodgy carb so it's not begging me to go get on it like my Triumph would. So I took the doors and top off of the Jeep last weekend and I've been enjoying my giant 4 wheel adventure bike. It's only slightly bigger and heavier than a GS1250 after all...

Quote from: mr72 on November 04, 2020, 05:00:21 AM

Quote from: Sporty on November 03, 2020, 03:34:09 PM

The only thing seafoam ever did for me was to lighten my wallet.

You'll have those carbs off, cleaned out and back on in a few hours! 

Well I only rode it about 7 or 8 miles after putting the seafoam in, so maybe by sitting in the float bowls all night it'll do something. I'll give it another ride. Could also be the idle air orifices clogged, which Seafoam couldn't help even if it was a magical elixir. But I figured it couldn't hurt. I had run the tank down to reserve anyway so I thought maybe I got some gunk through.

The way I've read (and tried) to use the sea foam is run or drain the carbs dry, then fill the bowls with sea foam through the fuel line. (I used a spout bottle into the fuel line and filled them up). Then let the carbs sit over night before draining.  I was really hoping it would work on my ST1100... that thing is brutal to work on and remove the carbs. You could do a fleet of GS500E in the time it takes to do one ST1100.

I guess there's a chance this weekend I will pull the carbs off the GS and clean them .. AGAIN.. But what I really need to do after is ride it until it's warmed up properly and do a correct idle mixture adjustment, since I haven't done that since fiddling with needle shims and jets to sort my last carb issue.

Meanwhile, the light is starting to show at the end of the tunnel for the Triumph.

I worked over the brake pedal with an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel, then a flat file, then some 400 grit on a hard sanding block, then a Dremel polishing wheel.

Before:


After:
[img witdh=600]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ACtC-3dak5Gpu1JTHZgFgQ9zfD-5oaw7WgWsaoOt75VNITS8wnTaT4MVpmpom9igr3n7Cxjo2JXs9abnf3vMirobcumvmCUwh7Lp7yNvZ1ZMWFKLKX1l-eQzrO8SZ20GDsZ_AKLJhzpX0mraydpTr3KF_oOYBg=w745-h993-no?authuser=0[/img]

I would have preferred to just replace it with a new part but Triumph no longer makes it. So I'll be on the hunt for a good used part. Should still be totally usable until then.

I did replace the stator cover gasket. Getting the old gasket off was not easy. I am pretty sure I got many little flecks of the old gasket dropped into the crankcase oil. Not much else I could do to prevent it. The old paper gasket was stuck on the engine side. But it's all together now. Here's hoping it doesn't leak, and those little gasket bits find their way to the oil filter promptly.

Also got the gauge cups made up. I still have to do some more work on them, basically I am going to put some of that door-edge guard around the top edges of the gauge cup and I am leaning towards finishing them in a brushed finish rather than the polished look, since right next to the chrome headlight the polished SS doesn't match and they would better match things like the brushed engine cases.



BTW the interesting thing is I think these same $7 SS cups could be made into GS500 gauge cups too, and I need different ones on my GS. I may one day fab up a whole new gauge bracket for the GS.

I got the prototype 3D printed disc rotor adapter and test fit it, all is good there so the machinist says it'll likely get built from T-6061 over the weekend. So I might be able to fit it late this weekend.

And, the tank and other paint work is done, going to pick them up this morning.



OK. So the work that remains to be done on the Triumph:

- pull the front wheel and mount the new rotor with bespoke adapter.
- repair one of the saddle bag mounting straps
- finish the finish on the gauge cups
- reinstall the tank
- fab up the little steel tabs to relocate the fender... this will be this weekend's garage project, cutting,  drilling and shaping 3/16" steel plate is no picnic.
- lots of little fiddly things to get ready to ride...
  - aim the headlight, adjust controls
  - trim the damaged edge of the throttle tube, put on a new throttle side grip
  - re-adjust the exhaust header alignment
  - bend the gear lever back
  - brush up (haha!) the slightly marred brushed finish on the stator cover

And of course I still have one or two parts coming one day from BikeBandit, so I will eventually swap those gauge rubber gaskets and the handlebar riser bolts when that gets here. And I will eventually get a new gear lever, but it's perfectly rideable with the one that's on there. Also, once I have a weekend to myself I'll drive out to a friend's place in Kerrville and get some good rear footpegs, since one of mine is damaged but this really is just a part of making the bike perfect. I do intend for it to be perfect, or at least as good as it was before the wreck. The front end is getting a subtle upgrade, with the Thruxton forks with preload adjusters and a fresh rebuild, plus the Thruxton brake rotor which is 10mm bigger and a floating rotor which should be a subtle brake upgrade. The headlight had a scuff on the trim ring before the wreck, now it has a new trim ring and is restored to better than before. Likewise my gauge bracket had a little bent spot before, I think the bike had taken a low speed tip over before I had it, and I now have a new bracket. So in all the bike has some subtle improvements.

Now if my foot could get back to pre-wreck condition I'd be golden.

Anyway, looks like the mint weather is going to continue in CenTX for another couple of weeks. Gotta love November in Texas! and I'll be riding my Triumph again in a few days one way or another.

Great update!     Weather been fantastic over here in Houston too!  Glad to see your progress!

Hey Josh. Is your Bonnie running again?

Today I happened across a Bonneville article and it so well written, it made me think of you... being a Bonnie owner as well as a good writer. I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy reading it as much as I did.

www.fortheride.com/bikes-and-customs/the-bonneville-of-59

Thanks for posting that. There are so many great articles and stories about Bonneviles, I could compile an entire book as an anthology. Probably should. Even what little we have today in pop culture icons who are into motorcycling often favor Bonnevilles.

As for me, well I took the painted parts back to get them redone Friday and hope to get them this week. The machinist had my rotor adapter on the mill yesterday, so I expect it today or tomorrow. And I got a new shift lever in the mail yesterday. I finished making my fender bracket adapter plates last weekend. There's an hour of assembly then tuning of things like control position, clutch adjustment, tire pressure, then I'll be done. There's a chance I'll be riding it before my target date of Thanksgiving day.

aaaaah the bonny,

1st bike I ever did a ton on

T120v (5speed gearbox)

Blissssss

Couple of cool things.

First, the adapter for the rotor... Again for review, I wound up switching to Thruxton forks, which are made to work with a 320mm brake rotor. There is no 320mm rotor available to fit the Bonneville mag wheels, and my stock rotor was bent anyway so I needed to replace it. So I got a Thruxton rotor, which has a 66mm larger PCD mounting with six bolts rather than the smaller 5-bolt flange on the mag wheel hub. So I designed an adapter to mount the Thruxton rotor onto my Bonneville wheel and had a friend with a CNC milling machine make it for me:



With the rotor, this is going to be brilliant:



Also I made up the little extension tabs to mount the fender bracket 1.25" lower (again, due to Thruxton forks).



Also replaced the bent shift lever, turns out I found a good used stock one and snapped it up. Tank is back at the painters getting redone due to some flaws, so I don't have it back yet. I got the throttle tube tuned up and new grip installed. The bar end mirrors are installed and ready to go. Side covers are installed. What can I say, this thing is nearly ready to go.

If I can sneak the time, tomorrow or maybe even this evening I hope to pull the front wheel, finish mounting the fender mount, and mount the Thruxton rotor, put it back. Then I will just literally be waiting on the tank. I can't properly adjust the handlebar, controls, and headlight until the tank is here since it holds the seat at front and I need that to get the positioning right. But that's like 20 minutes of work. Maybe I'll get lucky and get the parts back from the painter tomorrow and then I can put the whole bike together.

looking sweet

Well, my target date arrived, and the bike is not ready. The tank is being redone for the third time. Handful of other little niggly issues to sort out but if they tank was done I'd be able to get the bike on the road in an hour and I'd be riding.

Today is Thanksgiving so I can't work on motorcycles, but tomorrow I plan to fix the GS carbs and also do all the little things I can finish on the Bonnie. There's a little bit of Thruxton-forks headaches that require creative home machining with the wheel off and I need to balance the front tire. Frankly I will be more likely to get this stuff done and close to perfect rather than being tempted to rush and shortcut if I don't have any chance of riding it. And since I have a whole day off I can do a proper carb adjustment on the GS.

Another week and change gone by, tank is still not done. It will likely be another week yet.

But I have other work to do on the bike and I will try to sort that this weekend.

And I'll probably humble myself and take the carbs off the GS and fix it up. I need at least one bike to ride.

I finally pep talked myself into spending the hour it took to sort out the GS.

And there were three things wrong with it, none of them what I thought. Three things contributing to the problem anyway.

Again the symptom was that it was hard to start, often required putting it on PRI to start at all, then lots of throttle to get it started, and then it refused to idle, would die at idle. Basically the idle "speed" could not be set to any condition that was fast enough to keep the bike running until you cranked it all the way up to like 3K rpm.

My [wrong] assumption was that this was dirty carbs from old fuel maybe clogging the pilot jets and maybe causing float needles to stick.

Well, as soon as I started working on it, it became clear I was quite wrong about the issues. First of all, when I went to remove the tank, I noticed that both fuel hoses on the tank had less than tight hose clamps. I could see fuel leaking down these hoses. Also means air was leaking in when I was riding. So there's that.

Then once I pulled the frame petcock off, the vacuum hose literally fell off of it. The petcock end was hardened and would not seal or stay. Funny thing is the whole rest of the hose was perfectly fine, just the last like 1 inch was hardened. Odd. Anyway, that had to cause the fuel flow issue making me have to start it on PRI and likely added a huge vacuum leak just to make things as bad as possible.

Then when I started to take the airbox off, turns out the aluminum plate on the bottom of my UNI filter had fallen smooth off and was rattling around inside the airbox. So there you go. Running basically with no air filter, since without this bottom plate air comes in through the middle of the filter and does not have to go through the filter at all. Totally ruins jetting to say the least.

But I went ahead and pulled the carbs off anyway, checked and cleaned the bowls and the pilot jets, which were clean and not clogged at all. Put it all back together and it started right up once I got fuel in the carbs, on choke it idled up to 5K right off the bat. I didn't ride it yet but I'm reasonably certain this is not going to be a problem now, as long as the air filter holds together (I reattached the bottom plate with Gorilla glue).

So my time of whining and not riding may be coming to an end. It's good because it's a gorgeous day.

Well, never mind. That all went to crap.

I'm about ready to shove the GS off a cliff. Anyone want it?

First I forgot to take it off PRI when I parked it after fixing it. It flooded of course. Then my dad came over and we were to go for a ride. After we got the fuel out of the cylinders the bike started fine and ran ok for about one mile then died at a stop light because it refused to idle, and then wouldn't turn over. I parked it on a sidewalk and took my dad's bike to my house, came back with my Jeep and a jump pack, the GS fired up with the jump pack, refused to idle below 3K rpm, but at least I got it home. Then it wouldn't start again after it died parked in front of my house. An hour later it started fine, still won't idle.

I've just had it with carburetors. So sick of this crap. As much as I like the GS when it's working for all its character and charm, the carbs just make it not worth messing with anymore.

FWIW anyone who is interested, I rode my dad's little TU250X home to get my jump pack when the GS was dead. Don't let anyone tell you a GS500 is "slow like a 250". I thought that thing was going to get me killed trying to ride it in traffic. I swear my GS must have 3x as much power at least. Total night and day. And the little TUX just feels like a toy compared with the GS. But you know? the TUX has FI and starts every frikin time and never has any running issues.

I've just had it with 30 year old carburetors. I want to ride motorcycles, not work on them.

Quote from: mr72 on December 07, 2020, 03:28:49 PM
Well, never mind. That all went to crap.

I'm about ready to shove the GS off a cliff. Anyone want it?

First I forgot to take it off PRI when I parked it after fixing it. It flooded of course. Then my dad came over and we were to go for a ride. After we got the fuel out of the cylinders the bike started fine and ran ok for about one mile then died at a stop light because it refused to idle, and then wouldn't turn over. I parked it on a sidewalk and took my dad's bike to my house, came back with my Jeep and a jump pack, the GS fired up with the jump pack, refused to idle below 3K rpm, but at least I got it home. Then it wouldn't start again after it died parked in front of my house. An hour later it started fine, still won't idle.

I've just had it with carburetors. So sick of this crap. As much as I like the GS when it's working for all its character and charm, the carbs just make it not worth messing with anymore.

FWIW anyone who is interested, I rode my dad's little TU250X home to get my jump pack when the GS was dead. Don't let anyone tell you a GS500 is "slow like a 250". I thought that thing was going to get me killed trying to ride it in traffic. I swear my GS must have 3x as much power at least. Total night and day. And the little TUX just feels like a toy compared with the GS. But you know? the TUX has FI and starts every frikin time and never has any running issues.

I've just had it with 30 year old carburetors. I want to ride motorcycles, not work on them.

I can tell you about our "day and half to repair" motorcycle fuel injection breakdown story. 900 miles from home, 100 miles away from parts.