A wire here, a wire there…

Read an interesting bit about these GS bikes that made me start an upgrade. It’s instructions by  GS dude for supplying more voltage to the coils.  Why would I want to do this? First of all, there are poor starting issues with this bike because of its age. Replacing the wiring harness to eliminate that is expensive and more time-consuming than I want right now. We are getting very close to bike season here so that task may have to wait until next winter if I can heat the garage. Secondly, I like the idea of things working properly and or better if the solution is simple, and I want to minimize potential break downs before I put it on the road.

To start, I cleaned and made new connections for all wires down at the battery area. Then I opened up the wiring harness removing tape that was surprisingly sticky after 30+ years. This simple little switch will direct full voltage to  the coils upon starting providing a strong spark and better burn at all times upon start-up. Next step was to drill a hole in the cross-section of the frame to mount the relay.

Something I didn’t consider when doing this step is that the screw that holds the relay in place is in a cramped space above the head and holding the tiny nut on while threading the screw was a lesson on patience. If it ever needs to come off for any future maintenance, I’ll use a zip tie next time. Patience tested, the relay is in place and looks fine. Referring to the wiring diagram to verify routing I also tested the continuity from the kill switch to the relay.

So, here it sits and by next weekend I should be able to light it up. If I made a mistake I’ll be drinkin so don’t expect any new bits for a while.

Nice journals

Since this head work all started because of a broken bolt, I took the opportunity to measure my valve shim clearances, remove and check the valves and clean out any carbon build up.

Taking the valves out was pretty easy actually. The valve spring compressor works great. The only trick part was putting the valve keeper clips back on. They’re very tiny and my mitts are not.

As you can see from photos below , the center one is the before photo, I didn’t have to clean too much. The exhaust ports had a varsol soak and with very little scrubbing they came clean. The intake valves were spotless and needed no attention.

Everything looked pretty good for an engine with 84k. A little carbon buildup on the valves that was easily cleaned off. Since I had the time and opportunity, I inspected the cam journals as well and they looked fantastic. Somebody took care of this before I bought it- I’m thankful.

You can see the valve guide sticking up in the center with the journal to the right. Scratched or worn journals would likely have meant a trip to the machine shop, that is if I could find anybody who knew how to work on this bike. Actually, it probably would have meant shipping it to a shop in the UK or USA for machining or worse, trying to find a replacement head that wasn’t junk.

Anyway, here’s a cyclinder head shot before assembly and one with those nice pipes back on. Only thing that leaves me worried now is I didn’t use assembly lube putting it all back together, I just filled the head with oil. I might be taking a few miles off the engine in the initial start-up for this and in hindsight I should have got some, but I was on a roll and didn’t want to stop.  That was the wrong time to be cheap and impatient. If it starts fine after this, I’ll definitely pull a finger or two of scotch to celebrate that.

broken bolt

This has happened to me more than it should have in my life time, so you’d think I’d be well prepared to deal with this- not really.  No lefty drill bits, no tap and no cutting oil. A bolt, one tiny little part of the whole machine sheared off in my head.

In my experience, this really never goes well. Drilling a pilot hole and trying to use a bolt extractor inevitably shears the extractor in the hole. Then, re-drilling is no longer an option as the extractor, made of tool hardened steel, is too hard to drill out. Welding a nut on to the teeny stub of bolt sticking out, is not an option either, as this bolt and every bolt I’ve ever broken, its been many, seem to shear  right at the surface. Drilling, then using a torch to heat the bolt, pouring on liberal amounts of oil in hopes that some is draw in, to break the bond between bolt and head is risky.  Open flame, fume filled garage, open containers, oily rags, see where I’m going with this? Call me crazy but I’m still considering a propane heater to take the chill off. Ever see ‘Fire Marshall Bob’ from ‘In Living Color’ ? Seen my picture?

I risked it, not the torch, the drilling. The bolt is now gone and the head has been tapped. Time for a beer.

Three more weeks

Bottling is a lot of cleaning. I’ve done this in the bathtub, sink and now the dishwasher. Dishwashers are essential in my opinion and very effective and I wouldn’t go back to soaking and scrubbing anymore.  A little time in the sanitizer for the bucket and bits and we’re ready to go. Fiona and I racked and added our priming sugar while Kirsten amused the baby boy.

So we washed up 68 bottles hopeful we’d make a full 60 bottles that are usually available from a 5 gallon brewing.  Bottling is simple, raise the bucket higher than the bottles, start a siphon and let it go while trying not to spill which is hard for me.

60 and 1/2 bottles is what we end up with. That’s 67 cents per bottle.  Not bad. Now the hard part, waiting 3 weeks for the remaining yeast to ferment the priming sugar and make it bubbly. We did try sampling the primed brew and its rather metallic and mildly sour in my opinion but 3 weeks can do allot for a beer. Here’s hoping.

Seeking Simplicity

Maybe its the hurried state of modern society today that leaves me wanting simpler things, like my bike and my truck for example, both from the late 70’s. 

My cell phones (yeah- two), are on mostly all the time and my desktop continuously updates me with email, news, weather and such, both at work and at home.  It’s no surprise to me now that I’ve bought these two wrecks but I suspect most people would consider them inefficient and relics from the abundant oil  era. Here’s one, a little further down is the other.

I’m going to try to explain my rationale for the above statement because I feel like it and I can hear the arguments against such purchases building in my head (yep- I hear voices). I would like to put forth that these vehicles were engineered purposefully without constraint of weight restrictions or fuel economy and that made them cheap to engineer, cheap to manufacture and subsequently cheap to repair. Almost any person can work on these two machines with minimal mechanical skills because they’re simple like legos and in my opinion, the engineering philosophy and technology at the time was okay with ‘good enough’. I’m alright with that. Really. I also believe that this era saw the culmination of mechanical innovation (in consumer automotive terms) prior to the advances made though computer aided design or computer controls.

As I’ve been taking this GS down to the bones and exploring the road worthiness of putting it all back together, I have been musing on the ease of what I’ve done so far. Granted, I am mechanically inclined and enjoy fixing things, but the bike has been really easy to work on and that’s often induced whistling or singing on my part. It’s a good thing the garage doors are closed and the shop radio is louder than myself because few would care to hear my impersonations of Morrissey. Well, I’ve noticed there are very few other times I sing and whistle so something must be good about all this and I think it’s the simplicity.

Sure, doing what you like helps and one could argue that my personality suits the tasks I been doing but I think there is more to it. The bike cost 10% of a new bike, that’s a whole lot of savings that makes me feel rich. The truck cost way less than new and both get me where I wanna go and haven’t put me in the ditch yet.  Doesn’t seem any different than if I’d have bought new. I ride and drive new and old the same and I know this because I’ve driven, rented and owned new. The one thing that does change is the stress over wrecking the new ones. There’s a hell of a lot of money on the line with new ones. Insurance is supposed to cover that concern but  I wonder how much our insurance has gone up cause our vehicles are more expensive to repair because there’s extensive engineering in them now?

I had a long time BMW mechanic friend back in Austin who told me that it took 13 hours of labor to get access to the problem in a Mercedes dash and console, then time to fix it and another 13 hours to put it back together. In 13 hours, I would have nothing but a frame and parts scattered around my truck. Is that better? I think so. Some would say not.

So, I worry less. Doesn’t seem like much ado in a sentence. Impact is huge on my life though. I’m whistling and singing.

What else can I simplify?