I've seen good and this is not it. |
1982 Suzuki GS1100GL
This was a big heavy shaft-drive beast with a two-tone blue color scheme. Some friends saw how easy the work on the 550 went and bought this bike with the engine in a box, with the intention to
fix it up and sell it. Turned out the bike had been terribly mistreated and the transmission was completely lunched, and that rebuilding it was a major money-losing proposition. After the GS550
was stolen, I bought it for transportation, which was a big mistake. Anenormous mistake.
This is a picture of the actual bike in its normal state. Actually, that's not true, it looks like the engine is in one piece.
When they got it running, it wouldn't stay in gear. When they popped off the oil pan to check out the transmission, lots of ball bearings dropped out. This is never a good sign. It turned
out that a bearing died and the balls had gotten between some of the gears. One of the gears had 1/3 of the teeth ripped off, and one of the mainshafts had a hairline crack visible for the entire
length of the shaft. We had to buy both gear clusters from a junkyard.
There was a morning when it wouldn't start. Not even a click, but the front light was nice and strong, and there was no blown fuses. I finally took the starter motor off, removed the front cap,
and poured what was left of the rotor out. It had completely and totally shattered into coarse sand. I've never seen anything like that. The windings were still in hollow rectangles. We
had to buy a new starter from the junkyard.
The previous owners had decided to do carb mods, which included removing the idle mixture screws completely and losing some of the springs and o-rings underneath. This is great for performance
until you wish to exceed 45mph. In addition, the floats were majorly screwed up, and the idle jets were stripped beyond repair. We had to buy an entire bank of carbs from the junk yard.
I think we sent the junkyard owner's kids to college, or at least allowed him to retire to the Caribbean.
The rubber boot for the shaft drive got torn, and I knew if dirt got in, shaft drive work was expensive, and far above my ability. I replaced the boot to avoid this, and it turned out to be far
easier than I expected. The shaft was two nested telescoping square tubes, which just slid apart. All I had to do was remove the swingarm pivot bolts and slide the whole rear end off, put the
boot on, and reassemble. I spent a little time acting the fool by rolling the rear around like a wheelbarrow in the yard.
Once when the stator and regulator were both toast, I used to carry a quick start jump unit and plug it in where ever I could steal some 110v power. I was working at UCF as an assistant in the
computer labs, with long late hours. When I needed to go home, I had to push the bike around campus at 2am looking for power. Once I saw a UCF police car drive up, and I thought I was really
going to get interrogated. Nope. They drove right past the helmetless guy pushing a bike. No "do you need help?" or "what are you doing?" or even "is that your bike?" I did get busted once on the
way home from work on the expressway because my front light was out. I had removed the fuse so the battery would last long enough to get home.
Since the shorted stator would kill a new regulator and vice-versa, I splurged on a brand new stator and regulator from a place on the brand new Internet-thingie. The difference in the technology
was so great, the old stator looked like it came off a WW-I plane and the new one looked like it came from the Apollo project. The windings in the old stator were woven-fabric-insulated, for
god's sake. It was expensive, but worth it.
Yet another morning, I was leaving for work dressed nicely in a white shirt and tie. The bike was on the centerstand and when I tried starting it, it started hopping about an inch vertically on
the centerstand, making a horrible banging noise. It turned out that one of the bolts for the clutch had backed out and was banging away inside the engine cover. I drained the oil, removed the
side cover, inspected everything, cleaned the metal filings out of the side cover in the sink, reassembled it all and filled it back up with oil, without getting my shirt and tie dirty or
becoming late for work!!
When you can do this is when you know you need to buy a new bike.
I got rid of the Suzuki by smacking it into a Subaru turning left in front of me on University Blvd, on the way home from work. As a guided missile it was GREAT. It absolutely TOTALLED that
Subaru, to the tune of a bent axle, a bent frame, and one of the rear wheels ripped off, and the bike going in and crushing the passenger's pelvis. I went over the top and slid for about
170ft. Wear your gloves, helmet, and jacket, folks! |
