Frustrated...

So today I was working on the GS.

It was pretty frustrating.

I started off by ripping the carbs and the airbox out of the bike. I then pulled off the cam chain tensioner and had at that. It was going pretty well until I got to a point with the tensioner that I needed to remove a 30mm nut. I had a wrench that would work, but I didn't have a vice to hold the thing. So to Lansing I went to use my dad's vice.

I should've turned around and came home when I got onto I-96 and the cars were all travelling at 48 MPH instead of the speed limit of 70. But I pressed on and got to my mom and dad's to use the vice.

The process went really quickly at that point in time. I got the cam chain tensioner all rebuilt and everything seemed to be going smoothly. So I drove home to put that on the bike.

I got it on pretty quickly and it clicked into place just like my how-to suggested it would. Success!!!

So I move onto the carb bank...and this is where the frustration begins. I needed to break the four carbs apart to continue on with the cleaning. Of course, this was something that I figured would be very easy...

...boy I couldn't have been more wrong. The screws that were holding the carb rack together must be Lock Tited into place, because of the 8 of them that are holding the bank together, I managed to get a whopping ZERO of them to move AT ALL. I even grabbed my screw removal kit, and couldn't even get any of them to move with THAT. I did manage to completely destroy one, but even that didn't get it out. Amazing. The engineers at Suzuki back in 1980 must've REALLY not wanted the carb bank to fall apart while the bike was running.

So after a slew of swearing and hurling tools around the garage, I decided to move on to the intake boots and o-rings. I open the four that I have and realize something horrible...I have three right ones and one left one. Amazing. Of course I need two of each. So I get a bit upset because I figured that the parts that I ordered that took like three years to get to me were actually wrong, but on the package the parts numbers are right...so this was not the fault of the parts guy I ordered from, but rather the fault of Suzuki itself.

So there is another slew of swearing and hurling of tools, after which I put the old intake boots back on and try to get the carb bank back on. I figure since nothing is going right I'm just going to put it all back together and start it. So I get the carb bank in place and go to grab the airbox...

...which is when it dawns on me that the airbox is literally falling apart. The rubber parts are all dry rotted and cracked. The plastic is cracked and broken. Basically, there is no way that it is going back on the bike.

So with this I stopped working and came inside to clean up. I figure I'll order some pod filters and some new jets then have at the carbs again in a week or so. Oh yah, I might as well order the CORRECT intake boot so that I can get that taken care of.

So I hit Ebay and got myself some pod filters. I like the way pods look, but I HATE tuning pods. They are horrible, horrible gremlins when it comes to getting a correct air-fuel ratio.

I have half a mind to just go ahead and order a pipe for the bike, too, but I don't want to spend that kind of money.

Luckily, the jets are only $1.20 each from a distributor that I have found. I'm currently waiting for some advice on what size jets to start out with for working this out.

So yah, instead of having the bike running today like I had planned, it's in pieces and I'm now waiting for MORE parts to show up...ugh.