Rob's G1 Adventure

[Snakeoil]

Thanks. I've been rebuilding carbs since I could hold a wrench. But they all have their subtleties. This Mik has an air jet on the outside. Never ran into that before.

Glad you brought up the manual. My G1 is a G1A1 1981 model. Yet it would appear that the manual in your link and posted in a sticky is for later model machines. I assume most of the engine info applies.

Was/is there another manual for earlier G1 models? I would think that there would. Afterall, they would not wait several years before they publishes a manual.

[Snakeoil]

Originally Posted by mikeasis

Id suggest joining the G1 G3 or G1 only groups on facebook. Bob Hamels rebuilds and sells G1 engines and probably has cores if thats the way you want to go

Thanks again for that tip. They have been very responsive and helpful there.

I did a compression test and got 120psi. So, looks like rings are fine. Need to order crank seals and maybe a new carb. Do you guys buy the carbs from ebay or go with OEM Mikuni carbs? I'm sure the Mik is probably 4 times or more the price of the carbs on ebay.

[mikeasis]

you maybe able to find OE seals but i doubt youll find an OE carb.
ive used the ebay seals and so far so good. the carbs are hit and miss and ive seen folks combine parts from both to get a working unit. the carbs are like 1 in 3 are decent but we dont have much choice. doesnt matter if the carb is listed at $18 or $58 they are all the same "mokuni" chinese rip off of the oringal mikuni carbs

[Snakeoil]

Crank seals are ordered. As an interesting sidenote. I looked at all the seals offered on fleabay. There are at least 15 different vendors selling the 2 seals as a set at the same price with free shipping. I started to look at the location from where the seals are being shipped, and every one of those vendors, all with different ebay names, is shipping from Hebron, KY. Others vendors seem to be selling the same seals for different prices and from their particular locations. All the seals look to be the same items. When I get mine, I'm going to measure them and see if I can source them from my local seal and bearing supply house.

[Snakeoil]

I've begun the sprucing up process on the body parts while I await my crank seals. First was the broken rear fender. The rear corner of the wheel well was broken and I got the two pieces with the cart. The body flexes a bit after being installed and that puts the body under some stress. So, when pieces break off, they don't necessarily go back easily. In this case, I had to epoxy the big piece back on a little at a time since there was no good way to clamp it and be sure it would not shift under stress. Here's a few pics of the progress.

Second photo is what I am using for the repair. PC11 is amazing stuff and it's white. PC7 has been around since the 60's and I don't think anything sticks and holds as well as PC7. But PC11 is **** close if not the same. Could be it's just a color difference.

The first photo is the big piece attached at the top first. Note how the bottom of the big piece is away because the body is distorted a bit when installed.

Third photo shows the bottom now epoxied into place and clamped. With a 100w incandescent bulb as a heat lamp, it cures in about 8 hours.

Last 2 photos are the big piece fully epoxied in place.

Note the masking tape. I use this to both hold the position of the piece and to keep the epoxy from gluing the clamps or blocks to the body.

I epoxied the small piece in place before coming in to write this post. With the pieces in place, next step will be to trim the excess PC11 away. I'm hoping that the white is close enough to not require touch-up painting. I suspect that the PC11 will buff up to be glossy like the body.

I also did a little repair work on the dash. Will take some pics and post about it in a day or so. It is currently waiting for the epoxy to cure.

[Snakeoil]

My dash was cracked in several places on the face. Someone had fiber-glassed the back of the face, but that only stopped it from breaking apart, but did not fix the cracks. So, I flexed the face to open the cracks. Did this for both the front and back of the face to make sure I got full penetration. I pushed PC11 into the open crack and then took the pressure so they would close back up and push out any excess PC11. I left them like that to let the epoxy cure.

When the PC11 had cured, I cleaned the face with a razor blade down to the original gelcoat. It had appeared that the face was cracked from some ham fisted golfer pulling too hard on the choke. There is a big fender washer on the backside of the dash for the choke. But apparently, if you pull hard enough...

What I did was take a piece of aluminum, trimmed it to size, bored holes for the choke and key switch and then epoxied it to the back of the dash face. When it cure, the dash face was now rock solid. No more cracking.

Here are two pics of the dash face.

[Snakeoil]

Now back to the rear right fender repair. This morning I took off the clamps and masking tape and we now had a complete wheel well. Went to work filing and then sanding down the excess epoxy. When it was done, there were a few potholes in the epoxy from air voids under the tape. I tried to fix them with spot putty, but my tube was so old it was pretty much useless. So, got out the Bondo and went to work. I told myself I was not going to go nuts on this, but my anal retentive ways got the better of me and I ended up spening way more time than I had planned on this repair.

Took one of the broken pieces to the local hardware store before I had epoxied it in place and found a Rustoleum rattle can paint that was just about an exact match. It's called Ivory Bisque. When I was done feathering the Bondo, I gave the fender a quick shot of paint. It revealed some small pits I could not see before and remember those anal retentive ways? Plus, I found anothe crack at the back of the fender so wanted to do the PC11 in the crack fix. So wiped the paint off, filled the pits with PC11 since I had some mixed up for the crack. It should all be hard in the morning and after sanding it down IT WILL GET PAINTED!!.

By the way, when I did shoot that small area on the fender, it was not a close match, it was an EXACT match.

Here's some pics of today's progress

[TheNewGuy]

Nice work on the body.

[Snakeoil]

Originally Posted by TheNewGuy

Nice work on the body.

Thanks, it's all therapy.

In a previous post, I showed the dash backing plate mod and the cracks in the face from before I owned the cart. Here is the painted dash right after paint and then mounted in the cart. I've also included a pic of the fender after final paint.

[Snakeoil]

Crank seals arrived on Wednesday. But, as usual when dealing with old stuff, you can never be sure what will be around the next turn. After stripping off the various bits to gain access to the crank seals, when I turned the engine over with the belt off, it did not feel good. Clutch side bearing appears to be shot. Lot of lateral play. Grrrrr....

Okay, no big deal. Just a little more work. Continued stripping out stuff and bagging it, including the muffler in prep of removing the engine. It would appear that at some point in its life, somebody had the starter/generator out because under some old electrical tape I found the two 14 ga wires going to the generator had been cut, twisted together and taped. I'm talking something a 5 year old would do. Amazing that those connections never failed. Judging by the patina on the copper wire, they have been that way for a long time.

4 engine skid nuts came off with no issues. Another cob-job I found was the coil mounting to the fan shroud. Assume the coil is a replacement and must be the same guy that did the generator wiring did the coil mount mod as well. I still believe it is tools that should be licensed and not guns.

So engine is out. I think I'm going to clean the chassis under the engine as it is pretty cruddy. My guess is the cart had been run for sometime with the bar bearing and obviously that would have killed the crank seal on that side. Fan side is dry and the bearing feels good. But unless it is a major job to replace the fan side bearing, both bearings will get replaced.

I was curious to see the primary clutch center spool bearing. The spool spun quite freely. But when I got the clutch apart, I found the bearing to be a sealed type bearing and it was completely siezed into one piece of metal. Another item for the parts list. The weight and their shafts have quite a bit of play. I suspect they are common parts and readily available. If not, if the shafts are good, I'll simply bush the weights.

This was supposed to be a quick spruce up and done. Guess not. But I'm committed at this point and I want this think out of my garage. It's blocking access to my bikes since my sidecar rig is straddling my life and the cart is in front of the lift.