Alright. Here's my 550. For whatever reason, I decided to plug "barn find" in the Craigslist search bar and two days later, I owned this. It came out of a kid's parents back yard in South Dallas, but he said it was his barn find. According to the inspection sticker, it was last inspected in April of '86. It's been off the road for a long time. I don't think all of it was outdoors, but at least 6 or 8 years must have been. It's got just over 20,000 miles on the clock. The motor turned over and the vast majority of it was there (mostly missing airbag parts, which I have partially replaced already). It even had a key. And a title. It seems reasonable to me that the fairing and side cases indicate a non-abusive 13 years on the road. Hard to say much about the level of maintenance that it received.
Right after purchase:
I took it to my storage unit for a month or so while I finished getting the GL650 ready for the Harvest Classic (which I ended up skipping due to some serious rain) and while I cleaned the garage up prior to starting a new project. I brought her home to introduce her to her siblings, but they promptly turned their backs to her:
Within about two weeks, I had it torn down and the engine out.
My plan is essentially a restoration, but with a few modifications that could have been done in the 70's over the course of a weekend or two. I don't expect to use period aftermarket parts, though. Basically, I just plan to use Eurobars, a 4 into 2 or 4 into 1 exhaust (not loud, but not too quiet, either). I'm currently considering the Delkevic 4 into 1, but I'm not positive. I will repaint it a factory color, but I can't get too excited about "Boss Maroon Metallic", so I'm going with "Flake Sunrise Orange". I've always more flaky than bossy, anyway. Oh, and I may get a custom seat instead of stock and plan to use bobbed fenders (I've ordered some fiberglass ones to check out). I won't be cutting the originals, though. All original parts will stay with the bike in case I or the next owner decides to go back to completely stock.
So, I'm really at the start of this whole thing. So far, the issues that I'm aware of are compression readings of 80-95 psi across all four cylinders, a very leaky shifter rod oil seal now that I've cleaned all the crud away, and some missing airbox parts (that whole air box is something of a mystery to me. The parts fiche is helpful, but really good pictures of all the parts and fasteners would be very helpful).
I'll be taking the frame, swing arm and several other parts to a local powder coater soon (after I get the pivot shaft out of the swing arm
http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php/topic,153389.msg1753797.html#msg1753797.
I'm going to send the hubs and a few other parts to NobleHops soon for vapor blasting as well.
I'm looking forward to sharing the build and appreciate all the help that I'll be getting along the way.
Jeff
