Fire Sale

I thought I would share a story that happened recently.

I recently sold my GS1100 shafty to an old friend of mine. I bought my Z1 from him almost 30 years ago so I thought I would return the gesture 3 decades later.
The GS needed a battery and front tire, it has been extremely dependable and never broke down in the few years that I have owned it, I told him this and he was cool with the battery and tire thing.

I told him he would do any wrenching and I would be the technical adviser. With this being said he wanted to replace the clutch cable with the battery and tire. After replacing the clutch cable and battery we went to fire it up and it would burp and fart which it never did when I had it. What I did not know was he crossed the fuel line and the vacuum line to the petcock when he put the tank back on. The #2 carb was leaking pretty bad.
Not helping him so he could LEARN to work on the Zuk I yelled out the door it must be a stuck needle and seat (it did sit for a few months) So he pulled the carbs and I went through them with him and did not see anything out of the ordinary. He put the rack of carbs back on and crossed the fuel and vaccum line again. Same thing #2 overflowing at a good rate. I told him I have never had any fuel related problems ever on this bike. He tried and tried to get her started to no avail. He came in the house and asked me if I would hit the starter button while he sprayed starting fluid in the other 3 carbs since the bowls were dry, his thinking was to get the fuel flowing to get the seats unstuck, I told him sure so I went outside and gave him a hand. AS I was hitting the starter button he would hit it with the starting fluid and it would run for a second then die. So I hit the button again and he sprayed again.
The bike fired then sputtered fired then sputtered, then it backfired out of the #2 and caught fire, the whole bike was on fire and there was gas everywhere from it leaking earlier. I got the water hose and started spraying and all it did was spread the fire. All I was thinking was to save the bike somehow and the water was all I could do, but it was not working. As I stood there with the hose I yelled at him to get the fire extinguisher from my van as I could not leave my position. One half of a second with the extinguisher and the fire was out.

Thank God we have been friends a long time, we burnt it down 30 minutes after the sale. I asked him if he still wanted it while it was still smoldering and he said yes. Now that is a true friend.

The only thing damaged was a few wires under the tank. He taped up some melted wires and she fired up fist try. He then took it down the street for his first ride and it blew a fuse.

Replaced the fuse and he took it down the road again, this time blowing the 1 and 4 coil. Now we start tracing the wires that he taped up and would'nt you know it we blow the igniter. Now we have a used igniter and some dyna coils to install. Since we made a deal that he do the wrenching he is getting a crash course in wiring.



We got to talking and I was asking him what the hell he did to my perfectly running bike. I finally figured out he hooked the fuel lines up backwards, which I thought was idiot proof because one hose is bigger than the other.

To the newbies out there double check everything or catastrophe can happen quick.

If you put a fuel pump in a v6 fiero it's a good idea to clean the leaves off the exhaust manifold.

i have a igniter
if you need one
from a 82 gs 1100

Jeff, I sent a pm about the igniter

jeffasaki wrote: i have a igniter
if you need one
from a 82 gs 1100