Together, but not finished...

I put my bike together today. Everything went together relatively smoothly. (I've always had a difficult time installing the air box--there's not a lot of wiggle room to get that part back in.) I turned my fuel selector to 'prime' for a bit (to fill the carburetor bowls), back to 'on,' and started the bike up; it sputtered a bit, caught and quit. I switched the fuel selector over to 'reserve,' and the engine caught and ran just like it did before! Success! I had to run the bike on reserve because I only had a small amount (~1 gal) of fuel in the gas tank when I took the bike apart. There was a bit of burning grease from the assembly process, but nothing unexpected. I let the engine warm up, adjusted the throttle cable, clutch, and idle speed (all things that were changed or replaced during the rebuild). I then changed the oil to get rid of anything I inadvertently got in there, like grime, cleaning solvent, or 5W oil from my oil can.

Since everything seemed to be going so well, I took the bike for a short spin around my neighborhood. I cruised around going 15-20 mph for 5-10 min, then I decided to take the bike out to the main road and took the bike up to 35 mph for about 1/2 mile. Another minute or two and I was back in my driveway. Everything went well. I readjusted the idle speed, and saw oil dripping from my engine. Working my way up from the bottom of the bike, I found oil on my cylinder base gasket, then on my head gasket, then on the tachometer cable, then on the spark plug gasket, then on the head nuts, then on the head cover gasket. My head cover gasket is leaking, and in retrospect, I'm not surprised. The new gasket is a soft rubber thing that was stuffed into a bag before I put it on my bike. It didn't hold it's shape well, and kept springing out of place when I tried to install it. I'll get some high temperature silicone sealer, and take care of it soon. I'm getting tired of being stuck in my cage every commute!

Here's a quick look at my newly assembled, but not washed, wheels. My 1999 Suzuki GS500EX. I love this bike.