Bandit Fuel/Vacuum Lines , Wiring and Flywheel

Any tips on how to get this bloody flywheel off without a puller? damn thing won't budge...

 

Got the flywheel off! Got a tip from a mate that proved to be gold so I thought I'd share.

Removing the flywheel without a puller is easier than I thought - he reminded me that it's about having "even pressure". Here is a picture of the old flywheel on the bike (all the magnets are missing hence why I am replacing it):



Firstly, you have to loosen the bolt that goes into the crankshaft. That's a little tricky but there's plenty of "how to" tutorials on the net on doing that. I didn't have to do it in this instance because it was already loose. Once this nut is cracked you can leave it there, but loosen it so there's a 5mm gap or so behind the head of the bolt and the external thread which forms part of the flywheel. This gives the flywheel room to "pop" once the pressure is put behind it.

The next step is to tap two flat head screw drivers at 180 degrees behind the flywheel. Be VERY careful not to damage the engine casing or anything else when doing this - I didn't take a photo at the time because I wasn't confident it would work, but it did (and quite well) so to illustrate what I did here is a photo of the removed flywheel:


I gently tapped one flat head screw driver all the way in with a hammer in between the rear of the flywheel and the gear you can see in the above photo. You can tell when it won't go any further because you can feel the tip of the screw driver against the crankshaft when tapping (or in this case, a protruded front section of the gear). All I did was tap the second screw driver at 180 degrees to the first very gently, until I heard a sharp "bing" and the flywheel came loose. If you get the second screw driver all the way in and it hasn't come off, give one sharp but firm tap on the head of the bolt in the crankshaft with the hammer and that should pop it off.

The mate who gave me this tip was surprised the flywheel wasn't keyed onto the shaft (this shaft has no key, it's a tapered shaft) but if you did have a keyed shaft, one of the screw drivers should be tapped in to where the key is, and the other at 180 degrees to that.

Note: There are risks in doing it this way, so be gentle and be careful. It is better to use a puller and consult your service manual for the correct procedure to remove the flywheel. If you get stuck this could be a backup option, but the risks and potential consequences of doing it this way are your own. Most pullers are about $20 or so and it's worth the investment to avoid the risk of damage if you are not confident. I would have paid the $20 if I could, my bike is imported and I can't seem to get a 12 x 1.25mm puller anywhere easily.

 

Learning a lot as I go, but I struggled to find out how to do this from the net so thought the knowledge was pretty valuable. Unfortunately I do not have a GSF250 manual, can't find one anywhere. The only thing I have to reference is the GSF400 manual, which is slightly different but goes through steps using what looks to be a 6 way puller:



Glad I got it off though - because it's not keyed and it's an induction flywheel do I have to time it to the engine somehow???? There's seemingly no marks on it so no idea if I need to put the new flywheel on in a certain position??

 

Hmm well there was no markings on the shaft, the gear is free spinning without the flywheel so no marks on that either. There is a mark kind of like an arrow on the rear of the flywheel (most likely to indicate the direction of rotation) but I can't see how one could reasonably line that up with anything, so I figure it must not be timed. Being an inductor magneto (meaning the magnets rotate around the coil and not the other way around) my gut feel is that I can't see how timing should be an influence because the flywheel itself (ie the position of the magnets) is symmetrical across all planes. So I figure it shouldn't be timed... but I've been proven wrong before!

 

This thread is turning into a bit of everything but I hope nobody minds me asking a couple more questions regarding wiring...

Below is an odd wire I have no idea where it comes from or where it goes (yellow circled). By the looks of it, it is the battery ground wire to the frame/engine casing. It seems large enough, it's encased and it seems to go to the battery... but no idea where the other end is supposed to go... not that it would matter if my suspicions are correct... engine side:



Battery side:



The other thing is the radiator fan/thermostat wiring. The thermostat has 4 wires, the fan has two. There are only 4 wires from the loom which leads me to believe (and logically so) the thermostat determines when the cooling fan gets power and hence they're connected.

The plug from the thermostat fits a plug from the loom so that makes sense, two down. One from the thermostat is blue, the same colour as one from the loom. So that makes sense too. Three down. That leaves one wire from the loom

 

... one from the thermostat and two from the fan. (accidentally posted before I had finished typing heh)

So connecting the plug from the thermostat to the plug shown below eliminates two from the thermostat. One from the thermostat is the same colour as the bright blue one shown so that makes sense. That leaves the black/white from the loom (shown in the photo to the right) a solid black from the thermostat (not shown in photo) and the two wires from the fan (black and white/black).




I'm assuming the remaining wire from the thermostat connects to the fan, which is a logical male/female connection and the remaining wire from the fan connects to the loom (making black/white and black/white connected). Anyone have some thoughts on this?

 

Yep I'm pretty sure that's hooked up correctly, you can see in the photo a wire going from the rear of the starter motor, that goes up to the solenoid which is behind the battery and hooks to the battery. Unless this wire is meant to go on the other bolt to the starter (I did test the starter before and it seems to operate fine) I'm not convinced it's part of that circuit. What I didn't see is a ground wire going directly from the battery to the frame/engine casing but there is a ground wire on the starter solenoid. I wouldn't think the battery is grounded through the starter solenoid, it should probably have a connection to the ground directly... right...?

 

Awesome. Now just gotta find a spot for it to get a good grounding lol.

Looks like I'm gonna have to clean and re-coat the inside of the fuel tank before we kick her over though, some blackish material (looks to be the internal lining) is flaking out. More stalling before the big kickover day...