Shifting Cam Spring

[picasso]

My name is Tom and I'm new here. This is an awesome site and I've learned so much from you guys already......most of it, a little too late.

Here is my bone head delima.....I picked up this Suzuki GZ250 off of craigslist for a song and a dance. Now I'm just going through and tweeking it restoring it back to a better state. The other day I drained the oil, or what I thought was the oil, and I backed out a plug next to the oil drain. A spring and a little metal tab fell out which produced one of those OMG moments. I down loaded your manual and parts list here and see that this is the shifting cam spring. I did see a thread on here already concerning this topic but it doesn't go into detail about how to "physically" install it and I am in hopes that someone else has experienced this before.

I have reached underneath the bike and bent a tiny piece of wire to feel around up into the drain hole hoping this is just a small cavity (cylinder shaped) so when I push this spring and tab back up into position it will just slide right back into place. Well......this cavity seems pretty large and now I am scared "crapless" that when I go to reinsert this spring and tab there is an enormous chance it will tip/fall over into the casing before I get it up into place to tension up the spring. I was thinking maybe a small blob of axil greese on the drain plug and then placing the spring onto that and then try sliding the tab back down into the spring and try installing it that way.

I'm in a real delima here. I sure dont want to crack the bottom half open. The "tab" has a little "sleeve" on it that fits perfectly down into the spring that sits on top of the drain plug. The tab also has a small indention/seat mark once again reaffirming to me that the sleeve on the tab does slip down into the spring which holds it very stable. The exploaded view on the parts list seems to show it fitting the opposite way which would be near impossible to replace from the drain plug position with the "tab" balancing on the end of the spring.

If anyone has actually performed this task and could help me on the step by step I would be gratefull for your expertice.

Thank you
Tom

[picasso]

OK, I've got some pictures to show you exactly what I have......







This thing can only fit with the seat on the bottom of the spring resting on the drain plug, which is very stable OR with the seat in the top of the spring which is unstable and kinda sits off to one side.

The exploaded view on 3-51 in the manual shows the seat bottom resting on the top of the spring which would be vertually impossible to reinsert into the drain plug hole.

[Water Warrior 2]

Just looked at Ronayers.com in their fiche files. A 2003 GZ pic/fiche will show you how it should go together. Bolt on the bottom with the spring resting on it. The other piece sits on top of the spring with the pointy end up.

[Way]

Hi Tom and welcome!

[youtube:2uydi054]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAmPIq29ro[/youtube:2uydi054]

You're not the only one:

http://www.gz250bike.com/forum/viewt...+spring#p43298

Page 3-51 of the service manual shows what you took out, really page 88 in the pdf document (thanks blaine).

[Way]

For some reason I could not post this in the previous post. :??:

Anyway, here's a better pic of how it should go together, page 18 item 18 of the parts manual (thanks dentheman)

[alantf]

And next time you want to drain the oil, remove the OTHER plug. :whistle: :2tup:

[picasso]

he,he, you don't have to worry about that happening again alantf !!! Although I did fell like Kevin Bacon in Animal House for a minute or two.

I do think I am reverting back to my childhood though......I learned to fix things by tearing them up. I gotta stop that. Now would be a good time to start.

Thanks

[Water Warrior 2]

You aren't the first person to pull the wrong plug.

[Maggie]

Hi Tom! I can't really help on your dilemma, but I just wanted to welcome you and thank you for posting the question and pics, thereby saving me from making the same mistake <fingers crossed> next time I change my oil. Even though I have changed my oil a couple of times already (thanks to Jonathan's great sticky post!), I still feel like an all thumbs girl when I do it. Unscrewing the wrong plug would not be beyond me! Good luck! You've come to the right place with a great support group full of collective knowledge.

[OldNTired]

Originally Posted by alantf

And next time you want to drain the oil, remove the OTHER plug. :whistle: :2tup:

I did that myself for the first TWO oil changes.
Out of necessity; the PO had mounted his own exhaust system, and left the
oil drain plug unreachable! It works, you just have to replace the plug every time.
After replacing the exhaust system I went to using the 'proper' plug.