little O ring in carb missing.

[brandiwine]

i've got a missing little o ring that sits between the body and the plastic top on the vacuum line and i was wondering that if this was causing a problem if it would manifest itsef 100% of the time or if it could be intermittent.  i've been searching the forum for answers and remembered that piece was missing when i reassembled the carbs after rejetting.  actually i remember there being no gaskets when i took the carbs apart.

after i changed the oil, oil filter, and air filter on my 94, my stalling issue at highway speed seemed to dissappear.  possibly unrelated, i let the oil level get too low and added more since it wasn't technically time to chage it.  stalling/bucking issue reappeared after 15 or so miles on full tank on the next ride. and finally died at around 30.  then the typical wait a few minutes and it starts up again with no problem.  after that, 70 is no problem and no stalling feeling reappears.

the stalling is so intermittent that it's hard to get a handle on the circumstances.  my next step is to measure the float bowl height with the carbs on.  i've tried riding with the petcock on prime which does not resolve my issue when it decides to occur.

so if that piece was missing or any other gasket in the carb area, should i be experiencing issues 100% of the time?  i'm trying to figure out if i'm going to have to buy those gaskets and disassemble the carbs or if i'm ok there and just need to continue to look other places for the culprit.

[CasiUSA]

You will most likely experience most of your problems on idle, or in city traffic. That problem is an easy fix. I replaced mine with a rubber bike ship cable stop when it happened to me.
If you go into a bicycle shop, ask for 1 or 2 (just in case you mess up) cable bumpers. THese are little rubber pieces that are used to keep shifter/brake cables from scratching up the paint on a bicycle. Odds are that they will be free, unless you encouter a really cheap bastard.
Bore the holes out a bit with some eyeglass screwdrivers or equivalent size. They sit on the same place, and voila! you have yourself a new O-ring seal.
Being a veteran of the non-motor 2 wheeled business, I have used tons of Bicycle parts to carry over as cheap fixes for the GS, and they almost always work.

Good luck fixing it.  

[octane]

The last time I brought my bike to a shop they forgot the o-ring and it didn't affect the bike all the time. It was weather dependent - changes in air pressure affected it more than anything. Weird. The most noticeable problem was off idle, but it could do lots of weird vacuum related things. That's an easy, cheap fix - replace the o-ring before you do anything else. You may get lucky! ONly the top cover needs to come off to replace that, it'll take you 2 minutes.

[brandiwine]

cool.  thanks for the info.

[tkm433]

I do not want to sound like an ass but if you are missing an o-ring why not just replace it?

If you were missing a brake pad or a spark plug I guess you would replace it since they belong on your bike so why ask about an o-ring when you know it was missing in the first place.

Replace the missing o-ring before you damage something.  Suzuki installed it for some reason other than just being there and it has some purpose so just replace it.