New to the forum, first GS, lots of white smoke.

[jw2pv]

I'm new to the forum and I have a question about my bike. I've had a few other bikes (Yamaha, Harley, Kawasaki, Honda), but this is my first GS. I'm currently an electrical engineer, but in my past life (before going back to college) I was an auto mechanic, so I have some mechanical aptitude.

Here's the bike story (I'll try to be as detailed as possible):
Previous owner said the last time he rode it, it ran fine. Next time he started it up (don't know if it was 2 weeks or 2 months later), he said it didn't run well...he couldn't ride it. He kept trying to keep it running/restart it, and eventually it just wouldn't start at all. He said at the end it would puff out white smoke and spit or pop every once in a while. Then it sat for a few more months and I got the bike.

I pulled the plugs and they were still wet (he may have tried to start it recently) and stunk like slightly bad gas. After two days of sitting in my garage, the bike had a small gas puddle underneath it. The carbs were also wet with gas. I looked at the petcock and it was on prime...so it was probably on prime the entire time the PO was struggling with it.
I drained the tank and pulled the carbs. Pulled the carbs apart and they didn't look too bad. Only a little bit of red-orange gunk (consistency of clay) in the bottom of the float bowl, the gunk spot at the bottom was about the diameter of a pea. Other then that, everything was pretty clean. Didn't find any clogged jets. Main jets are 122's. Cleaned ports with gum cutter and compressed air. The only circuit I didn't get was the idle circuit. The plugs were still in and I didn't want to drill (and spread metal shavings) with the carbs completely apart. I have since removed the plugs (after reassembling the carbs), but haven't yet taken the needles out and cleaned that part of the idle circuit. I also didn't remove the plastic piece ("slider support"???) in the carb body. Didn't set the float level either....sometimes I'm lazy

Then submerged the carb bodies is dish soap and water and cleaned with a toothbrush. Finally, I rinsed them off with water, blew them dry, and reassembled. I did notice that there are a couple slight cracks in the intake manifolds, but nothing too bad. I plan on replacing them later, after I get it running somewhat decent. I also replaced the float seat o rings and the o rings under the top cover. The o rings I used to replace the ones under the top cover were hardware store specials and they were a little thicker then the originals but still fit.

I put the carbs back in, added an inline fuel filter, and refilled the tank with fresh gas. Just to mention, I checked compression with my thumbs and everything checked out but never hooked a gauge up to it.

With everything back together, it seems like it tries to idle on one cylinder. If I put the choke on all the way, both cylinders fire and it revs up past 4k. If I try to take the choke off and make it idle below 4k, it stalls. On this problem, I'm guessing that removing the idle mixture screw and cleaning out idle circuit will fix it.

My other problem is that I'm spewing all kinds of white smoke. Almost like I blew a head gasket on a water-cooled bike. The smoke smells faintly of raw fuel. I don't think it's oil smoke. I pulled the oil cap with the bike running to see if I had blow by (broken piston??), but had none so I don't think its oil smoke.

Anyone else ever run into something like this? I'm thinking that maybe a bunch of raw fuel (now gunk) accumulated when the PO tried to start it so many times and let it sit with the petcock on prime. I wanted to get some opinions, because if this is a catastrophic problem (i.e. bad piston, valve, etc) I'm dumping the bike and not spending any more time on it.

So if anyone can help me out with the smoke problem, or anyone can point to something I missed that's causing my idle problem that would be great....sorry for being so wordy.

[JeffD]

White smoke is usually Oil if I'm not mistaken.
-Bad rings
-Bad valve guides

Also, if it had a puddle underneath the bike after being left on PRI, I would guess that the oil may be contaminated with gas too...pull the dipstick and check the oil to make sure the level is not now 'high' and very thin.

[The Buddha]

Blue is oil.
White is either steam (water - if you run your hands through it it will come out wettish feeling, and on some cars it will feel like they have some sorta syrup on them - head gasket leak and its burning radiator coolant) or gasoline (smelling like gas) Obviously like gas.
Black smoke is also likely gas, but the gas is all burning and comming out as sooty smoke.
Cool.
Buddha.

[Roadstergal]

On the GS500F I got new, I had a pilot jet actually fall out and leave the hole wide-open.  It was spitting gas, it didn't want to rev, and it belched white, fuel-smelling smoke.  Sounds like what's coming out of yours.

Have you checked for spark?  If one of your plugs isn't firing, you'll be running on one cylinder and spitting out the gas that isn't burning.

[5thAve]

During a bad storm I had water enter the tailpipe. Somehow it actually got past the drain hole in the stock muffler (never did figure out how) but the water collected in the muffler and header pipes. Next startup it burped and belched and white steam was coming out for a good 3 minutes, but after it heated up enough all the water was evaporated.  How long was the white 'smoke' coming out? Did it stay thick or start to thin out like you'd expect if it's water evaporating off?   Was there steam coming out of the oil fill hole when you looked in the crankcase? (that would mean water in the oil -- and your oil would have been milky white, too).

So far it sounds like either water somewhere, like I had, which will right itself pretty quickly, or else raw fuel somehow.

[jw2pv]

I had spark on both cylinders, at least while cranking. The oil looked good, but smelled a little of gas....probably from the PO flooding it out and continuously trying to start it again. I'm hoping the smoke is from water or fuel that collected in the exhaust. The more I think about it, I don't know what else it could be. I'll let it warn up for a while tonight and see if I can coax it around the neighborhood....hopefully I'll blow out whatever's in there.

The smoke is a grayish white, but I don't see any blue tint so I don't think it's oil. Hopefully it's not oil.

I'll take it for a spin and let you guys know if anything changes.

One more question: Is there any reason to pull the big white plastic piece from the carb body (the thing that the slider slides against)? Is there anything underneath that thing that I should clean?

Thanks

[jw2pv]

WooHoo!!!! Success!!!

Let it warm up pretty good and coaxed it around the cul-de-sack. It really didn't like it at first, lots of smoke and stalling. After a while everything cleared up. No smoke, no stalling. Pulled it back in the garage, removed the idle mixture screws and blew threw the circuit for good luck. Put airbox back on and adjusted my idle mixture and it runs like a champ. Still have yet to take it on the highway since it is not tagged yet. Must have been a lot of crap in the exhaust for it to smoke like that.

I'm in business!!! Thanks for everyone's help.

Jason

[The Buddha]

Jason - next time try not to blow in the air screw circuit. Its got a tiny O ring in there and a tiny washer, it can fly away easy with blowing, and you'd never know what hit ya.
Anyway glad it worked out.
Cool.
Buddha.

[jw2pv]

Oh really? Good to know. Thanks. I may have noticed them if I would have taken the mixture screws out when the carbs were on the bench, but I didn't take them out until the carbs were back on the bike.....I know, not the best way to do things.

Now that I'm satisfied that the motor is solid, I will spend a little bit of $ on the bike. Two things I need right now are:

1. Intake boots (old ones slightly cracked)
2. Handlebars (old ones bent)

Anyone know a good/cheap place to go to get these?

[GSnoober]

Oh really? Good to know. Thanks. I may have noticed them if I would have taken the mixture screws out when the carbs were on the bench, but I didn't take them out until the carbs were back on the bike.....I know, not the best way to do things.

Now that I'm satisfied that the motor is solid, I will spend a little bit of $ on the bike. Two things I need right now are:

1. Intake boots (old ones slightly cracked)
2. Handlebars (old ones bent)

Anyone know a good/cheap place to go to get these?

You didn't mention what year your GS is... and just for the hell of it, welcome to the asylum...

Good CHEAP (Bikemaster brand) replacement handlebars can be found at Chaparral, among other retailers:

http://www.chaparral-racing.com/Chaparral/product_family.asp?family_id=5740

You should be able to find them locally, which should save you time and shipping expenses. ANY dealership (doesn't have to be Suzuki, but I'm sure you already know that) can order them for you, if they don't have them in stock.

I personally prefer the Superbike bend, which provides a better riding position (slight lean forward, more weight on the front wheel) than the stock (upright) bars. There are MANY threads in the forum about the various handlebars available; most of us seem to prefer the Superbike bars, which are a cheap knockoff of the old classic K&N Superbike bars. Since I dislike chrome, I have the black bars on my GS.

Intake boots are shown as number 4 in this diagram:

http://images.powersportsnetwork.com/fiche/images/Suzuki/1989/Motorcycles/2103_13.gif

The Suzuki nomenclature is:

TUBE, OUTLET

13881-01D01

You can get them pretty cheap from MrCycles:

http://www.mrcycles.com

QTY: = 1

Price = $11.90 each

Mailing address and phone number:

MR Cycles

774 Hendersonville Road

Asheville, NC  28803

(800) 359-0567

They've always been helpful to me, and their prices are hard to beat... usually cheaper than RonAyers.com, and BikeBandit.com, but double-check to be sure...

Next, you'll want to upgrade the shitty front and rear suspension, and rejet the carbs... so here's the link to the Wiki:

http://cgi.stanford.edu/~sanjayd/gs500/Main/HomePage

[jw2pv]

Thanks a lot. I'll check all that out.

The bike is a '92