New to the forum, new to the bike

[Kennesy]

Hey all,

Yesterday I just went out and bought a marketplace find 1991 (listed as 1993) GS500e. I really like the bike, it looks great, and it feels like the perfect size and power for how I want to ride. Its got what appears to be some fueling issues which Im hopefully going to address by rebuilding the carbs, emptying and cleaning the tank, and giving it a full tune up.

The reason Im posting here today though is because for all the search I've done, I haven't been able to find another one of this generation that is full stock with these fairings. They are perfectly paint matched so they look to be stock and everything else on the bike (even the muffler) appears to be bone stock at around 11k miles. I've attached 2 pics of the bike in the hopes that someone can help me identify this particular fairing style. Is it stock? Is it particularly rare? Any other cool facts or features?

Thanks

*edit: hopefully the attachments don't look like garbage now   

[Bluesmudge]

It is relatively rare to find both fairings in good shape. The teal (and even more so purple) from the early '90s have to be the most impressive of GS500 colors.
Those fairings were factory optional on a few of the early GS500 bikes. I remember even 10 years ago they were sought after items.
The GS500 has always been considered a budget friendly bike, so I assume few people who bought the bike new wanted to spend the extra cash for the optional accessories (the color match fairings, gel seat, tank bra, engine guards, rear rack). After a few years Suzuki stopped offering any factory options for the GS500.

Consider yourself lucky to have found a relatively low mileage GS, in good shape, with cool extras.

[Kennesy]

Thanks a lot for the info! Im even more excited now to get this baby back to optimal running condition and get it out and properly enjoy it! I had it up and running when I went to take a look at it and other than bogging down from bad gas/dirty carb, it had great compression and sounded really good.

All of this for only $1250 Im feeling better and better about my purchase 

[mr72]

FYI -- you might try this before going nuts rebuilding the carbs:

https://joshkarnes.blogspot.com/2017/09/fixing-common-gs500-carburetor-issues.html

it works!

interesting bike. should be a fun project.

[ShowBizWolf]

You absolutely do have a rare find there. I've been hanging around the forum for about 7 years and am active on the Facebook group for our bikes but I've never seen one with the teal headlight fairing AND belly pan. Super cool!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing!!
Hope you get your fuel issues sorted out.
I'm really glad this GS isn't going to be destroyed by someone who doesn't realize what it is.

[The Buddha]

That teal and silver is rather common, or was until every one on the planet with one of these decided it needs to be something other than teal, so a lot of these teal beauties were simply rattle canned to some other POS.
FWIW, I have the blue version of it on my 95 (I own several body sets for the 89-00 bikes - 89 black, 89 white - my first GS, and blue 91 among them, and its my absolute favorite just from the color perspective. Love the 89 white, cos it was my first GS but not from the color and look perspective.

Cool.
Buddha.

[Kennesy]

Thanks for all the info guys, I really appreciate it. I got coaxed her home safely yesterday and besides wanting to bog down at higher speeds everything felt good. Gonna start tearing it apart this week and rebuild the carbs from the ground up, do some syncing and a full adjustment, clean out the tank and get some clean gas in it, get the chain cleaned and lubed, and change the oil. Once I've got the engine purring again, I'll go over the whole bodywork and detail the piss out of it so it gleams again and then maybe repost some nicer pics in here.


Any good source on a cheap owners manual and/or repair manual? Is Haynes the best or is there one better?

[Bluesmudge]

The Haynes is good. There is also a Clymer manual for the older bikes and Suzuki also has their own shop manual.
For some maintenance tasks (like removing fork dampers or the generator rotor or valve shims) there is more than one way to accomplish things and each manual has its own take on making tools vs Suzuki special tools.
It can be good to have multiple manual to compare.

[cbrfxr67]

really cool to see a survivor like that,...
hope to see you post more on your gs experience!

[ShowBizWolf]

The wiki has a lot of helpful information and diagrams too. The fuel routing diagrams in particular are helpful because they are corrected from ones that are wrong.

http://wiki.gstwins.com/

http://wiki.gstwins.com/index.php?n=Main.HoseRouting