GS500 First Bike

[20ethan]

Hello, I just purchased a 2004 GS500F as my first bike yesterday! There is a bit of work done, I went with some more experienced riders who checked the bike out and it doesn't seem to be too difficult. I wanted to come to the forum to ask a couple questions about the difficulty of these repairs and if I can do them myself or if I should go to a shop.
Some preface about my personal skill: I am decently handy but I don't have a great workshop. Just some wrenches, sockets, basic hand tools, and some power tools. I can likely borrow torque wrenches from my friends as well.

The issues:
- There seems to be a leak on the front forks.
Would this just entail purchasing a new front fork seal, taking apart the front forks, and putting them back together. I purchased a Haynes repair manual so I believe I should be able to do this on my own but their 4/5 difficulty rating worries me. I also was a bit worried about the custom tool needed to reseat the seals because the 04 and up models you cant use a PVC pipe to reseat them. Could I purchase like a cheap universal reseating tool for that purpose?
- There seems to be a small oil leak, not 100% sure exactly where but it seems to be around the front sprocket/shift lever
Symptoms: When the bike is started there seems to be a small, like drops at a time, oil leak around this area.
I thought that this is likely just chain lube that is getting heated as there seems to be a lot of forum posts that has that as the culprit but I took the cover of the rear sprocket off and it didn't seem super dirty. Nevertheless I still cleaned it and am waiting to start it until I can get some more 10W-40 oil. After I start if there is still a leak where should I look next? I also realized as I was cleaning the sprocket area that there was some oil leaking out further up on the bike, this was with the bike cold and I only noticed because I was on wet ground and saw the rainbows. However, in my garage there didn't seem to be any oil leak at all? Is this a bad sign?
- The rear right blinker is dead
I believe this just requires me to change the bulb which I believe is a 1057 bulb? I couldn't find any on amazon so if anyone has any recommendations please let me know.

Sorry for that block of text, I want to be thorough in my descriptions to have as much help as possible. Thank you so much for any potential help, I am super excited to join the motorcycling community in general and specifically the GS Twins community!

[20ethan]

I should also ask one more question. If the GS500 Fork Seal replacement is too expensive/too difficult to do, would I be able to replace the fork entirely with an SV650 fork? I happen to have a 99-02 SV650 front fork assembly on hand, would it be something that I can just slide in place to the frame, would I be able to just remove the individual fork suspension pieces and put them in the GS500's triple tree?

[cbrfxr67]

  where pics?

Maybe somebody else knows if there is a magic fork that will slide right in and everything bolts up but, seals are not that difficult.  There are some good yt guides and although show would never recommend , the el cheapo ebay seals will work ok.  You could upgrade the springs while you're at it if it feels soft to you.  Don't be scared, you can diy!

I haven't had to mess with leak by sprocket yet so I can't say much on that.  Blinker could be just the bulb, si,....

Hope to hear more of your experience!

[ShowBizWolf]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the bike 

When I purchased my GS back in 2012, it had leaky fork seals too. I can understand being a bit hesitant to do the job yourself... I know I was. But when it came time for me to do mine, I watched this video quite a few times:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cSYiIl8gQk (and there are others like it on YT as well)

I also read over the steps in the Clymer Manual (much the same as your Haynes one) numerous times. I will note here that the written step about how to position the new seals is wrong... they instruct you to install them upside down. If you choose to repair the fork seals yourself, be sure to position the new ones with the open groove/spring side facing DOWN.

Another very helpful thing I did was have all my parts and tools on hand before starting the work. That included new bushings and sliders, fork oil, PVC pipe for the seating tool, seals, dust wipers, etc.

IMO if you watch that YT video, it'll give you a good idea if it's something you're wanting to get involved with or not.

FWIW, the first time my seals got replaced, I paid a mechanic to do it. It was then that I found out the fork tubes were bent and I needed new ones. I searched on eBay and on the forum here (For Sale section) for non-bent GS500 forks to just swap in. Not sure if that's an option you're willing to consider but I thought I'd throw it out there just in case.

The easiest way to tell where leaks are coming from is to clean everything thoroughly and then start the bike and watch for where any oil appears.

EDIT to add: Not sure where you are located but the OEM Suzuki parts sites have helpful diagrams, showing what seals and gaskets are where. The diagrams have helped me in the past when I was finding and fixing leaks. I'm in the States and my go-to OEM parts site is motosport.com.

Hope this all helps !!

[The Buddha]

I should also ask one more question. If the GS500 Fork Seal replacement is too expensive/too difficult to do, would I be able to replace the fork entirely with an SV650 fork? I happen to have a 99-02 SV650 front fork assembly on hand, would it be something that I can just slide in place to the frame, would I be able to just remove the individual fork suspension pieces and put them in the GS500's triple tree?

No, the easiest swap IMHO is a 89-95 Katana 600 swap. Now if a fork seal replacement is too hard, no way you'd want to sap the whole FE, and likely it will need seals too.
Cool.
Buddha.

[Bluesmudge]

The hard part with the 2004+ forks is that the damper rod is smooth so its very hard to remove.
See this great post about doing the job on the older forks:
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=70878.0

At the part where it says,
"The inside of the piston happens to have the same shape as a bolt that fits in a size 24 socket" well unfortunately on the 2004 forks its just smooth so the bolt trick won't work. Instead of the tool improvised in that how-to make one out of a wooden broom handle and shape the end of the broom to fit into the damper rod. That's how I did it.

[The Buddha]

I've swapped 04 to katana as well. You wont ever get the clip on's to clear tank and fairing without "banana" handles. And even so its ridiculously tight. Yea 04 saves nightmare of getting headlight ears ... but the bars aint no picnic.
Anyway with any FE swap you're looking at a way to fit gauges and everything else you cant just pick off a shelf.
I have done some vert very clean swaps, in fact I was riding one of those swaps before pandemic ate our fun, but It was no picnic getting there. I fabbed ears for the gauges, fabbed the headlight ears, got 41mm grommets (off a bandit 600) and so on.
No, regardless of the crap needed to fo forkseals, a FE swap isn't the answer.
If you want a nice and stiff FE with twin disk brakes and it looks stock and normal and not like you slapped crap in our backyard, do a kat 600 FE swap. No idea about sv.

Cool.
Buddha.

[20ethan]

Sorry for the late response y'all, I had midterms and was having so much fun enjoying the bike!

So I did attempt the fork seal replacement and it was a doosey. Everything was going fine up until the damper bolt removal, tried the broomstick trick to no avail. Ended up having to go to my friends house and use their torch and pneumatic impact driver to remove the bolt. Turns out it had black loctite on the end which I assume is evidence of a previous owner messing around with the front fork and decided they would never need to take it apart again ever. After that the rest of the installation went flawlessly, I did scuff up the fork, luckily not the working section, due to me being a noob and not using thick enough rags between my pipe wrench and the fork. Now the front suspension is a lot stiffer and feels normal!

I also fixed the rear blinker, it simply wasn't connected. The wiring was too short and there seems to be evidence of a previous owner messing with the electrical on the bike due to me finding a lot of electrical tape on the wiring harness that I doubt and OEM would use. I just soldered on a longer attachment and now it works fine.

I also am changing out the tires. Yesterday I changed out the front tire and did it incorrectly. I didn't seat the tire into the center of the rim on installation which made it impossible to install. I tried to brute force it which was dumb and ended up with some tears around the bead. I learned from my mistakes and was able to properly install it and go to a tire shop to have them use their compressor to pop in the bead (my compressor is too weak). So far there doesn't seem to be a leak. I put about 11 miles on today and am going to wait till tonight to remeasure to see if there has been any loss in air. Still waiting on my rear tire in the mail then I will install that one.

Overall, I love the GS500. Its a fantastic bike and awesome to learn how to wrench on. I recently also did my first biker wave! Highlight of my week lol.

Images to come.

Other questions: Do y'all know what lights the indicator cluster on the "dash" use? Like the lights that tell you if you're low on oil, have turn signals on, in neutral, or high beams? I'm asking because my turn signal light is super dim during the day and I'm always looking down to make sure its on/off because I can never tell.

[20ethan]

Here is a pic of the fork seal replacement: https://imgur.com/gallery/o7AWc03

[20ethan]

Here are additional pictures of the bike: https://imgur.com/gallery/zVj6FIC

[cbrfxr67]

Good job and great looking bike  !

[ShowBizWolf]

Glad to know it was a success! First biker wave... I'll never forget

Dash bulb numbers/info can be found here:
http://wiki.gstwins.com/index.php?n=Upgrades.LEDIndicators