Made it to 80K Mi

[HPP8140]

02 GS500 80K Mi...I've had a few older GS, but I feel this odd year is the best.

- Love the engine tuning for lowish and midrange (the 89-00 had more of top end)
- The carbs are huge improvement...the older carbs drift in float height...I haven't opened the carbs since I purchased at 16K. The bike also idles consistently, unlike previous models

The left exhaust valve is wearning much faster than the others...was using 210 shim at 54K, which was already smaller than Suzuki recommends. 200 shim at 64K...didn't think the bike had much life left. At 75K the bike still ran well and I was having trouble finding a replacement 2001-2002 GS500, so I special ordered 190 shim from precisionshims in Australia.

I was a bit hesitant, but slowly built up trust and the bike continues to run well....so dunno...want to hit 100K  , but don't think that will happen.

[mentalshark]

That is amazing. Just got mine at 22k km(14k miles) and just starting to milage on it. Now having your example I knew this would last for a very long time.

I wonder if you can replace the valve so it "reset" the shim height? Would that be a better fix than shim replacement?

[Bluesmudge]

Nice! Its always nice to see another GS500 putting in the work. Very impressive when you think about how simple and inexpensive these machines are.

I think we will be seeing more and more GS500s with high mileage considering even the newest ones are more than 10 years old now.

I recently crossed 50,000 miles on my '06. I would never say they were trouble free miles but it made it this far. I finally have all the modifications just how I like them so that I can "just ride." I hope my GS survives to at least 80k like yours. I also have a mental target reaching 100,000 miles.

That is an interesting story about the one valve wearing so fast. At 52,xxx miles the smallest shim I have in my bike is a 2.55

[herennow]

Well done, I'm at 50k km. But adding miles way too slowly!!!!

[The Buddha]

02 GS500 80K Mi...I've had a few older GS, but I feel this odd year is the best.

- Love the engine tuning for lowish and midrange (the 89-00 had more of top end)
- The carbs are huge improvement...the older carbs drift in float height...I haven't opened the carbs since I purchased at 16K. The bike also idles consistently, unlike previous models

The left exhaust valve is wearning much faster than the others...was using 210 shim at 54K, which was already smaller than Suzuki recommends. 200 shim at 64K...didn't think the bike had much life left. At 75K the bike still ran well and I was having trouble finding a replacement 2001-2002 GS500, so I special ordered 190 shim from precisionshims in Australia.

I was a bit hesitant, but slowly built up trust and the bike continues to run well....so dunno...want to hit 100K  , but don't think that will happen.

Wow, that's cool. Its always the quiet ones.
Cool.
Buddha.

[HPP8140]

That is amazing. Just got mine at 22k km(14k miles) and just starting to milage on it. Now having your example I knew this would last for a very long time.

I wonder if you can replace the valve so it "reset" the shim height? Would that be a better fix than shim replacement?

Don't have the knowledge to do motor rebuilds and not sure if it's worth it due to milage on all the other engine parts. I've had a few of these bikes...I usually find it easier to find a lower milage bike, make one good bike out of the parts, sell the other or keep it as a parts bike.

[HPP8140]

Nice! Its always nice to see another GS500 putting in the work. Very impressive when you think about how simple and inexpensive these machines are.

I think we will be seeing more and more GS500s with high mileage considering even the newest ones are more than 10 years old now.

I recently crossed 50,000 miles on my '06. I would never say they were trouble free miles but it made it this far. I finally have all the modifications just how I like them so that I can "just ride." I hope my GS survives to at least 80k like yours. I also have a mental target reaching 100,000 miles.

That is an interesting story about the one valve wearing so fast. At 52,xxx miles the smallest shim I have in my bike is a 2.55

Yeah it's amazing, I've had a few of these bikes, ridden over 180k Miles and they've never left me stranded....usually because they are mechanical...when something goes wrong, you can usually ride around the problem to make it home.

So I have a two bike line-up....always keep a GS500 for the workhorse...my newer bikes have left me stranded....don't trust them and hate working on them.

One valve wearing fast because when I purchased the bike, the previous owner did not do valve adjustments and I had to drop down three sizes to get clearance on that left exaust valve. I've purchased another bike like this, you can still get good milage out of it, but I noticed the valve wears much faster than the others and that is how this 2002 has behaved as well.