1998 idle problem, repair suggestions - help!

[Jake]

Hello,
I bought a 1998 GS500 about a year ago and have kept the maintenance up fairly well for the 10k miles I put on it.  The bike used to take 5-8 minutes to warm up but now it will not idle at all with out constantly turning up the adjustment.  I recently took the carbs apart for cleaning and synch. thinking that was the problem but no luck.  Today, the bike lost all power at 70 mph after about 15 minutes on the road then after pulling over and restarting, it ran fine again?  I am ready to get my hands dirty and would like some suggestions on what might help.  The bike is entirely stock right now.  Carb tune up kit?  Jet kit?  Air Filter?  I don't want to spend on the exhaust and have about $100 to get this thing running well again.  Also, I tried to check the valve adjustment and found no gap?  Is this possible it seems like wear would only create more gap?
I would appreciated any help, this is my transportation to school 4 days a week.

Thank you,
jake

[GRU]

welcome jake

you said that you cleaned the carbs and synched them...well if you did that right then it could be the ignition that's making the bike idle bad....idle jump's and so on? and you said that it lost the power at 70 mph

my bike is running on 1.3 cyl right now one cylinder is always fireing and the other sometimes (most of the time it doesn't) and because of that i can't get it to idle at all...sometimes when i get the rpm up and hit 60 mph my bike loses power and dies....

so what i'm saying is, check your ignition and plugs...then also check the compression in each cyl

good luck

[Adam R]

When you took the bike apart, did you touch the float settings?  You could be running out of gas in the float bowls at that speed.

Adam

[scratch]

Welcome Jake!

I agree with Adam that you may be emptying the floats at speed. Also, since you do your own maintenance, do have or use one of the Clymer or Haynes manuals, or the information on this website? Just curious. Did you check your valves when the bike was cold? Another thing may be the in-tank fuel filter may be clogged.

Where in the bay area are you? Maybe I can help you? PM me.

[Jake]

Thanks for the input. I am thinking this may be a float problem now that it has been mentioned.  I read my Clymer manual, after I put everything back together of course, and it specifies a float setting which I did not check when I had it apart.  I had a float problem the other day, my fuel leaked out after I shut the bike off, so it is a suspicious part already.  I did pull the filter out of the tank, cleaned and replaced it.

I have ordered a carb. rebuild kit and will give it a shot this weekend.  

One last question:  while I have the carbs apart, is it worth adding one of these performance jet kits?  I am not nearly as concerned about performance as I am reliability but there is quite a bit of talk in these pages about them?

Thank you,
jake

[scratch]

Just get the size 40 non-bleed pilot jets and 125 main jets. I have washers that I can give you or mail them to you.