Hi all,
I've owned my '97 GS500E for almost a month now, first bike and I love it. I picked up a Clymer manual (at the recommendation of this site) and I've looked through it quite a bit.
I'll have many, many more questions in the future as I work on it, however here are my initial newb questions:
1- the gauges are loose, but the nuts that hold them on with the little grommets are tight but there is a space, is that the case for everyone? I think I'll add a washer or two to each in order to tighten them up so they don't bounce around or jiggle as much.
2- the petcock has prime, reserve and on. I understand that reserve is for when i run out of gas, prime is for starting after a long off-season and on is for everyday riding. there's no off because it's a vacuum petcock. so for the winter, when it's going to sit for a possible 6+ months (hopefully less), i can leave it in the on position and it's okay? please correct any of this if I have it wrong. what kind of off-season prep work should i do before i plan to let is sit for months?
3- dumb question here, is there any trick to using the center stand? i used to have a moped (weighed considerably less, obviously) and it only had a center stand so I would push it down and pull the handlebars up and back to prop it up. i attempted to do that with this bike and it just slid on the stand and didn't go anywhere. i prefer the side stand anyway, but when i do work on the bike, obviously i'll use the center. do i just need to pull up harder and keep my foot down on the center stand tighter? or is there some odd hint that makes it easier. i know it's a stupid question, but i'm a firm believer in asking the question early rather than years down the line finding out there was a simple way to make it easier.
I plan on learning as I go and doing 99% of the work myself (with my brothers help, who is a car mechanic). Going to replace a fork seal in the next couple weeks and eventually take apart the carbs and clean/rebuild them. Any advice on anything is greatly appreciated, I'm nothing if not humble, especially being new to this world.
Thanks.
How to get the bike on Center-Stand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWi7zgBYEsU
hell yah that rocks, so much easier then trying to pre load shocks etc. did it the first try :woohoo:
My tach came loose a few months back... I checked the acorn nuts on the back of the black gauge housing and they were tight. When I took the gauge housing off, I noticed 2 philips screws on the bottom of the white housing on the actual tach had come loose and fallen out (they were laying in the bottom of the black gauge housing yay!). I put them back in, tightened them up, and that fixed my tach from bouncing all around. Hope that helps!!
Thanks for the replies thus far! That video was indeed helpful, I knew there had to be a better way.
And thanks ShowBizWolf, I'll check that out, gotta be it!
Added question, what's everyone's preferred choice of tires? I'm going to keep the front the stock 110/70 but put a wider 140/70 on the back. I've read there's controversy over fitting a 150/70, so I'll avoid that altogether. I am looking at Pirelli sport demons as they have great reviews and seem reasonably priced.
Thoughts and experiences on tires anyone?
I am glad I could help... my tach was bouncing around and when I wiggled the cable the whole thing would move around in the housing. It drove me crazy!!
I personally don't have any really valuable input on tires but I thought of this thread from July that had a lot of good info in it and thought it may help ya out:
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=67675.0
Hey, my thread! Lol. There are a ton of other tire threads out there as well, and many of them feature gsJack's tire log. It's a great resource.
SDs seem to be a popular choice, and they are fantastic tires. Though, in that thread, I mention I got very short life due to commuting to school. I just had a 140/70 AM26 put on. I can't speak for life yet, but it feels great paired with the SD front. It all depends on what you want to do. Twisties on the weekends? SD might not be a bad choice. Commuting and long distance? Might want to consider something more suited to touring.
I've done two winters so far. All I did was to change the oil, put stabilizer in the gas tank, run it and then fill it with gas and then put it up on the centre stand in the garage. Finally I removed the battery and put it in the basement. You have to make sure the stabilizer gets into the carbs however.
In spring put the battery back in, change the oil again and the filter. and off you go.....
For tires, I stuck with the Balttleaxe's. Good grip, good price and 14K kms.
Always check the wiki. The wiki is the noob's friend:
http://wiki.gstwins.com/index.php?n=Maintenance.Winterizing
The search engine can be weird. If your first attempt results in no results, try searching again by clicking the button next to your search string (the word you searched) that resulted in "no results" on that "no results" page. You will often get results then.
Quote from: barry905 on September 02, 2014, 10:11:43 PM
You have to make sure the stabilizer gets into the carbs however.
Why not just drain them?
If I tried Adidasguy's centrestand technique there'd be spine prolapses popping out all over the place!
Another way as follows: Get a piece of timber - approx 19mm thick chipboard is good. Place it on the ground behind the bike. Roll the back wheel onto it, then pull the bike up onto the centrestand. Very much easier now because the rear of the bike is already lifted up more or less halfway.
The prob with the GS is that the centrestand is a bit too short, meaning that the vertical lift involved is something like 30-40mm, more than is necessary. (Check how high your rear tyre is above the ground with the bike on the centrestand). Some bikes are easy to put on the centrestand, they usually have more like 12-20mm under the rear tyre when on the stand.