Previous owner said it died on him last year while he was riding it and now it wouldn't start. Lights won't come on or anything. It was in great shape so I took a chance on it hoping it was a simple electrical issue. It also helped that my neighbor is a mechanic and went with me to look at it. Once we got back, we replaced the fuse and it started right up. It was running rough from sitting in a garage for a year but my neighbor went to test drive it down the street and the fuse blew again. He told me to look up stuff online about possible issues. That's when I found this site and read a bunch of post about wires touching the engine and melting. So, I head out to the garage and take the fairings off to find the horn hanging by the wires with one of the wires touching the engine. I see exposed wire and laugh. No way it's that simple. I go buy some more fuses, electrical tape, a bolt, washers, and a nut for less than $20. It was a box of several types of fuses, so it cost $15. I tape up the exposed wires, pop in a new fuse and give my neighbor a shout to test drive this bad boy. He is able to run it up and down the street without it dying. Says the carbs need to be cleaned and I should go ahead and buy an air filter, oil filter, oil, carb rebuild kits, and spark plugs(that damn captcha! lol). So I'm into a running 05 GS500F with only 7200 miles for less than $900. Time to get my MSF course knocked out and I'll be ready to ride before it gets too cold.
Sounds like you did well! Good luck with your new ride! It's a very sturdy machine - keep up with the maintenance and you'll be surprised at how well and long these machines can run! The GS500 is a very forgiving bike to learn on, and you'll have a blast! I ran up big-time miles (over 100,000) on mine before it wore out. Although there were times I thought I had outgrown it, it was so much fun in the turns and so economical to run I just could not part with it.
Keep it stock, forget about "performance" mods (unless you upgrade the suspension). You're not going to squeeze a whole lot of additional power out of it by helping it breathe better with air filter and exhaust mods. Enjoy it for what it is! Heck, at the price you got it for, when you're ready to move up, you can get a chunk of your money back!
Cheers!
:cheers:
Thanks! I got the carb repair kits in yesterday. The rest of the maintenance stuff should be in by Friday, so I plan on doing all the tune up work this weekend. I did read about syncing the carbs. Is that something I should expect to have to do or is there something that causes the need for this? I guess since I don't know anything about it's past or previous maintenance, I should do it.
I did a little bit of research on it before I bought it and thought it would be a perfect starter bike for me. The thought never crossed my mind to do performance mods on it. I just want to get the engine in good running order and start using it for my 20+mile ride to work. I love the sound of 55+mpg!
Is there a set interval for carb syncs in the manual? If not, I'd say it could be done after checking valve clearances. The whole reason that the carbs get out of sync is one cylinder is sucklingmore air than the other - and valve clearances can change how much air is sucked in.
Besides, after what little hassle is involved with checking the valves, a carb sync is easy.
:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
Study hard,
look & leeeeaaaaaaan,
have fun.
and welcome :wink: