Hello all and thanks for the help so far.  I now have a new problem, but first a little history.

My 92 GS 500 came with a V&H exhaust that was way too loud.  To keep good relations with my neighbors and to keep the wife happy I arranged to swap it out for a factory exhaust. (Thanks Sprint9)

After much cursing and other things, I got the frozen bolts out and installed the factory exhaust and there was great rejoicing.  This happened Sunday evening.  I rode 20 miles to work yesterday and then to the cycle shop to get an oil filter and then headed home.  Realizing that I was at 170 miles on the tank I switched to REServe. At 189 miles, the bike sputtered, hesitated and died right next to the gas station I was headed for.  I placed 3.9 gallons in the tank while on it's side stand and filling to the neck of the tank.  She started up and we headed home.  I did notice she was idling lower than her normal, but was only 1.5 miles from home so I continued on.

Half mile later she sputters, hesitates and dies again.  I turn the fuel valve to PRIme and after 3 or 4 minutes she starts right up and we continue home.  This morning I went out to warm her up and she started with the choke fine.  I let her warm while I got gear on, but when I came back out 2 minutes later she was barely at 1000 rpm and that was with full choke.  Normally she would be at 4 or 5 and I would be lunging to kill the choke switch.

If I lowered the choke she died.  After a minute more she died anyway.  At that point I took the truck to work and started thie post.

Observations:

Her normal idle is around 1500 then it goes up to 2500 after 10 - 15 minutes riding.
There is a minor oil leak from the filter cover.
There appears to be oil coming from the exhaust pipes at the head.
I smelled gas when she died this morning.[/list:u]

I welcome any and all advice from the Gurus of GSTwin

Did you rejet when you swapped the V&H for the stock exhaust?  If not then you may be running too rich.

What do your plugs look like?

1- If the bike had a full system exhaust- it was probably rejetted.  Which means that by switching back to the stock you have richened up your mix significantly...  it's worth checking but since your choke "chokes" off air intake at start and enriches the mix it may not be the biggest problem.

I suppose that there could be a problem with the floats or vaccum lines or petcock...

2- If you have oil comming from the exhaust headers then you have a problem.  You need to clean that area very well and pay close attention to where the leak is coming from.  It could be the valve cover or it could be from where the tack cable runs into the engine case- those like to leak.

People have associated similiar performace with valves being overly tight-  The problems have come on rather quickly and were fixed with a valve adjustment.  How many miles does the bike have and when were the valves last adjusted?

Yup the Utah boys pretty much nailed it... BTW I'll also check for exhaust leaks... since that was the last thing you touched before everything shot to hell...  :x  :x  :x  BTW this the perfect opportunity to tell the wife and neighbors.. this is what happenes when you unnessecarily screw with somehting that was perfectly working...  
Cool.
Srinath.

Thanks for the tips guys.  I'll check when I get home from work.  the bike has 27,000 on it and I have no idea when any maint. was done on it.  One of my local riding buddies has already asked Kerry to borrow his valve tools, so we'll do the adjustments on both our bikes at the same time.

just a though here, but when was the last time you ran the tank dry?

from what you are describing, it sounds like some dirt in the carbs.



just a though.
chris<pixelmonkey>

This was actually only the second tank I put in and the first time I ran it out.

Quote from: ConanLloydThis was actually only the second tank I put in and the first time I ran it out.

first time you have ever ran the trank dry...

i would put money on it being dirt or rust in the carbs. you can likely pull the main needle and spray out each of them without too much trouble. if that fails, check over the items listed in the other post.

chris<pixelmonkey>