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Maybe you could weld on a magnet from a headphone speaker to the end of the bolt.

the harddrive magnets that somone used in their homemade tankbag would be pretty good at this.

can you weld magnets onto the drain plugs, cause if so I'm gonna try it, it wouldn't hurt anything I don't think! anyways if someone knows please let me know?

I bought one for my car, last time I changed the oil it had a couple kinda big pieces on it. I'm sure you can go to like napa or any auto parts store and get one with the same threads.

Any Suzuki one will fit. Same diameter, pitch, etc. for the past 20 yrs.

Don't weld a magnet!    If you heat them up too much some of them lose their magnetisim. JB weld will hold up to the temp (used on the crankcase of one of my bikes) and be blenty strong.  Or you could probally find one at an auto parts store once you find the pitch and aprox length of your current one.

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Quote from: ducati_nolanDon't weld a magnet!    If you heat them up too much some of them lose their magnetisim. JB weld will hold up to the temp (used on the crankcase of one of my bikes) and be blenty strong.  Or you could probally find one at an auto parts store once you find the pitch and aprox length of your current one.

Maybe after you did the welding you could leave the bolt next to a very strong magnet while it is cooling.

Heat and magnets do not mix besides which you may well have a problem with welding dissimilar metals. Much better to try and find a after-market magnetic  plug of the correct thread pitch and diameter. It shouldnt be to difficult as threads are standardised, at a guess I would say the plug will have a Metric-Fine thread pattern with a pitch of 1.25 or 1.5 and a diameter of 12 or 14 mm. An alternative solution if your really keen is to make one yourself. Get a OEM plug from Suzuki, find a magnet thats smaller in diameter than the plug then get a shallow recess turned in the end of the plug  by a machine shop and make the magnet an interference fit in the machined recess by machining it a couple of thou` less than the diameter of the magnet, you could use some araldite on it also as it may loosen off due to heat expansion. Another possibility is to drill and tap a blind hole in the end of the plug, say M4, drill a clearance hole through the magnet and bolt the magnet to the end of the plug. Something else to consider is how much room there is inside the sump as you dont want the magnet to foul on anything inside as you screw it in.
At the end of the day anything is possible it just depends how much time and money you want to throw at the problem and how far you are prepared to go to resolve it. Next time I have the drain plug out of my GS I will identify the thread pitch and size and post it.

http://www.magneticdrainplug.com/motorcycle.html

None there for the GS500. GS400, 550 and 750, but no 500.

Correct..there is no listing for GS500 but there is a comment in red lettering that states "Please e-mail with specific needs if not listed"

Quote from: JamesGAny Suzuki one will fit. Same diameter, pitch, etc. for the past 20 yrs.

That's what I get for not reading the BIG GIGANTIC RED TEXT, eh? For $9 it might be worth it.

I can believe they are the same for all models. There is probably a little factory outside of Hammamatsu thats been rattling them out for decades and selling them all to Suzuki. Its far cheaper to design and manufacture a new engine using as many standard and already manufactured parts for which the tooling already exists than it is to design and gear up to make new parts that are not  vital to the design. It keeps parts costs down to as they only need 1 part number and dealers only have to stock 1 item that covers many applications.

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just dying for attention aren't you?

Quote from: sledgeI can believe they are the same for all models. There is probably a little factory outside of Hammamatsu thats been rattling them out for decades and selling them all to Suzuki..

Or one day many many moons ago, Suzuki's purchasing suit got a great deal short, stumpy boats and they now have a mountain of them that they are slowly working thru.


Most brands have standardized on a specific size, thread, pitch to their drain bolts (umong many) and without a reason to change, why bother?

I wonder if we could just make our OEM plug magnetized.
after wrapping wire around a piece of metal and running electricity through it it becomes magnetized, and it will stay slightly magnetized even after you disconnect the electricity. I wonder if this would make our drain plugs magnetized enough to collect the bits of metal. I will try this next time I change my oil