A good friend bought an '01 GS500 last year with only 200 miles on it sometime around March. He got to ride it maybe 5 times (that I was with him, at least)  before he had a family emergency and had to store it. Well, come to find out he didn't prep it for storage. It went into storage in a small backyard building (not heated) sometime late April '05, and had been sitting there until yesterday with about 1/2 tank of gas.

The battery was obviously dead, but I have a charger so we hooked it up overnight. Today, upon attempting to fire it up it almost started each time, but wouldn't quite. From reading on here I'd seen that gunked up carbs can cause problems, so, following the picture diagrams, we drained the bowls, yanked off the gas tank, and peaked inside each carb. They looked practically spotless. The fuel drained from the bowls looked fine as well...not discolored at all.

So we tried draining a little of the gas in the tank to see if it showed any signs of discoloring, and it was clean as well.

We hooked everything back up, turned the petcock to prime, applied a full choke and within a few seconds it fired up. I attempted to keep it idling at 3000rpm. With choke full on, it revved up past 4K, but if we took it down much more than a millimeter it dropped down below 2K and began sputtering. After about 45 sec of idling, it died even with choke on. We tried again and it fired up again...same results. Idled fine at 3K for a while...then began dropping until it lost power. I tried giving it a bit of throttle which picked it up a few times, but ultimately it didn't do the trick.

After those two successful starts, it won't start again. It's started the "low battery click."

Any clues? Suggestions?

Still need to clean out the pilot circuit/jets.  Maybe run some Yamaha carb cleaner though the gas, let the floatbowls sit awhile with the stuff in 'em and then run the rest of the tank with new gas (Chevron preferably).

http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=14798.msg128215#msg128215
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=15747.msg138698#msg138698
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=18981.msg172200#msg172200
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=15497.msg136250#msg136250

What he said...  But, just so you know...  Keeping my '01 idling at 3k is a virtual impossibility...  It either chugs down to <1 or it jumps to 4 after only a second or two...  I just continually adjust it by a mm... Then it goes up to 4... Adjust... Back to 4... Adjust...   Whatever... It warms it up.

As for the running problem...  Do what other people here say (Like Scratch)...  'cause I have no clue.

Thanks guys.

Scratch, thanks for the links...now I know what needs to be done. Looks like a good job to undertake tomorrow on my day off