Okay, i need to adjust the rear shock to make it stiffer for passengers. Can anyone tell me how in the hell this is possible? There is hardly any room to get the spanner in there..nevermind my hand to get any sort of leverage on it!! And which way are these numbers supposed to face...is there a notch somewhere for it to line up with? i couldnt see anything.

On the "sides" of the shock body there are a pair of bumps behind the shock's preload collar (the one with the slots cut into it and numbers).  What ever slot has the bump is what its on. Feed the spanner up from the left side and behind so that you catch the hook of the wrench on one of the slots. Pull it around so that the flat part of it is against as much of the collar as possible. You won't be able to get it straight on becasue of the dogbones and chain, but as long as its on the edge and won't slip off its good. Put the ovaled extension handle on the wrench about half way down so you get as much leverage as possible. Do more of a twisting motion then trying to turn a wratchet, and don't go past #7 or you will have to start over again!

On my Honda there was a specific tool in the kit but, from memory, I don't think that is the case with the GS, probably a case of rachet and shortish extn bar. There is a fairly crap picture in the manual.

I just bought the gs500 and was online looking to see if anyone had anything on the internet about adjusting and found yor thread. How do you adjust the coil over shock, i have these oval sight windows and see the sloped curve that the base of the coilover rides on. It appears the the higher the number the more preload that you put on the coil over, resulting in a stiffer ride, but the question remain the exact method of doing this. Do you need to release tension on the spring by jacking the motocycle up, or is there a special tool? Please help.

yeah, the bike should come with a specialized spanner in the tool kit in the tail.  if it's not there, i'm pretty sure you can order one from suzuki.  otherwise i know people have used  punches and hammers to jack it along.

The special-purpose spanner is the odd-looking tool just to the right of the 22mm wrench in JohNLA's toolkit picture.  The item to the right of THAT is the "handle extender" that makes it all possible (or so I hear).

From putting my post in and now having adjusted the preload to a higer setting in about a half hour this site and forum rocks. I cool to see that so many people are a physkd about having a gs500 as me. Sure does save me the drive to the suzuki dealership here in Maplewood MN and dealing with unintrested parts guy who proabbaly say he has never worked on a gs500. THanks alot.

ok...

I'll back Kerry up here since there seems to be alot of confusion about this lately.

You need these two tools from the stock GS tool kit, or at least a similar sized spanner from most other bike tool kits or anywhere.



What you are doing is bumping the rotating preload collar (the silver thing with slots in it) around so that the bump (big red circle) causes the ramps on the inside of the collar to put more tension on the spring. You can tell what setting its on because there are numbers stamped under each slot or setting (small red circles).




The way you turn the preload collar is demonstrated in the next picture.



Put the extension on the spanner wrench's handle.  On the left side, insert the hook on the end of the spanner on the back of the collar between the shock and the gunk flap on the swingarm. Then push the wrench against the shock body as shown. Then push with a rotating motion until the collar "clicks" onto the next setting. Remove the wrench and if more preload is needed, repeat the process.

I hope that helps.

thx for the pics...i'll give it a try tomorrow again

Cool - thats exactly what I need to do.... I wonder how I'll get on!

I have been fighting for a month now on and off trying to get my suspension adjusted.

The diagram (such as it is) in the manual was terrible.

Thanks for the pics.

Cheers

so is the 7 the hardest setting on the GS? my bike is just way too soft

Yep, 7 is the hardest setting.

I came home from work, and with the help of the pic's I was able to adjust my rear shock!!  Woohoooo

Thanks again

Cheers

Woohoo, i jsut raised mine to 6. feels soooo much better

thx for the pics JamesG...had er done in 5 mins  

Great pics! Mine is set on 4 right now. I am 5'8" 210lbs. When I hit a bump, I'll come off of my seat, and sometimes takes me by surprise! I'm kind of worried it my throw me off one day, or have the rear wheel jump on a turn. I've only been riding for a month now, so I don't know too much about this. Should I try and lower my setting to 1 and soften up my ride? Are there any pros and cons to doing this?

Quote from: ABSOLUTNATI on September 24, 2007, 08:38:17 AM
Great pics! Mine is set on 4 right now. I am 5'8" 210lbs. When I hit a bump, I'll come off of my seat, and sometimes takes me by surprise! I'm kind of worried it my throw me off one day, or have the rear wheel jump on a turn. I've only been riding for a month now, so I don't know too much about this. Should I try and lower my setting to 1 and soften up my ride? Are there any pros and cons to doing this?

Try going UP a notch or two.  I'm 180 lbs and mine's on 6.

So the higher the number, the softer the ride?

is there a general setting rule I should follow?? like pound to the number on the shock??
in other words: which setting (number) should I use if I'm 155 pound and ride alone?
thanks
KaMeL