Although many here have used this battery, BE AWARE!  Battery vent on the left ('wrong') side will spill battery acid when your bike is on the sidestand. If you don't have a long enough vent hose, or have your hose routed funny, this acid WILL do nasty things to your bike (usually ends up weakening your chain, and is possibility of premature chain failure). Also, you must pay attention that your battery is always sufficiently filled. If it pours a little out each time you park on the sidestand, you might have short battery life (due to low acid level).

Quote from: BaltimoreGS on September 19, 2009, 07:03:00 AM
For a cheap battery option, Walmart sells a YB10L-A2 for $30.  Only difference I see between the A2 and the B2 is the vent tube is on the opposite side.

-Jessie

Quote from: kincaire on September 21, 2009, 10:50:18 AM
Hmm... your bike kinda reminds me of mine- a '06 GS500F, and let me say I know virtually nothing about bikes but I do know that something is not quite right with it. Hehe, I was so excited that its an 06 but it only had 680 miles on it when it came to me barely 2 months ago. Now I'm starting to understand that such low mileage means a LOT of sitting around unridden, so there's probably a lot more to be done on it than I thought. What exactly does gas left sitting in an engine for a long time do? Could that perhaps cause the cold-blooded, misfiring bike I've been fighting with for the last few weeks?

And here's another quick question: Lots of times I get stuck fighting 1st and neutral. Some days it sticks in neutral and refuses to shift all the way down, some days its a pain in the butt about getting into neutral, just jumps back and forth between 1st and 2nd no matter how gentle I am with it. Sound like a problem that anyone has had before? What are the simple things that could cause this?

Drain the gas, completely. Replace with fresh (regular old low octane), run the old stuff through a lawnmower you don't love much or take to a recycling center that accepts the stuff. Might want new (or at least to clean the) spark plugs, too. Probably should really clean the carbs out - may have no choice, although you can also get into trouble mucking with them if you don't take the time to appreciate what you are getting into, so try the simple/easy approaches first. If you can get it running and riding, taking it out for an hour or two to burn the snot off and get that fresh gas run through everything can really help. Using the carb drains to remove any crud collected in the carb bowls can also help quite a bit.

As for the shifting, wrong oil level or wrong oil type or oil not changed adequately often all can affect shifting. So change the oil and filter (being vary careful of the filter studs - read up on the pitfalls before you break one) to some nice fresh 10W-40 non-energy-conserving - cheap is fine, so long as it meets those specs.

Also - shifting while the bike is still moving works much better than shifting with it stopped - so punch it all the way into first while it's still rolling, and then pop it up into neutral while it's also still rolling if you want neutral (never while out on the road, IMHO - you always want to be able to just release the clutch and get out of the way if something bad shows up in the rearview mirror while you are at a stop).