Got myself a 92 GS500E about a month ago as a winter run about and the other day it seemed to just loose all its power and spit out a load of white smoke, not good  .
Had a quick look at her today and I think she's only running on one cylinder (one of the pipes is getting very warm but not scorching hot like the other). I rode the bike and the dead cylinder seems to kick in from timt to time if I gave it some gas, but its very jittery and makes some nasty sounds. The white smoke seems to be coming out prety constant which aint good.
Any advice would be a great help and dont wory about giving me bad news, I'm already expecting it. Thanks.

Forgot to mention that before this happened the bike was chucking fuel onto my left boot.

defintiely check your float levels.  I'd also pull the carbs off and clean them.  Pull your spark plugs and inspect for uncharastic wear.  While they are out run a compression test. 

I really think one of your carbs is badly gummed up if its dumping fuel and only running on one cyl. 

may also want to check if you're getting spark on the intermittant cylinder--could be a bad coil.  you may be vaporizing the fuel and dumping it out the back (white smoke) and every now and again, it gets hot enough and you get the right mix and it detonates on the compression stroke. 

Thanks for the advice, just one question (it may seem stupid) but hot do you inspect the float levels? Thanks.

Go here:  http://www.gstwin.com/float_height_check.htm

-Jessie

Thats great thanks, So what does it mean if my float levels are off? fuel not getting through right? I'm gona take the whole thing apart anyway as I've got 3 weeks off for christmas so hopefully I'll get it back up and running. Anybody got any other thoughts or things I should do/check while I got the bike apart?

Hi Jim,
Yes, another good idea would be to get a service manual so you can learn how to do whatever is needed and be able to see what you are doing.
You can order one online through this site and the site benefits from the sale:

Use this link to do that:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0892878339/ref=nosim/gstwincom

Good luck,

Trwhouse

Quote from: GS Jim on December 09, 2009, 07:19:46 AM
Thats great thanks, So what does it mean if my float levels are off? fuel not getting through right? I'm gona take the whole thing apart anyway as I've got 3 weeks off for christmas so hopefully I'll get it back up and running. Anybody got any other thoughts or things I should do/check while I got the bike apart?

If the float height is set too high, you can overfill the bowl and it will dump fuel everywhere.  The filling up of your boot lead me to that thought. 

Mine did something very similar, and I found it was due to a damaged pilot jet. Check your pilot circuit. It does seem, however, that 99% of the problems on these bikes can be solved by taking the carbs off and cleaning them thoroughly.