So I figure I could use a new bike to wrench on.
Enter the GS500F. . .

I find a local guy (kid) selling a year old GS with 1200 miles on her for $2500. I go look at the bike and its clean. Almost new. A minor ding in the right side ignition cover but other than that the damn thing is sweet. Well yeah, it had been dropped but... Upon closer inspection my Son says "but Dad, have you ever seen a GS500 that HASENT been dropped?" I can't argue with logic. Driveway drops are what GS500's are all about, so I say lets buy it!
I bring it home, roll it into the shop and strip it down to see what we spent our 2500 bucks on.
<heh-heh> Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose...

Yeah, a simple driveway drop. No harm done. A tiny scratch on the right cover.
But alas, the more you look, the more you find. . .
When bikes are dropped, batteries leak. They leak acid. Acid digests metal.
Lets take a look at what was waiting for me under all those fancy plastic fairings...


So far, so good.


Oh no! Acid dripped onto the pipe. Its ruined!


Acid sprayed into everything down under!


Even way down here! Acid spray is on E~V~E~R~Y~T~H~I~N~G~!

So, I got about $500 in replacement parts on order to clean the damn thing up. So much for the deal of the century. <sigh> 
My question is this: Who is stupid-er, (more stupid?)
The kid that dropped the bike and never washed it off after the drop "OR" the old man that bought the bike thinking he got a new bike for only $2500.?

And while I'm venting. . .
Why didn't you GS500 gurus tell me I would have to drill out 11 out of the 14 Philips head screws on the dang carburetor? <geez>
No big deal, I got it apart, re-jetted, and rebuilt with SS hex-key head screws, but what a fight!

I love to wrench so this is kinda' fun after all.
I'll post some more photos as soon as the "Acid Bath Scoot" is fully restored and reassembled.
Thanks Srinath, GStwin Contributors, and you guys from the "Noob Seeks Approval" thread.
Regards,
-Electrojake-

The carb screws are JIS, not Philips. If you read things about the carbs here enough, you'd know that, and you'd also know that an impact driver (along with the JIS bit) is your friend getting them out (and you never put them back in.) That's "Japanese Industrial Standard", I believe.

If you actually replaced all the parts that got acid on them, I suspect you are just a wee bit on the paranoid side of rational. None look the least bit like they were more than cosmetically impacted. Clean, neutralize (baking soda paste, rinse clean), paint if need be, done.

Dude. You're wasting your money buying new parts. Everything in the photos look fine. Just check the chain. I've seen acid drip on a chain and develop cracks. The chain then broke lose when the bike was moving. Ask me how I know. 

Why should a bike with 1K miles on it look like a flock of birds defacated on it?
It's a cosmetic thing. Besides, parts are cheap. (except of course for carburator parts)
BTW, any suggestions on what type of black paint I should use to touch-up the rust spots on the frame? Will gloss black Rust-Olium be O.K.?

As for the JIS screwdrivers. . .
I can set them right next to my Reed and Prince set. <grinning>
But seriously now, You're not alone, my Son inspected my carburetor "tooling" job after he got home from work and shook his head in disbelief.
I do have impact drivers & bits but felt the impacts would do bad things to the carb, so out came the drill. Just enough to take the heads off. Then removed the bowls and unscrewed the shanks with fingers. 
Now that my junk screws have been replaced with HEX, it will never be a problem again. Plus now I'm a little wiser on that JIS issue Thank You! 

And I will make it a point to check the chain a link at a time.
If anything looks odd, I'll post photos and ask questions.
Thanks for the input,
-Ej-

i find that semigloss worked best for me when i was covering small rust areas.  Also I wouldn't repair everything that has acid drippage on it.  I would simply neutralize, clean and ride.  If you make it look pretty again right off the then you'll have to fix the next thing that goes or gets scratched, accidents happen. 

There are a lot of bushings down under there, swing-arm, suspension, etc...
I had visions of acid getting into them and causing problems that weren't obvious to the naked eye. The photos don't tell the true story of the damage that happened to this bike. The proper thing to do would be to disassemble, inspect, and clean all of it but I'm not going there. That would require a full tear-down and I have too many other projects in the que.

My answer was to pressure wash with soap (a base), then rinse extensively, blow it out with air & wipe dry. I disassembled the right rear-set, heal guard, & brake cylinder assembly and found the acid had worked it's way into the threads of the bolts, and really enjoyed munching on the brake cylinder.



This is an example of what I'm finding AFTER the fuzzy white acid crap was washed off.
Under every component there is a surprise. My choices are:
1.)Paint & sell.
   or
2.)Tear down & repair as required.

The interesting part of this is;
The polite young fellow I bought the bike from was driving around this way. When I first inspected the bike I asked him what the staining was from and he simply replied, "yeah, I saw that on there a long time ago but don't know what it is".  

As for the paint issue; 90% of the touch-up work is on the inside of the frame around the rear shock assembly.
I guess I'll go with the semi-gloss black Rust-Olium then.
And as you can probably tell, I'm no Master Mechanic , so anyone putting their 2 cents in is certainly appreciated.
Thanks for the input.
-Ej-

Man dont go overboard. That needs to be fixed wiht a garden hose.

Sulphuric acid isn't fatal to pretty much anything. Not even people, just dont drink it. Just dry brush off as much as you can. Then go for it with a garden hose - oh yea wait till its above freezing or use warm water in the war garage.

I've seen far worse ... I actually ride much much worse, everyday. That is just pretty and has white powder ruining the nice black look ... just dont drive by a cop, he'd mistake that white powder for some thing else.

Just dry brush, then hot water spray and then wd40 everything. Most metal wil lstand a several hour soak in battery acid. Steel and chrome is what you have, and no worries. Those guys will stand several days in muriatic acid, sulphuric acid is a joke.

Swingarm bearings etc are all sealed off from the outside world and have nice water proof grease on them. You cant eat those wiht just battery acid.

I'd just wash and wd40 and ride. Clean the cain wiht chain cleaner then chain lube on it. Nothing else can be affected by battery acid. Brakes ... sealed off good from the world. BTW most of the muck on the bolts you have in the pic are prolly form the factory. I'd not worry at all.

Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: The Buddha on December 09, 2009, 09:31:28 AM
Man dont go overboard. That needs to be fixed with a garden hose.
That is just pretty and has white powder ruining the nice black look
... just don't drive by a cop, he'd mistake that white powder for some thing else.
I'd just wash and wd40 and ride.
I'd not worry at all.

Cool.
Buddha.

Yes indeed!
I was toying with the idea of scraping off a bit of the white powder and blowing a line.
Talk about a rush, Whooo Baby!

And yes, the WD-40 seemd to stop this stuff cold.
I did a through spray & wipe down with the WD.
All is looking better already!

The funny thing is if you replace all these parts because they look ugly. Well.....you better not ride your bike.

Your rims will get brake dust on them. The exhaust will discolor. Don't EVER hit a puddle or ride in the rain. That will ruin the bike. Might as well sell it at that point.

If a bird poops on it, will most likely need a new paint job.

P.S. if you buy all new parts I'll take your old ones for 25% of their value. They're basically ruined so 25% is better than throwing them away. 

I think you're misdiagnosing alot of things. I doubt battery acid got halfway down the threads of a screw and caused that rust. If it did why is it only in the middle.

What's more likely is that this bike was bought and left outside the entire time and rained on profusely. Water worked down into all the cracks and stayed there for a long time causing rust.

Have you ever dropped a bike before? They don't explode acid over the entire insides of the bike. They fall. We pick them up and continue riding. We don't ride acid bombs. Plus there is usually a tube running from the battery to the ground that drains all the acid to ground. I suppose that wasn't present when he dropped the bike though.

Quote from: tussey on December 09, 2009, 10:44:20 AM
I think you're misdiagnosing alot of things.
What's more likely is that this bike was bought and left outside the entire time and rained on profusely.

Damage is consistent with a right side drop.
For arguments sake I'm going to pull the LEFT side rear-set apart and look for similar rust on the threads, etc...
If left side shows similar rust, your right! Its just rain & time at work.
If left side is clean, then I can only assume that the bike fell over in his garage and sat that way for a few days before he realized it. Upon seeing it down on its side, he simply picked it up and never looked any closer.

Notes:
1.) Drain hose was there but not connected to the battery.
2.)The battery water level was at the "Full" line when I examined it. <go figure>

So perhaps that polite young fellow I bought the bike from knew more than he led me to believe. Yes?
Either way, for $2500 I'm still feeling O.K. about this transaction. The VIN is clean and I know the local dealer from which the bike was purchased from "new" in 2008.
-Ej-

P.S. Feel free to chime-in and help me convince myself that I didn't get hosed on this deal! 

Quote from: Electrojake on December 08, 2009, 08:32:36 PM

So, I got about $500 in replacement parts on order to clean the damn thing up. So much for the deal of the century. <sigh> 

Ok, I'll help you feel better.  Send me all the old parts you are replacing.  I might even pay for shipping.  You really don't want them laying around stinking up your garage.

Quote from: Paulcet on December 09, 2009, 11:32:41 AM

Quote from: Electrojake on December 08, 2009, 08:32:36 PM

So, I got about $500 in replacement parts on order to clean the damn thing up. So much for the deal of the century. <sigh> 

Ok, I'll help you feel better.  Send me all the old parts you are replacing.  I might even pay for shipping.  You really don't want them laying around stinking up your garage.

Where were you when I re-did my Yamaha or for that matter my Jeep TJ!?!
Now THAT was a junk pile of factory new parts a man could be proud of!
-Ej-

Back to Rain vs. Acid. . .
As I recall, there were no signs of dried water droplets anywhere when I first took things apart.
A look at the top of the starter motor cover can tell a story.
It should be a bit dusty but thats all. Preferably no wipe marks, dried water droplets, greasy finger prints, (and not spotlessly clean either). All looked good on this bike.

And I realize that odometer readings can be "adjusted" too.
For goodness sake, My 13 year old daughter can but 1200 miles on a TW200 in a weekend, so I do find it hard to believe there are so many 2, 3 and even 4 year old GS500 for sale on CraigsList that only have 1 or 2 K on them.
<go figure>

As for the condition of the bolts on the LEFT side of the bike. . .

As I had hoped for, they are spotless!
Another thing I have noticed; wherever I find rust (on the right side) I also find thoes white furry deposits, indicitive of an acid reaction. I'm tellin' ya, that crap got into everything!

As always,
Thanks for the input!
-Ej-

This is hard for me to imagine. My gs was laid over 4 times during the time I owned it and not once did I ever have a problem with battery acid. I don't even recall having a hose attached to it for drain-off.

In one crash in 2000 my 89 dumped acid into the right side cover. But in 5 prior crashes it was perfectly dry. That battert lastem me 95 to 00 till the acid incident. Then I believed one clown who said "you should only ever put water in a used battery, the plates are now saturated with acid and only water should go in that battery". Besides I never could find battery acid in autoparts stores and hence I had to get a new battery, whihc I did, but going sealed one sideways.

Anyway, just clean off electrojake.

Cool.
Buddha.

This is insane!  It's a f*****g motorcycle, not a shrine.  You probably shouldn't buy anything used if your standards are this high. 

For entertainment purposes I'll put together a parts list with pricing so I can total up what I spent to get the bike back to its "almost" new condition.

My original $500 estimate was indeed a little top-heavy.
I took the forum's advice; I decided not to bother with the shock or bushings. Too expensive and too much labor to beautify parts that no one sees anyway.

Hope to have it put back together and running within the next ten days, (waiting on parts right now).
Heh-heh, The real fun will begin if my carb re-jetting job turns sour.
Like most noobs, I'll be in too much of a hurry to get it to run good without taking the time to properly learn what it is I'm actually doing.
And I see that there are many, many, many re-jet posts here at Gstwin.com. So it seems I'm not alone on these carb re-jet questions.
Yeah, this is gonna' be fun.
Pictures, pricing, & parts list to follow.
And Thanks for the activity on this thread. It keeps me motivated,
-Ej-

Quote from: ineedanap on December 09, 2009, 01:37:21 PM
This is insane!  It's a f*****g motorcycle, not a shrine.

  All hail the noob's GS500.

No, but really now, like a kid with a new toy,
I dont want mine to be the boogered-up one...
I want mine to be the nifty clean one!  

I bought mine in a simular situation.. drop might have been worse because the fairings were removed and it was converted to a gs500e and completely repainted (its a 2007)

mine was worse i think, all the area around the battery and under it was basicly eaten away by acid and corroded and rusting.  All i did was brush it off with a rag as good as i could then i sprayed some rustoleum on it.  hopefully it lasts lol