A friend bought a gs500 recently and asked me to take a look. Real nice but the front end is very soft. The first thing to come to mind was fork tube caps fitted with schrader valves like we used on everything 20 years ago but the parts stores and dealers never heard of them.

I saw the fork fixes here at gstwins.com and I've slugged fork springs in the past but air caps were much better. Is there some reason this is a bad idea on a 97 gs500? Someone has air assist forks of some sort, no?

Thanks gstwins.com, moderators and posters, for all the info I need to help my friend keep his gs500 running for a long time.

Pat

However the threads on the cap may not be pressure tight.
Cool.
Srinath.

Nope, but im considering welding large nuts to fork caps so i can add my own Pre load adjustments. My 82 gs750E had aircaps on tubes, you dont want them, at most they can take about 15lbs of air, anything above that your chancing blowing seals out should you hit a hard bump. (and you know we all do sooner or later)   pre-load the springs for your weight/sag and adjust fork oil weights. or pay out the 150$ for cartrige emulators.

Quote from: BlueknytNope, but im considering welding large nuts to fork caps so i can add my own Pre load adjustments. My 82 gs750E had aircaps on tubes, you dont want them, at most they can take about 15lbs of air, anything above that your chancing blowing seals out should you hit a hard bump. (and you know we all do sooner or later)   pre-load the springs for your weight/sag and adjust fork oil weights. or pay out the 150$ for cartrige emulators.

You could also try source some fork caps from Australia (maybe Europe as well), on the GS's here we get adjustable pre-load caps as standard.

Cheers
Conrad

bastards  

:x  :x fu--yluckers :x  :x

The preload adjusters will only fit if you have clipons or 89 GS top triple.
In europe they have the top triple on several model years, while we only got them in 89.

The top triple with clipons and preload adjusters is also fitted on all European GS's until 2001.  You have to screw the adjusters all the way in though, otherwise it's still too soft. The top triple with clipons is nice, the seating position is less extreme than on a sportbike but highspeed riding is more comfortable. (lanesplitting is also more comfortable because of the reduced width   )