So this is the first week I had it.  I was riding home when it rains, so I run inside my place, change, and rode a mile down the road to pick something up. On the way down, I did ALMOST stall out in 1st gear but I clutched in right away... but I did notice the idle dropping to 1k and below if I didn't get on the throttle, regardless it still rode fine to my destination.  I came back out 5 mins later and the GS barely wants to start even though it's still hot.  I put the choke all the way up and it starts and revs to about 3k rpm, then I put the choke down and it bogs and dies, I keep trying and with the choke all the way up, the RPMs idle at about 1k... whenever I give it some throttle, the RPMs drop instead of rise and it dies....  I kept trying for about 20 mins and now it doesn't even wanna start up anymore.  I don't know why it's doing this, it rode perfect about 30 mins ago...

I tried adjusting the idle and that doesn't do anything.


Any ideas?

get out of the rain, get the seat off and check if the air filter got wet somehow? check your plug caps and make sure everything's making contact for the electricals.

only some random thoughts. good luck!

Quote from: pandymai on May 24, 2010, 02:04:26 PM
get out of the rain, get the seat off and check if the air filter got wet somehow? check your plug caps and make sure everything's making contact for the electricals.

only some random thoughts. good luck!

Thanks I checked the plug caps first and they're on pretty tight.  The bike is parked a mile away since I walked home to get online to do this, but I will check the air filter later.  I don't think it got wet though since I did pull the seat out to check on the battery and everything was very dry.

Sounds very similar to what I'm dealing with here: http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=52535.0

As a mechanic at one point I can say, don't get hung up too much on the rain thing, could be completely unrelated and you don't want to be chasing your tail. (just my $0.02)

Does it make a chugging sound like it is only running on one cylinder?

Quote from: commuterdude on May 24, 2010, 02:26:05 PM
Does it make a chugging sound like it is only running on one cylinder?

Not while it's idling... but when I give it some gas, the RPMs drop and it does sound like its chugging.......  what does that mean?

Use no choke if the bike is hot.

You've probably got a faulty gas tap wherein the higher vacuum caused by opening the throttle pulls gas through a leaky or torn diaphragm in your tap....flooding one cylinder.    try getting a simple on/off valve at Lowe's or Home depot's lawn mower section and using it to bypass your frame mounted tap as a test.   If this cures your problem (as it did on my '93), buy a new Suzuki tap or better yet get the tap meant for the Honda 250  (check the wiki or do a search) which is a simple, bulletproof and cheap on/off/reserve non-vacuum tap.

Once I replaced my faulty stock 17 year old tap with the Honda tap, after much frustration and sorry running, the full performance of my lil GS was magically restored.   And it honestly hasn't missed a beat since, about 11,000 miles ago.

Mod please close the thread


I'm such a noob LOL!  I ran out of gas and didn't realize it!  I looked in the tank and saw there was still a lot of gas in it so it didnt occur to me I was out of the primary tank and needed to switch to the reserve!  I told the owner and he told me that!  I switched it to reserve and it still wouldn't start because I had drained the battery trying to get it to start all day... got a jump from my friend and now its all good.  Thanks for the help guys!

LOL everybody does that.  Ha Ha you're a real biker now

indeed, youre not the first and wont be the last.
congrats on your bike!

I ran out of fuel last week driving down the road because I couldn't find the petcock. I knew it was there under the tank on the left side but didn't think it was far enough to the rear to be hidden by my damn leg! LOL!