http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/mcy/2921443379.html

This turned up less than a WEEK after I bought a '96, for not much more than I paid for the mostly stock '96.

I'd have jumped on this in a second, and actually spent a few days trying to figure out if i could swing two GS500 purchases in a week's time. 

Looks to have pretty much every GS500 mod that you'd lke to make, and it seems to have been very well done.

I hope that it's still available and that someone localish from the forum can snap it up.

Wow.  That's beautiful.   

If I can convince him of $1300 I'd have a new toy. Doubtful though...

That bugger is atrociously over priced.
Why ... 39K miles and 1699. WTF, worth just about a grand. Yea yea yea nice and all ... but consider the fact you need a rebuild and a bloody 89-90 frame is 2 X as hard to pull the motor out of than a 91+
And a manual CCT is an upgrade WTF ... either fix the original one properly or buy a new one, and I have done both on my 48K miler. BTW 48K on my gs and it was a rat and didn't get me $700 and that was 7 years ago.
Cool.
Buddha.

Hmm with that in mind I'll offer him a grand. Email pending response!

On the other hand, 35k+ miles on my purchased-new '89 GS and it was basically immaculate.   Pulled the motor apart with a buddy as a winter project one season and everything internal was still well within tolerances. 

Did you, you know, change the oil and such on yours Buddha?    I'd think that you, of all people, would know that these engines, if given a little care, are nigh-bulletproof.

I think that the vast vast majority of motorcycle builders / racers / whatnot would consider a manual CCT a reliability upgrade over an automatic one.  How many automatic ones have you seen fail?  If the number is higher than zero that's more than I've seen with properly maintained manual ones.  The crappy ass CCT was the only internal engine component that I ever had trouble with on my '89.  Sure, if you can't be bothered to adjust it now and then, an automatic is for you.  But if you can't be bothered to do a little basic maintenance, perhaps something other than a motorcycle would be more fitting.  Personally, I'd rather twist a wrench outside the engine every now and then rather than tear it apart to replace the auto tensioner (and who knows what else) when the auto one eventually (and unsurprisingly) fails.

Did you read the ad?

Springs, Katana shock, wider wheel.  Recent valves.  Air filter, exhaust & rejet.  Petcock.  For many people, all of that's worth a pretty big premium right there.

Looks like a complete restoration of the frame recently.

I'm not sure why you'd compare the sale price of your rat bike to this.   Particularly 7 years ago when gas cost half of what it does today.

Again, not my sale.  I don't know the seller.  But, considering the prices I've seen for GS's lately, the mods already done to this, and the supposition that it's all been well done, I don't think that this price is unreasonable at all.