Hello, my name is Ian been browsing and lurking for awhile before picking up my first bike, its a 94 gs500 with some small issues and seemingly easy fixes...



bike right now needs:
front blinkers
rear blinkers
oil change
new ignition/seat lock.
new clutch and break lever (shes been dropped a few times)
digital speedo/tach (current speedo and tach and cracked and bruised from being dropped)
(PO said the carbs act funny when its not choked back to the reserve tank, so i believe its running off the reserve? so probably a carb rebuild. is there a switch or lever that shows me if its turned onto reserve or not?)

Plans :
new bars
bar end mirrors
chop exhaust
wrap exhaust
chop the tail and do a cbrr600 tail.
paint



But first to the headaches, the original owner has broken a key off halfway in the ignition and it appears to be worn enough you could start the bike with a screw driver, i know about having to drill out the safety bolts to remove the ignition will a new ignition ordered from motorcycleparts-superstore work with my existing locks, tank and seat lock? or will i need to have them locksmithed to my current set? (the only original key i have left is bent.) Second issue is the actual seat lock appears to be frozen, i can hear the lock click when i push the key in and push down on the seat but any amount of force to either side has me worried the bent key will break off in the seat lock. any thoughts or solutions for this one? Super glad i found this great forum this is my first bike but not my first fabrication endeavor with money allowing you should see this bike change very very drastically within the next few months

Ignition: My bike had the same issue. The new ignition from motorcycle superstore comes with 2 new keys for the ignition, problem solved. And I don't think you have to drill out anything, just take out the 2 bolts holding it to the bars (unless mine was never replaced properly lol)

Seat lock: I don't know what to tell you there, mine works thank god. But! There is a helmet lock under the seat. Take the seat off and you'll see 1 little clip looking thing on each side between the seat lock and the battery. Insert helmet D-ring, and lock seat back over it.

And now for the problem you really want to know about, your carbs. They are most likely fine. Turn the petcock to PRI when you ride the bike. You won't have a reserve left in the tank running on that setting, but the bike will run without getting fuel starved. These have a vacuum operated petcock, which from everything I've seen doesn't work the best lol. If you run it on PRI (prime) then you should be golden. Just turn it back to ON when you park so it doesn't just keep feeding fuel and relying on your float to stop the gas flow

sounds like a plan, so far i have just been riding the hell out of it, put 400 miles on it this weekend and im absolutely in love. i cant wait to put it away for this winter and start ripping it apart but as of now its my main form of transportation while my car is getting fixed so nothing really extensive can be done :X i need to keep working on this seat latch, a woman in the grocery store cleaved off my left blinker the day i bought the bike and i would love to replace that asap lol. so im going to spend my day off these week working on getting that fixed and working.