Bought this bike from a guy on craigslist and he said he didnt know whats wrong with it and he couldnt start it. When I got it there it started right up and I drove it an hour thirty minutes home. Changed the oil and when I went to restart made some crazy noise. Wish I got a video of that but I didnt. It sounded like there was no oil reaching the pistons and after letting it run making that hollow metallic noise it started to smoke so I turned it off right away. Im thinking something is clogged not letting oil pass. The bikes fairings were really beat up obviously been dropped on both sides hard during a ride. Well I took apart the engine and found some cool stuff thought I would share, maybe ask for advice as for what to do next.









There was a lot of metal shavings inside the oil filter area and in the mesh catch screen, the whole bikes been put back together with liquid gasket and that is on everything inside. Looks like when the bike was dropped on the side the magnet thing cracked. Ironically the only gasket that was OEM and not liquid gasket was the one to the magnet thing. So whoever took it apart never found that out. The odometer reads 16k, but the guy I bought it from was the only owner.

Some of the orangish plastic like thingies are loose fragments from the glue that holds on the magnets in the magneto. Some of that is normal.
Will have to look more at photos after I get back from bowling.

One last look it appears you lost part of a magnet in the magneto. Probably magnetic bits are clogging up the steel oil passages. Replacement magnetos are not a problem.

Ya I am really hoping that just cleaning this engine out will make it run fine. Was having oil delivery issues. The gasket set that I bought seems to be for different years how big of a problem will that pose? Ill find out just curious if anyone has first hand experience with that. 98-? I think will have to look later.

Now that I'm home - stator needs replacing. Those are cheap and readily available. The magnet that broke ground off part of the stator ends.

So...

1. New magneto
2. New stator

Too bad you're not here in Seattle. We have the parts and could fix it up pretty quick. I also have the tools to correctly remove the magneto. One of the books - Haynes or Clymer has an easy way to do it with a swing arm bolt and a spacer you cut to length.

Only thing that would worry me is if there was any bearing damage due to the oil issues

Another odd thing: in this photo
http://s19.postimage.org/dtjyr8sq7/IMG_0484.jpg
I see weird damage or pounding or hammer marks on the head of the magneto bolt.

Given a broken magnet (lower right one in http://s19.postimage.org/dtjyr8sq7/IMG_0484.jpg )
and the damage to the stator that seems to be on the upper left coil end ( http://s19.postimage.org/w7uhv850v/IMG_0483.jpg )

I suggest new stator and magneto. Might as well do the starter clutch and gear since it is bolted to the magneto and new covers. make it all clean and new. Don't take a chance on anything there being bad or having lots of magnet fragments that will get back into the engine unless you can really clean things out. Maybe get a string neodymium magnet to suck up all the magnet fragments?

Quote from: weedahoe on January 17, 2013, 12:25:54 AM
Only thing that would worry me is if there was any bearing damage due to the oil issues

Ya im real worried about damage from it running hot. Even though it was only a few seconds running with no oil. I do have plans to basically strip the engine and look at everything. Where are bearings and how do i tell they've been damaged? What else would be good to look at?

Whats a decent price on a stator and magneto? Also whats a good price for the bottom half of a engine with bearing damage? Guy im getting the stator from wants to sell me the whole bottom but not sure if the price we talked about is that agreeable with my budget.

Quote from: adidasguy on January 16, 2013, 07:12:52 PM
Some of the orangish plastic like thingies are loose fragments from the glue that holds on the magnets in the magneto. Some of that is normal.
Will have to look more at photos after I get back from bowling.

One last look it appears you lost part of a magnet in the magneto. Probably magnetic bits are clogging up the steel oil passages. Replacement magnetos are not a problem.

aka GOATSsome gs' like to eat magnetos. what id do though is to make sure passages are clear. ( or find a used engine and swap it in while servicing this one? )

Do i need to seperate the top and bottom half to remove the magneto?

Magneto comes off without splitting the case.
The Clymer manual has the easiest way to remove it using a short spacer and a bolt - swing arm bolt of one of the same threads. You also need a 22mm thin wrench to keep it from turning (guy in the FS section has one for sale).
I have all 3 books: Suzuki Service, Haynes and Clymer. In this case the Clymer had the best way to remove it. Each book is different which is why I have all 3. Overall I prefer the Haynes.

You might want to get a neodymium magnet to suck up all the magnet and metal fragments.

I am still puzzled by the hammer marks on the head of the magneto bolt. Then, I see the oil pan gasket is an Athena gasket (I think as they are the only green one's I've seen and Athena gaskets are always over-sized as is that one)). That's definitely not an original OEM gasket. I find it is rather rare to remove the oil pan. You don't do that unless something is wrong. It is not removed to do an oil change.

I see green gasket on the right side - so that's been replaced. Left side gasket looks OEM (black) though I don't know if there was also another gasket over it - was there a green one on the left side?

Someone has been inside that engine before.

I don't know if the seller knows what was done before or if the seller would admit to anything. If you knew, that can help decide if you should go with just magneto+stator, bottom end or a complete motor.

Anyone else have the same uneasy feeling I have when you look at the rotor bolt head and the non-OEM oil pan and right side gaskets?

It's been played with, either the p/o is playing dumb, or he bought a lemon with an attempted fix, and it bit him in the ass.

I'd throw a new motor at it, and than dig into the old one. If it's fixable, fix it and sell it. If not, part it out or keep spare parts.

I personally wouldn't trust it, granted I don't trust much of anything that has been out of my sight or not from a friend.

Quote from: adidasguy on January 23, 2013, 01:42:47 PM
Magneto comes off without splitting the case.
The Clymer manual has the easiest way to remove it using a short spacer and a bolt - swing arm bolt of one of the same threads. You also need a 22mm thin wrench to keep it from turning (guy in the FS section has one for sale).
I have all 3 books: Suzuki Service, Haynes and Clymer. In this case the Clymer had the best way to remove it. Each book is different which is why I have all 3. Overall I prefer the Haynes.

You might want to get a neodymium magnet to suck up all the magnet and metal fragments.

I am still puzzled by the hammer marks on the head of the magneto bolt. Then, I see the oil pan gasket is an Athena gasket (I think as they are the only green one's I've seen and Athena gaskets are always over-sized as is that one)). That's definitely not an original OEM gasket. I find it is rather rare to remove the oil pan. You don't do that unless something is wrong. It is not removed to do an oil change.

I see green gasket on the right side - so that's been replaced. Left side gasket looks OEM (black) though I don't know if there was also another gasket over it - was there a green one on the left side?

Someone has been inside that engine before.

I don't know if the seller knows what was done before or if the seller would admit to anything. If you knew, that can help decide if you should go with just magneto+stator, bottom end or a complete motor.

Anyone else have the same uneasy feeling I have when you look at the rotor bolt head and the non-OEM oil pan and right side gaskets?

Upon closer inspection it looks like every single gasket on this engine has been opened before there was actually a little bit of that liquid gasket on the left side gasket. My main goal really is to fix this bike as cheap as possible [is that not always the goal haha] and if all that takes is a generator rotor and stator then I think I am doing pretty good. A new engine would be like 600$ right? So if I do wind up putting a new generator rotor and stator on and still have problems I might look into that, but for now I am gonna go the repair route.

I found a link doing some searching 2 days ago on this forum that uses a method of a special bolt (dont remember size offhand M14x? I think) and a strap wrench and a spacer. So far I have strap wrench and spacer made, will have the bolt tomorrow (friday) hopefully Ferguson said they have it in stock just gotta go pick it up. So I shall see how that goes. I might take a few photos and show you guys but it sounds like you have done it before. Then Ill be heading over to this guys house who is gonna sell me his generator rotor and do it again so lets hope it works haha. After that I am going to cross my fingers and put the engine back in and hook everything up, replace the fuel hose lines as there really bad, then try to start it up and hope it doesn't produce the same oil delivery problem. If all that goes smoothly I will put my new plastics on and have one sexy bike :] Now that's if all goes well.

Do you think I should go ahead and split my case and poke around inside? It really doesn't look like any magnet pieces got inside but the glimpse I am getting is really small. The mesh screen on the oil pan seemed to catch most of it.

Just spent $650 on a motor w/ 5,000 miles... plus you'll have tons of parts to sell off which I'm estimating conservatively at $200 (off of mine which has FUBAR internals)

Got it back together with only spending
60$ gasket set
50$ Generator Rotor
50$ New Stator

and oil.

Got it all put back together and here is the problem I am having I took a video.

View My Video
                               
First I tried starting it without muffler. Wouldn't start, put it on and it started right up. The evil noise from no oil flowing through the engine is gone but now it keeps dying whenever I give it gas. Fuel delivery? Carbs? Timing? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 Make sure the vacuum hose is on the carb and petcock.

Im pretty sure that the vacuum hose is on but I will double check. Interesting development I went out tonight and tried to start it and it wouldnt go cause it was cold. So I put full choke on and it idle'd really nice at 1.5k rpms with full choke and ran like a bike that was all warmed up with the choke all the way on, so I must be air starved in my carburaters?

The choke makes it richer - more gas.

How cold? Could there be ice in the carbs from ethanol? Do you use fuel additives for that myth-it-is-good-stuff called ethanol?

Its like 70 degrees where I am at lol I just meant the engine was cold. If the choke adds more gas then I am having fuel delivery problems. I always thought the choke added more air, so how would I solve this problem? Turning the fuel air mixture screws? Do I maybe need the carbs synced?

Did some reading and the choke quite literally chokes the engine haha.

GS500s actually have something called an enrichener... it gives the bike both more air and more gas, with some extra gas on top of that since the mixture needs to be richer when the engine is cold.

Choke has become a pretty general term for any carb function that helps an engine start cold, but real choked engines usually can't run properly above idle until the choke is turned off, so they're not too popular anymore except on very simple engines/carbs.

Regardless, it's normal to have to use it when you're starting cold, especially with stock jetting, although if it's 70 degrees you should at least hear it puttering trying to start without choke.
Is it running at 1500 RPM when the choke is on when the engine is warm? If so, one of your cylinders is probably not firing.