I am wondering if anyone can help me.  A guy I work with has a 96 GS500 he is interested in selling.  It has 2200 miles, and he is the original owner.  I saw it last year, and it was in mint condition.  He took pictures of it for me last week, and it still looks brand new.  The reason he is selling it, is because it was having problems last year.  He could get it started, but it would die shorty after starting.  He messed around with the carb, trying to get it going...but had no luck.  He recently tried again, and it just turned over, but wouldn't fire.  He doesn't feel like taking it to the dealer he bought it from, because he has no way to get it there (no truck).  They were going to charge him to pick it up, and it would be atleast 3-4 weeks.  He has decided the best bet would be to sell it.  He told me he would sell it to me for around $800.
In looking at the prices of other GS500's for sale, this seems to be an excellent deal.  I have never owned a street bike before, just a lot of dirt bikes...so I don't have a ton of knowledge on how to fix the carb.  I found the DIY information of Cleaning and Rebuilding your Carbs, and hope that can help me through the process.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to whether this is a good deal or not?  and if they think the problem could be more involved than just a carb clean and/or rebuild?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Jeff

Get the Clymers manual. Carbs a Piece Of Cake :p A Pain in the butt, but not to hard if you can read and understand how they work.