Hey fellow GS lovers,
My 93 GS500E started ticking pretty loud from the valve cover after a spirited ride on the highway one day. It seems to run great still. However, right around the cruising 5000 rpm range I get this ticking from the valve/cam area.

Any thoughts?



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In need of a valve adjustment? It's recommended every 4,000 miles, and the exhaust valves are known to tighten up our bikes.

Definitely due for the adjustment. I'm hoping I can at least get the rest of the season out of doing something like that. I'll tear it down over the winter and make it new for next year. Just want to be able to ride a couple more months first. It has 68 000 km/42 500 miles on it now, 10k from this season.

I'm hoping to get it opened up for a look see over the long weekend. Thanks for your thoughts and keep 'em comin' y'all! 

Quote from: JAS6377 on August 29, 2013, 06:06:03 AM
In need of a valve adjustment? It's recommended every 4,000 miles, and the exhaust valves are known to tighten up our bikes.

Tight valves wont make a noise ... Loose valves would. And typically they do @ idle or just off idle. Not 4-5K

Exhaust valves are usually made of metter material and hence hold up a lot better ...
Intake valves on the GS wear out faster, and its not as bad as the kawi's but they still wear pretty fast.

Essentially the 4-5k noise could be a side drifting cam shaft - harmless ...
Or a cam chain tensioner being a little iffy ...

This bike has a pretty decent CCT, I wont worry too much if its just 4-5K.


BTW a bunch of crap resonates on my bike 4-5K ... noisiest ... including the stupid horn ... till I zip tied the bugger's bracket down ... now its just less buzzy.

Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: The Buddha on August 29, 2013, 07:00:12 AM................Exhaust valves are usually made of metter material and hence hold up a lot better ...
Intake valves on the GS wear out faster, and its not as bad as the kawi's but they still wear pretty fast.....................

Cool.
Buddha.

That's really totally opposite of my experience in almost 190,000 miles of GS500 riding and valve adjusting.  My intakes have not required any adjustment in all those miles on 2 bikes.  On the other hand exhaust valves need constant attention and will recede into the seats excessively requiring constant adjustment if run at Suzuki's minimum spec for many miles.  Set at a wider .08-.13mm gap they will hold up almost as well as the intakes do running at standard spec.

The exhaust valve degradation starts at about 30-40k miles, about where the OP is now.  My complete valve adjustment record:

http://www.gs500.net/gallery/data/500/GSvalvelogs.jpg

My 02 GS has about 99.7k miles on it now.

I actually on the 48K mile bike had valves go loose, not by a whole lot, I started with 250 as the thinnest shim on all of emand ended with 255 I think ... all 4, never got tighter. However that bike was from day 1 jetted soooo rich ... it was sending a trail of dead bugs from the smoke. I also wasn't having excessive cam wear, there was a crow's foot shaped scratch on 1 cam, it was always there, it sorta got less and less sharp, but never went away.

I ran them tight @ low end of spec, or lower even most of the time. Like the bucket rotates, but no feeler guage goes in ...

The other bikes, I have no definite pattern. I am a rev monkey ... always in 1 lower gear than required, spinning 500-1000 rpm more ... might have somehting to do with it.

Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: Ceerok on August 29, 2013, 06:31:03 AM
Definitely due for the adjustment. I'm hoping I can at least get the rest of the season out of doing something like that. I'll tear it down over the winter and make it new for next year. Just want to be able to ride a couple more months first. It has 68 000 km/42 500 miles on it now, 10k from this season.

I'm hoping to get it opened up for a look see over the long weekend. Thanks for your thoughts and keep 'em comin' y'all! 

IDK if you want to chance any damage. its a 2 beer job if anything. once you find what shims you need, you can order them. what id do is open it up, measure for shim need, order those. close it up, ride till they come in ( CAREFULLY) when they arrive, open her up, put new shims in, and be done

Went for the first little test spin since it happened. I definitely don't want to ride it like this. Can't tell if it's really down on power or I'm just to scarred too rev it past 7k...lol. The sound when it kicks in just gives me the willies. Even if I was sure it wouldn't hurt anything, I couldn't ride it out of embarrassment. 

Fingers crossed I can buy a couple more months of riding with an adjustment. Thanks again guys and enjoy your long weekend!