Hi all,

- not sure if this is the right part of the forum to say hello as a new member, Mods feel free to move to any more appropriate place, maybe the UK sub-section -

used to be member over on gs500e.co.uk some time ago, site is still up but forum I've just noticed is defunct/kaput, same nick/handle as there.  A young 48-ish live in the Scottish Borders area, originally from Glasgow/Renfrewshire area, a bit further north and west.  Been around bikes since the eighties, at that time I was a panel-beater/spray-painter and usually covered head-to-toe in cataloy-dust, but have mostly worked in IT in latter years.

Run a 1999 GS500EX, it was originally Pearl Black and sort of 1999-2000-spec; though on a T-plate and reg'd on v5 as EX, it has the JS1GM51A000504XXX style VIN, it's sort of on the cusp EX/EY.  Had this for getting on for 10 years.

It's currently a metallic blue, just a homebrew mix colour of a dark solid blue Mercedes 2K with a 2K metallic silver, then clear-coated.  Extra bits: flyscreen, rack, engine-bars, heated grips, s/s exhaust and downpipes (no link/balance pipe).  Spec is constantly changing, wheels will probably be changed to black before the spring, it's currently SORN'd as I only tax it for six-months of the year.  It is in mid-fettle, getting new tyres etc. at present.

pictures of the bike:







An older picture here, when it was still black, but not the original finish:



That's it for now, I've already asked all the stupid questions and done many stupid things, years ago, but still have some in reserve.  I mostly lurk, Ominously, with an occasional outburst of curmudgeonliness.

thomas

Hey gstam. Welcome from sunny Norwich.

Chris

Welcome! Nice, clean bike! 

Hi thomas! Welcome to the forum.

Nice pics and bike! Love the engine guards and the stainless exhaust... I've got one too and I love it. Will admit I neglected the pipes for years and then bought some Yoshimura Stain Magic... cleaned up the stainless and made 'em look like new!

Also, what kind of heated grips do ya have? Just curious 

Welcome!  Honestly, the "meet and greet" section description says it's for people setting up actual MEET and greets, not for just forum introductions, so I've always considered the general GS chat more appropriate for introductions.


Interesting color.  On my monitor it looks more green, though, and reminds me of the Bandit hunter-green color.  Looks good. 

Those engine guards are notoriously hard to get in the US, if I get another GS I'd love to find a set and start tearing up the twisties with no fear.

Thanks the_63, pandy and ShowBizWolf, Watcher & Co.

re the grips, I was going to reply, how the hell do I know it was in 2006 I bought them -I have not the least idea ... but I still have the ebay emails pertaining to the purchase, they were by 'Motopro', just budget things, but fitted reasonably easily, simple off-high-low parallel-series switching.  Ten years on the outer rubber cover turns slightly before the rest of the RH side throttle inner grip, you have to squeeze lightly to turn it all together,  lube from the throttle tube having worked its way into them.  The throttle tube side as is par for the course with these things gets hotter than the other, as the LH side has greater heatsink potential being mounted directly to the handlebar/clip-on.  Toasty and still reliable, wired into the sidelight circuit, so they can't be left on without also leaving the tell-tale sidelights on too, I rarely use them, but still like 'em.

The most I've taken to the pipes is an oily-rag, studied neglect.

It's more grunty mid-range I feel - still on stock jets and airbox - but a bit fluffier (very technical term) at the higher speeds, though admittedly such things are subjective, without the link-pipe, and this bike is now gone past 70,000 miles so I don't mind too much, if this is the case, it's earned an easier life.  I didn't notice this at the time it was fitted so it's likely some other or a combination of causes are contributing to what has been a gradual change.  The exhaust complete including headers was from Sandy Bike Spares, in Bedfordshire England, and fortunately has the rubber stopper brakcet for the centre-stand rest.  Some great guys at quiklube (http://www.qwiklube.co.uk) in Abbeyhill, central Edinburgh magically weld stainless-steel and neatly and cheaply made me a custom stainless full-system for my car, and I had a notion some day to have them modify this bike exhaust to connect the two pipes, replicating again the original linked-pipe layout.  I've never really dug into the effects, if any, of this non-standard configuration, but remain curious to divine the technical or performance aspects of such a change.  Maybe someone here will proffer something to chew-on empirical or theory to define or explain likely results.

night all, thanks again for the cheery welcomes 

hey  Dude  ,   Bloody-Good   

ty rg500gamma. 

I see the gs500e.co.uk crew are back up at http://www.gs500.co.uk 

I've learned Sandy Bike Spares or SBS, ('Sandy' was the name of the town in Beds. they were based in, not named after a bloke called Sandy) have moved and changed their name, are now called the rather unfortunate sounding Black Widow Exhausts ( http://www.blackwidowexhausts.co.uk/about-us-1-w.asp ), and still do gs500 downpipes and full systems, BUT BUT BUT, what's this! they have put back the link-pipe: http://www.blackwidowexhausts.co.uk/gs-500-28-c.asp   

I'm wondering still if there are any adjustments I can make, Carb specifically to accomodate such a clear difference, though I doubt there are, it's all about scavenging, though of course a crossover/merge still happens further down underneath the bike right before joining the can.  I didn't research this at all and would have preferred a near-clone of the stock exhaust, expediency was the factor, it was available there and then at the point I was necessitously discarding the tired old, horrible one.  Incidentally I had to put the rear wheel spindle in from the other side, with the bolt head on the the RH, exhaust side, and the nut at the other, chain side as when the swing arm came up when riding, the nut struck and dented the can on the inside, and it spat out a piece of internal packing, it sounds even fruitier with this inadvertent mod.   

I like the stock  exhaust system best  ,  no exhaust leaks = no power loss