Alright, where to begin... I bought this hunka junk off my friend and we had gotten it running. Idle'd way high, got it back to my house and into the garage it went, for about a year. Well in that time I wound up losing the key so when I got back into the mood of working on it, I couldn't do anything to it! I took the seat lock apart and found a little red switch I yanked out and threw in the trash . Recently I replaced everything that had a lock on it from a great shop I've used for a couple of my bikes over the years on ebay Manuel Motorcycles & Salvage. Installed the lockset, drilled out the lock cylinder for the old gas cap to do it. Went to get it to kick over, starter solenoid just clicked and clicked but every now and then it would kick over. Then it stopped trying to turn over. Next thing I replaced was the starter solenoid because the old one was falling apart, ratty and disgusting. Got a used one of those that looks to be in mint condition for 12 bucks on ebay. Since I replaced that now it seems to not even want to turn over or anything, I'm testing the starter when i get some free time. I suspect the switch may be the culprit. I hope it's not some electrical demon hiding somewhere, it's a pretty simple electrical system though. I had found when i took apart the headlight why the highbeam was the only one that worked.... it melted through the plug. So I'm replacing the harness with one that isn't hacked within an inch of its life and held together with wire ties with one that another member is sending me from a bike he's parting out. Hopefully this will alleviate some of the issues I've been having. Could someone tell me how to use my multimeter to test the switches and everything that could make my starter not work?

This is the kind of project I love!  $200 turd!   So, how's your battery condition? 

Do you know what a Powerprobe is?  I'd get one and start testing with that.  It'll help you put power where you need it to see what works and what doesn't.  I don't want to be a PP3 sales guy but it's just so %%%% handy.  I'm thinking start with your battery, or jump off a boostpak.  Reason I say, is cause you could be chasing a problem that is all related to crapped out battery.

battery is new ish? fully charged, i'll take it to advanced auto tomorrow to get it tested

Probably a bad starter.

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starter's bad. tested it.

getting there!  what's next?

Quote from: jpfeiffer14 on May 23, 2018, 08:22:59 AM
starter's bad. tested it.

BTW I resurrected my bad starter pretty easily by sanding the commutator and brushes lightly with 400 grit and then using compressed air and a thin piece of plastic to clean dust and grit. Working like a champ for about 2k miles now.

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getting a used starter from another user. Got some ideas for side fairings from another user's bike. I painted some more junk on the bike. I'll be painting the tank medium metallic charcoal gray. doing thick gauge steel mesh on the sides. starter's 20 bucks

New starter works great. Clutch perch works as it should and new harness works great, just need to find some of those quick disconnect things suzuki put on here. My bike is missing a few and I don't want to use crimp connectors. Want to put it back stock. Had the new harness installed in 20 minutes. Headlight works again yay. Turn signals work. Was fiddling with the clutch cable after I installed the perch and found out why it felt weird. The damn bearings fell out of this thing. Anyone know where I can get the replacement sleeve with new bearings? Also I need a new killswitch control if anyone has one lying around the wires haven't been hacked up on I'd love to buy it off of you.

The part I'm describing is the piece that holds the clutch cable in place inside of the front sprocket cover

I don't know exactly the part you're referring to, but you could look through the categories here and see if you can find it:

https://www.partzilla.com/catalog/suzuki/motorcycle/2005/gs500f

so this is the part that I'm looking for now. https://www.ebay.com/i/162346343047?chn=ps
Also I got the new starter and wiring harness in. some of the bullet connectors on the bike itself (not the harness itself but the one that's on the bike) are missing or just junk but all of the plugs are plugged in. when i turn the ignition on the starter just doesn't stop. is it a possible bad battery? the harness I got was from a different year bike. is it a possibility I may need to put my original harness back on? the replacement came with all of the relays and everything. the starter relay is good and new, the old one straight up doesn't work. but the problem now is that my original starter switch was dead so I replaced it with an ebay one. is it possible the ebay one's bad or just needs to be cleaned/contacts adjusted? just curious before i go hunting for electrical gremlins if anyone has had a similar experience before. thank you

I'm parting it out, I'm done with it.

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Where are you located? This all ought to be easy enough to fix.

Philadelphia Pennsylvania