so my 97 gs has been feeling a little off, and has had some idle issues with surging. i checked my spark plugs today and found that one cylinder is lean and the other is rich.  has anyone else also had this issue? should i rebuild the carbs or is there any other thing i should look for?

just service the carbs.

https://joshkarnes.blogspot.com/2017/09/fixing-common-gs500-carburetor-issues.html

If I had to guess, I'd guess either a clogged pilot jet or sicking float needle. But that's just a wild guess, and you fix both of those if you do the above.

Quote from: mason6556 on July 21, 2019, 11:23:27 AM
so my 97 gs has been feeling a little off, and has had some idle issues with surging. i checked my spark plugs today and found that one cylinder is lean and the other is rich.  has anyone else also had this issue? should i rebuild the carbs or is there any other thing i should look for?

One thing you should never do - rather say that you're doing is "rebuild the carbs" Usually that means putting in new gasket and O rings. Isn't that called ... well putting in O rings and/or gasket.
Anyway is the caps on the vacuum spigots intact ? How about intake manifolds ? You could have a float drift high making 1 rich while the other one stayed where it was set, leaving it lean like the stock bike, but rarely ever do floats stay where they're set on a 89-00 bike. They drift high. One may go faster than the other.
Anyway find where you're taking in air, or why one carb is getting in less gas.
Cool.
Buddha.