New GS500 owner, small project thread

[BergGS]

New GS500 owner here! I picked this up the weekend of the 4th for an absolute steal. It's my first 100% street bike after only riding dirtbikes and enduros.



19k miles with a few aesthetic mods but stock otherwise besides a drop in k&n filter
Previous owner installed short led turn signals and lopped off the lower half of the rear fender to clean it up a bit. Nothing I wouldn't have done anyways 


Also has renthal bars which are a little too cruiser to be comfortable, but that's easily fixed

Me and my dad went up to pick it up from a shop where it was being kept and worked on, which is why the tank and seat are removed. The shop apparently "cleaned, rebuilt, and balanced the carbs" and couldn't figure out why it was still running poorly... turns out one of the main jets was clogged solid, one pilot jet screw was 1/2 a turn out, and the other was 2 turns out. Hard to balance carbs when one isn't getting fuel 


Got it home and up on the lift and cleaned and balanced the carbs. Still is running lean and is touchy because of the k&n filter, will have to rejet for the filter. Gave it a good cleaning and adjusted the chain as well.


The next day we took the front forks off to add preload spacers and 15w fork oil to help remedy the wayyyyy soft front end these are notorious for.


Also gave polishing/waxing the tank a go, removed a lot of haze but theres still some swirls that I couldn't get out by hand.

The reflection in the tank makes it look like its got a giant scratch behind the fuel filler in that pic, I had to go back and check when I was looking at these pictures  :lol:

I think it's been dropped at least once at some point, has a broken brake lever and just a few small scratches on the case.


Used the broken brake lever as an excuse to grab some chinesium adjustable brake and clutch levers. Same price as one suzuki oem brake lever so why not?


Lastly today I refinished the gauge cluster mount which was chipping and rusted. I had some wurth wheel paint and clear lying around from another project which matched the original finish almost perfectly. I'll probably end up using the same stuff to touch up some chips on the frame





Got a new rear tire for it since the old one was manufactured in 2008 and was cracking along the tread and sidewall

Started by removing the rear wheel


Pretty dirty but nothing too bad


Cleaned up the swing arm and the inner fender



What's a bead breaker?


Tire off


Tire on


Half an hour later of lots of soap and trying to seat the bead. Ready to balance.


Didn't need much in the way of balancing, took the old weights off and put two on.


While I had the rear apart I took the time to tuck the reflectors up closer to the fender


Also rounded the edges on the previous owners fenderectomy job so it looked more finished


Rear end done!


Finally rode it after this, I was in love. It was running super lean still though because I was still waiting on my jets to come in



Got the jets in and spaced the needles.



The bike runs amazing now, it's a completely different machine. Pulls smoothly all the way to 10k without a hitch.



Got my new bars mounted, so so so much better than the weird cruiser-ish bars that it had.



Ran out of gas 10 mins from home. Had a guy stop and help me out. He had passed me then gotten off the highway, turned around, and come back to help. Said it was just one rider helping another, didn't even accept the 20 I tried to give him.

People are pretty great sometimes


Got my new napoleon bar end mirrors on to replace the giant antenna mirrors.


May run them under the bars, undecided on that



That's all for now, I have gsxr ebay footpegs coming to replace the stock rubber bricks.

[ShowBizWolf]

Wow, great thread BergGS!!! And  for pics

Did you replace the Renthal bars with Superbike bars?

When you ran outta gas, did ya flip to reserve or were ya already using it too? I remember the first time I ran out... was a total noob to bikes and didn't know about the reserve... but at the time I had also just got my bike back from the shop where they replaced the frame petcock... I thought it was acting up again tbh Man I have learned so much since then...

You'll have to give some more details about what you did in the forks. I started a thread a while back, lemmie find it...
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=69391.msg834607#msg834607
...that maybe you could put your info into!

Can't wait to see your new pegs... I finally swapped out mine a few months ago. I love 'em!

Congrats on the purchase and welcome to the forum

[ajensen]

Thanks for sharing your bike with us--good looking and it seems you have the mechanical stuff mastered. I am sure you will have a lot of fun on your GS500--I do on mine.

[BergGS]

Did you replace the Renthal bars with Superbike bars?

When you ran outta gas, did ya flip to reserve or were ya already using it too? I remember the first time I ran out... was a total noob to bikes and didn't know about the reserve... but at the time I had also just got my bike back from the shop where they replaced the frame petcock... I thought it was acting up again tbh Man I have learned so much since then...

Yeah the renthals had too much sweep to be comfortable. They'd be better for a shorter person probably.

I did try reserve but I guess the fuel level was too low to do anything. I also thought the carbs were clogged at first 

[BergGS]

Thanks for sharing your bike with us--good looking and it seems you have the mechanical stuff mastered. I am sure you will have a lot of fun on your GS500--I do on mine.

Thanks! It's been a blast so far.

[ShowBizWolf]

When I got my GS, it had stock bars but they were bent. Replaced 'em with superbikes and I love them... so comfy!!

[cbrfxr67]

Great thread!  Thanks for sharing!  Love me some pics! 

[qcbaker]

When I got my GS, it had stock bars but they were bent. Replaced 'em with superbikes and I love them... so comfy!!

+1 for Superbike bars. I love mine.

[mr72]

I pulled mine and replaced with something just a hair taller and a lot wider.

I'd offer my old superbike bars for sale for free but I don't want to ship. Someone wants to come to Austin, they're yours.

[89gS500_Kirk]

Do you still have the link for where you ordered your new brake lever?  Nice bike btw 

[Ne0n]

Do you still have the link for where you ordered your new brake lever?  Nice bike btw 

I do have the same levers on my bike (brake and clutch), and this is where I bought them:
https://de.aliexpress.com/item/For-Honda-Bandit-GS500-GS500F-GS500E-1989-2009-Short-Clutch-Brake-Levers-CNC-Adjustable-10-Colors/32751698561.html