Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Branches New England My Suzuki GS500 Story, by baco99

found a pinhole leak in the tank today. back to square 1.

aww damn!!!
i spent forever getting that tank to not leak!!
shouldnt eh POR15 stuff have taken care of that?

shoulda got the eastwood kit!

i must have just missed that one area with the POR15.

anyhoo...i drained the tank and let it air dry, then used liquid weld for tank repair on the hole from the outside. let it dry for 3 hours and then tried again. it seems to have bonded and is holding OK for now.

took her for the first ride tonight! had to run with the hi-beam on, still not sure why the lo-beam and horn aren't working. i may try to find the fuse box. i may have blown something from trying to jump the old battery.

oh, got a new battery too.

still having some funkiness with the fuel petcock. it doesn't flood in "run" anymore, but it stalls after a while. I think the "run" and "reserve" lines are swapped. after the stall, i switch to "prime" for about 10 seconds and then it's fine.

shifts great! all 5 speeds synch up nicely.

only new issue is the tach, it's pinned at 11k RPM all the time. i think the spindle is stripped.

OK, so here's the update:

Gas tank is leaking in a new place for sure. The good news is the patch stuff I bought seems to be working. So, I need to drain the tank, strip the paint and bondo out some more and find the other leak. I also might be getting a second tank just in case.

Fuel petcock is all messed up. I think I'm going to just get a new one. Apparently these bikes are notorious for having a fouled-up 'c0ck.

Real GS500 gauges are in the mail! The 1980's CB gauges I've been running will be seen on eBay shortly. I just need to find out how to run the mileage up on the new gauges to match all my paperwork. I think an electric motor and little gear will do the trick (it worked for the GL back in the day).

Also, I recently discovered an exhaust leak. Seems to go away once the bike warms up which is a tell-tale sign of cracked exhaust gaskets. I'll take the pipes off and paint them and replace the gaskets maybe next week.

; )

It's really cool to see you so into this bike and putting it together in such great time.
I'm loving these updates.
Keep 'em coming!

go brian!!
i wish i had spent more time on it, but too many projects at once stopped that quick!
sucks cuz i wont find a deal like i got on that bike again.
oh well, its better to see it being used than sitting on blocks in my garage!

that's great to hear! i really liked that car. happy to see it still on the road.

and yes, it was for the V6 gauges. never got that tach to read properly, so i took it out.

OK. So I FINALLY had some time to finish putting the bike together.

- Got a rust-free tank, ground off the finish and primed it yesterday.
- Ground off the rust and scale from the pipes and painted with high-temp manifold paint.
- Replaced both exhaust seals.
- New upper fuel petcock installed.
- Cleaned lower fuel petcock and fixed a vacuum leak to carbs (Now PRIME, RES, and ON work properly). New one is on order anyway.
- Rebuilt carbs with new bowl gaskets, float needles and o-rings. Cleaned with carb cleaner (lots of old fuel deposits)

Funny thing about the carbs, the float needles were in the wrong holes, so they weren't floating at all; they were jammed into the main jets. Explains why the carbs kept filling with gas and overflowing.

Took her our last night and she works like a charm. Going to double check the rear alignment and then try for a longer ride some time this weekend. Anyone wanna come?