some good and some bad news on my new GS650 - long post

[Anonymous]

Today I started my new bike for the first time. It's an '82 GS 650 with 16,000 miles on the clock. It would not start when I bought it so, with the help of the carb cleaning pages, I took apart the carbs, cleaned them and reinstalled them. It starts, which was the main thing as I knew nothing about this bike before I bought it. On the other hand, there are clearly some problems.

1) The engine doesn't sound as smooth as I would like. Is it possible an oil change might help this? Someone suggested I might need to adjust the valves on these bikes. Is that true?

2) The exhaust from one of the exhaust pipes seems to be less even than the other. It is also still leaking gas from the carburetor. I am guessing that this means I may have done an imperfect job of cleaning one of the carburetors. Does this make sense? Are there any other likely explanations for this scenario? It would be great to not have to take the carbs off and apart again. (Not least because I broke one of the float posts and had to JB Weld it together)

3) The turn signals don't work and the switch that operates them feels broken. The horn button is broken also. They are both located on a little electronic module screwed on to the L.H. handlebar. Is this an easy part to find and does anyone perhaps have an old one they would be prepared to part with?

Thanks for listening and thanks for any help. I am new to bikes and can use all the advice I can get.

Dan

 

[SqDancerLynn1]

This switch would probably work but you would probably need to change the wiring to match your bike ebay item # 18704035
It will not run properly until you get the carbs fixed, make sure to change the oil also when the carbs flood fuel sometimes leaks into the crankcase
so check it.

 

[arveejay]

I too just reserected a 1981 GS 650E and it had 3 busted float tangs which had been repaired with JBWELD. The gas had desolved the jbweld and the parts were just laying in the float bowls. I don't want to discourage you but gas will desolve the jbweld. I bought a set of carbs on ebay which had not been screwed up yet, cleaned them and rode the bike with no problems.

 

[Anonymous]

You probably have a float that isn't closing ths valve, this will let gas keep flowing. I don't know if this because of the broken float tangs or not.
Extra gas will cause and erratic idle as well. I would table the switch issues until I had the carbs straightened out. Bob

 

[SqDancerLynn1]

If the float post that you broke is causing problems. you can have it repaired. Check with http://www.motorcyclecarbs.com they have a repair proceedure to fix them