New '80 GS850G Owner With Tons of Problems

[Buster-boy]

The easiest way to tell the diff between a G and a GL is by the seat and/or handle bars. A G seat is almost flat/straight whereas a GL seat is lower in the front than the rear. I'm talking OEM seats here. GL handlebars are higher and the hand grips are bent a little more downward.

Most body parts are not compatible between the G & GL because of the frame styles. You can do a parts XREF on Babbits.com online OEM parts finder.

If you're looking for parts try Stockers and/or Tri County Motorcycle Salvage. They'll usually have what you need. Or try www.uneedapart.com That's a MC salvage yard search engine. Fill out the form, submit it, and anyone that subscribes will email you if you have the part.

Good luck and happy riding!!

Jim

[Steve]

Steve, my apologies for misattributing the tip. I'd glanced through those sites, but didn't find the side covers because I didn't know to look under "Frame Cover." Thanks to KingOfVenus, hopefully I'll only need one, now!

No problem. As you have found, there are times where the amount of information can almost overwhelm you into mis-remembering things.

Keep track of those vendor sites, read BassCliff's comments on them. Basically, Alpha Sports has a very nice search engine to find the parts, but they also have the most expensive prices, by far. In fact, they are often above 'retail' prices. In the case of your side cover, 'retail' is 60.38, Alpha charges 65.93. Next most expensive (but rather reasonable shipping costs and speed) is Bike Bandit. Bike Bandit is unique in that they are the only ones that don't use Suzuki part numbers, but have their own system, which makes it harder to cross-reference some stuff. Babbitt's and Motogrid have a nice reverse-search feature that will also tell you all the other models that use that particular part. The three I have found to be consistently the least expensive are Babbitt's, Cycle Parts Nation and PartShark. In the case of your side cover, however, Babbitt's is among the expensive ones, which only points out that you have to shop them all, every time you shop. When I am looking for several parts, like I had to do recently when shopping for "Freebie", I actually make a spreadsheet that lists all the prices from all the vendors, then go with the one that is best overall. Surprisingly, it's not always the same vendor.

Nice that the "King" has a cover for you, now you can get all the other stuff to match.

.

[waterman]

It could be possible that your starter switch relay, solenoid as you call it, is weak. I had a bike that was reluctant to start and I knew the battery and electrical connections were in good shape. I had a spare on the shelf and it solve my problem.

Welcome to the forum, we always need more members.

[kingofvenus]

The local dealer here has jacked up there prices so much that they are very close to Alpha's. I told them i won't be buying anything from them anymore. I always liked to throw a bone or two they're way because twenty years ago i worked at one but....