Throttle is sticking

[Anonymous]

I have a 1983 GS550 L. I bought this bike about 2 weeks ago from my neighbor. It had been sitting in his garage for 3 years without being started. They're was a lot of varnished gas in the tank but the carb seemed to be pretty clean. I cleaned out the gas tank, the fuel lines, and the carberator. I did not totally disassemble the carb though. I pulled out the needles and cleaned them really well and I just sprayed a lot of Berrymens carb cleaner into the jets. I noticed that the throttle seemed to be sticking before I did any work on the bike, but got sidtracked and forgot to take a good look at the throttle linkage while I had the carbs off of the bike. The linkage is fairly hard to move to when I twist the throttle and I sticks in the reved position. I sprayed some creeping oil to try to loosen it up. This helped somewhat but the throttle still does not snap back at all like it should. I inspected the throttle cable and it is fine and I set the amount of play to 1 mm as suggested in the Clymers manual. I would appreciate any help with this problem. Thanks.

[Billy Ricks]

Check the cable routing. The carbs are probably so gummed up they could be sticking internally. With the length of time it's been sitting you definitely need to disassemble the carbs and clean them right.

[lhanscom]

I had the shaft that links the butterflies seize up on me once, so that may be it.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the tips. I was hoping there would be a quick and easy solution to the problem, but there never is. I'm just so anxious to get this thing fired up. I'll take the carbs off AGAIN this weekend and clean them the "right way" this time and I'll let you know how things work out.

[Anonymous]

Hello, sometimes the grease in the throttle grip gets gummy and binds. Undo the screws that hold the throttle in place , remove then proceed to clean it with degreaser. Use very light weight lube and reasemble. This should help the cause.