gs650lz runs poorly, now

[luke1979]

hey guys, I'm an offshoot from gixxer.com, where the site is run by 18 year old punks. I have a gixxer, but I recently bought an 82 gs650l, for 650 bucks, it's got 16k miles, and it looks real good. It's got some problems. And it's nothing unusual. Here it is. I'll be working on this thing for a while, it's a bike that i think is worth effort. If you guys have got parts you're welcome to e-mail me.

bike sat for a while in Seattle where it's rainy. owner said it was running great before that, I don't believe him, but I do believe it was running better than it is now, and he can't figure it out, so I bought it. We'll find out if that was a good decision. I've only had it for a day, but here's the deal so far.

The motor runs, you can tell she's got good metal, motor feels good. But when she is out on the open road she sputters. A lot of bikes this old sputter, I know. Bad gas i thought, so I ran a bottle of heet, nothing, but I'm whittling it down. I ran it with the gas cap slightly off incase there was a plug on the releaser, spilled gas on my leg.

She gets up to about 4k rpm, especially when under any kind of load, and she sputters, pretty badly. The bike isn't safe on the highway, but I could take it to the store and back. Battery is aged, but the headlight works fine, even when it sputters, even when it dies. It dies, but then starts back up. She smells rich, in my opinion, but I am used to an 07 gixxer, not a manual choke etc. Bike sputters, and pops and shudders itself back into riding, and if you kick the throttle she sputters again, and on and on down the road. This morning I could not get her started, but I didn't work on it for too long. battery seems to be okay, haven't checked stator and all that typical bad %%%% on the gs. I have another 850g of the same year, constant charging problems. I bought this thinking, hell, this will be easy. I'm gonna buy a new battery no matter what, but if we got bigger problems then I need to get her figured because I don't want to fry anything. I'll order a carb kit and do that. Stock everything on this bike. What do you guys think. My first post here, thanks for reading this novel. I'll be checking in daily. I'll have time to work on it on the weekends, my plan is to have her gradually back into good condition. I don't want to start ordering pipes and stuff for it until I get this glitch figured out, i don't want to compound my problems by ruining new parts. Thanks in advance for the advise, I will take the advice, I will listen. I understand bikes a bit, and like I said, I have experience with a fantastic bike in a 850g.

[2005GZ250]

Rebuild the carbs and remove and clean out the gas tank, you may want to remove the fuel petcock and clean out the screens too.

[luke1979]

thanks for the response. I was convinced it was electrical after so many problems with the 82gs850g I rode for so long. I bought a clymer manual which will arrive next week. I bought a new interstate battery for it today as I ran the other one dead trying to get her started. Now, for the carb kits. There are two that I see at oldbikebarn.com, one that is general and one that says it's specific for the gs650. Does anyone know the difference, it is 5 bucks more for the gs650 one (x4) and that is what I will buy by default. Any advice is appreciated if any of you guys have experience with these bikes. Any preferences with chemicals to clean out the tank, it looks like it's got some brown paint in it from a previous owner. I also can hear what sounds like a cam chain rattle from the front of the bike. I am going to stick with this thread through the next while getting the bike running. Would anyone recommend just going ahead and replacing the floats as well before seeing them?