'82 GS550L starting woes - Clean carbs, has spark, no vroom vroom

[mike_of_bbg]

There should be a post in "GS Services" forum about the shim club. There's a fee to join, and then you can exchange shims for needed sizes.

Z1 Enterprises sells shims for about $5 last time I looked. Of course you have to pay shipping - so pick up any other parts you might need from them at the same time. They're fast.

If you get lucky your local Suzuki dealer might have some and be willing to exchange for a fee - sometimes even a reasonable one.

Remember that Suzuki shims are 29.5mm in diameter, not the 29mm ones used on Kaws.

The shims are hardened, it takes special equipment and a lot of time to grind 'em down and keep a reasonably smooth surface. I think Ghostgs1 (the source of the shim club) used to leave them on a lapping machine for hours just to shave off a few hundredths of a mm.

Don't forget to inventory the sizes you have. All of my valves were too tight on the first check but I only needed to buy 3 shims. The rest got to shift to different places.

[slyone]

On various bikes / makes, I have experienced everything mentioned above, except the cracked shim.
And the ever-popular "runs good till it warms up"....
my smoking guns were:
bad float height
bad stator
bad CDI units { due to bad ground wire} ( 83 VF750C ate 3 pair ignitor boxes at $150/pr used before I found the actual cause of the failures )

I would do all the suggestions listed above... then check wiring again. Are you -sure- you still have good blue spark after it "died" ? not a wimpy yellow spark ?
I'm not convinced your problems are all fuel related.

I would tend to agree OP mentioned how "all of a sudden" it's running good..then dead....Though everyone elses suggestions are very helpful and informative too! I gotta do all this crap..I mean PM this winter myself..booo!

[Steve]

I'm going to do those valve shims while I've got it all pulled apart. That's my first order of business. I'm gonna need, like, 5 or 6 of 'em. Where's a guy get some on the cheap?

The absolute cheapest way is to look up user ghostgs1 and join the GSR "shim club".

Next cheapest is to get them from Z1 Enterprises. Quickest way to find them is to go to their home page, type "29.5" in the search box (red area in top left corner), then scroll down to find the shims you want.
How do you know what shims to get? Read my signature.

Just a question, but has anyone here tried honing the valve shims down to the needed thickness and polishing them?

Yes, as mike mentioned, it has been tried, but it is very time-consuming. Personally, I would rather stick with stock sizes, but that's just me.

Z1 Enterprises sells shims for about $5 last time I looked. Of course you have to pay shipping - so pick up any other parts you might need from them at the same time. They're fast.

They have gone up a bit, they are $6.60 now, but that's still less then half of what a dealer would charge. Do NOT waste you money on a full "kit", just get the shims you need.

Don't forget to inventory the sizes you have. All of my valves were too tight on the first check but I only needed to buy 3 shims. The rest got to shift to different places.

One more invite to read my sig. It's just a handy tool to help you inventory your shims and determine what shims you will need.

.

[exdirtbiker]

I spent $16 each at my dealer. I needed them NOW... even though the bike hasn't moved 6 weeks later !!! ( ouch).
The yellow/blue spark thing... The resistance to jump a gap on a spark plug goes up by factors of 10 when there is compression in the cylender. If your spark is weak without compression, {yellow} you probably have NO spark at 125 psi.