Bike dies and won't start for a few minutes

[bk850]

I bought a 1979 GS850G with about 28,000 miles a few weeks ago.

I rode it about 100 miles without issue yesterday, until, on the way home, after riding it for about 20 minutes, it died as I was stopping.

I tried to start it a few times. The starter sounded like it was working, but the engine would stay below 1000 rpm and it wouldn't actually start. After a minute of trying, I got it started by revving the engine while holding the starter.

The same thing happened a few times today after riding for about 20 miles. I was able to kick start it cold earlier, but I wasn't able to kick start it after it died, although I didn't feel like the kick starter really engaged in the latter attempt. I was mostly trying not to panic as I was in the middle of traffic.

The bike otherwise start cold and feels good, to extent that I can I judge that, e.g. no problem accelerating hard once started cold or after dying.

Where should I began? I don't mind taking it to a shop and spending a little bit of money to get it to a reliable state.

[allojohn]

Probably a lack of gas for some reason - restricted inline filter, faulty petcock, rust in the tank clogging the carbs.

Forget about taking it to a shop, your bike is 37 years old so no one there will know what to do with it unless you are very, very lucky.
Take the time to get to know this bike and fix it yourself.

Top 10 newbie mistakes

.....and welcome to the forum!

[Joe Garfield]

(Edit: I just noticed the above link - awesome advice!)

This forum is really great, and the guys and gals will definitely help you diagnose and fix the issue if you're willing to put a little time into it. I knew nothing about bikes before I joined and have thoroughly enjoyed learning about and working on mine.

I don't know enough to help with this particular problem, but given the bike's age the chances are pretty good that the carbs haven't been regularly tuned or the valve gaps regularly adjusted.

I had an '82 650 a few years back that would want to quit at stop lights after riding for a little while - to the point that I had to keep some throttle on or it would cut out. That was before I knew about this forum, but my band-aid fix was some dry gas in the tank. It seemed to work well but I had to do it every couple of weeks.

[bk850]

10) Buying a 30 year old motorcycle because it was cheap without any mechanical knowledge and no interest in learning. Paying a shop to work on your 30 year old motorcycle is not advised unless you have lots of money to spend and know for a fact that they are trustworthy.

I made this mistake. I don't have the time or space to do significant work myself. I will try to find a trustworthy shop. There are a lot of people riding around NYC on these old bikes, so I suspect that there at least couple of decent places. I'll try to come up with a concrete list of things that I want done based on the provided post and other stickies.

[allojohn]

One of our members, Rob S. is in the City - he has a shop work on his bike. Frank Davis of Powerhouse Motorcycles.

[geol]

Next time the bike dies in the manner you related, suggest you open the gas cap. If the vents are plugged and the tank isn't venting, your carbs won't be able to pull gas via gravity feed. Since the caps on most Suzukis are not rebuildalble, you may just need a new gas cap. I know it will be a bit tricky but if you have two keys, that would help do this step.

[gustovh]

Next time the bike dies in the manner you related, suggest you open the gas cap. If the vents are plugged and the tank isn't venting, your carbs won't be able to pull gas via gravity feed. Since the caps on most Suzukis are not rebuildalble, you may just need a new gas cap. I know it will be a bit tricky but if you have two keys, that would help do this step.

The cap on your 850 can be opened with a couple screws removed, Spiders love it up there, open it up and clean it, will probably fix your problem.

V

[bk850]

Thanks for the input all. I'll take a look at the gas cap. My next move otherwise is to inspect the gas tank for rust and to clean and seal it if need be. I suspect that it's not in great shape because the previous owner patched a pinhole leak with epoxy on the outside of the tank.