Okay I spotted this bike in the 'L' thread, for the life of me I can't figure out what moved me to look in there, maybe I'm more of an 'L' fan than I thought. As I said on the other thread, I am a previous owner of this bike, it was owned by at least one other member before it got to you, a forum member who doesn't seem to come around anymore. The military has a way of doing that to you I guess. Here's a little history on the bike, if you're interested.
Not to scare you off, but that bike has had a very hard life. However it was pretty well torn down bolt by bolt by the owner mentioned, and documented on this forum - this might be of some use to you, who knows. In any event most of the bike should be pretty solid now, however I see from your post history that the electrics weren't.
Here is the thread he started, around post 14 or so is where he gets a 'new bike', which I donated because he wanted a parts bike. He felt that mine was in better shape so went with that and used his original as a donor bike.
http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?156565-1979-GS550L-Let-the-Education-begin
As far as pre-history, I know the thing was in a wreck (something about a malfunctioning throttle lock), and sat for like a year or so outside in a police impound lot. A good friend of mine acquired it some time after that, and used it as a 'college bike', which means it got the stuffins beat out of it some more. He had a blowout with it at one point and sent it careening down the road - I think it glanced off a semi or something, I forget. He patched it up and rode it some more, then put the thing in his driveway under a tarp when he had his knee operation. This is several years post college now. When his knee finally came back he bought at brand new V-Star 650, and I ended up with the bike, he knew I liked working on things.
It was, needless to say, in sad shape when I got it. The big issue was the carbs, which I tore down and rebuilt, using the K&N kits supplied by my friend. True to form they were less than optimal for my application. Nonetheless the bike ran after a bunch of tinkering and trial and error. The charging system had been replaced at some point with a non stock item, and I had strict instructions to never run it without the headlight on. The seat that it came to you with was done by a local car upholstery shop, we used 'BMW' seat vinyl, it came out well and was super comfortable. I rode the thing for about 10k miles before I picked up my 750. The only issue I had was the fuse box kind of fell apart on me, and I had to jury rig it with wire to hold the fuses in and get it home. By this time I wasn't using it much and so never did put a new box in it. I also had to replace the R/R, though the stator tested good, I had a Rick's unit in it when I let it go. I also did the steering head with the fancy roller bearing upgrade. I did the fork oil too at the same time. I actually never had the bike registered because my slacking friend lost the title to it and never got me a new one until I wanted to sell it. So sue me I rode it with a fictitious plate, though I did carry insurance the whole time.
Good luck with it, it's getting a lot more mileage than I ever thought it would, it's been basically given a new life. I'm not much of a fan of bobbers but your mods look pretty decent on it, and nice job on the seat. I agree that some larger signals on it would actually look good and make it a little more visible. Put a little weight on that skinny rear end lol!
