1980 Suzuki GS

GS850118682

Clear

I purchased this on eBay back in 2009 with the idea of doing a full restoration to recreate the GS850 I bought new 30 years ago. Like a lot of dreamers, I never got beyond cleaning it up, changing all the fluids and replacing the rear directionals, which were missing. The previous owner had installed a carb rebuild kit, but didn't have a skill to adjust and synch them properly so it was running pretty rough when I got it.I rode it around the neighborhood a few times, but it turned out to have an oil leak in the head gasket that would really start to smoke when the cylinder fins got hot enough to burn the oil dripping down them. For that reason I never got around to registering it, but I do have a clean PA title from the seller.For the first couple of years I would start it every month or so to keep things lubed, but eventually the battery went bad, so it hasn't been started since 2011. I put some jumpers on it the other day and the engine does turn over, so nothing is seized up. Beyond that I can't say what it would take to get this thing running again.An additional note is that it appears that the front wheel has been replaced with one from a GS850GL (the "cruiser" version of this bike). This is basically the same wheel, but the hub components are somewhat different so it does not mate up perfectly with the speedometer drive. Most likely the original wheel was damaged in an accident.