I just bought a 1980 GS550 on eBay, gonna go view/buy it tomorrow, anyone know about any specifics you should look out for on these, all I could find was usual stuff, didn't see anything about specific known issues. Can't wait to go see it, just hope it's not a dud, but from what I've heard they're the definition of bulletproof, this is the bike in question:

Ignore the horrible gold paint, that's be re-done the second I get it home 

 

• i Remember them, back then,   reliable,  not overly quick,,.  good buy, 

That looks nice, hoe it is close up too

Tidy. Proper swiss army knife type bike.

Others may go faster or handle better but as long as its healthy you could wake up and decide to do 500miles and off you go.

Good mpg, comfy and enough go with, to be frank shit brakes. Solid bike. 

Old enough to have a loud pipe too and be legal. Ahem....

Minus the gold though, like you say.

Well, got there, was happy with the cosmetic condition (even though it was shit), rode ins a straight line, but had one problem, the engine had almost 0 compression, it would hardly start, and when it was turning over it sounded like it didn't have any spark plugs. 

walked away from that one without the bike and with my money, that's why I will only do cash on collection, so I can still turn it down

Shame, was it not cheap enough to fix. Not much at 37 years old will be proper tidy without a corresponding tag unless he wanted top dollar.

4 hours ago, Cynic said:

Shame, was it not cheap enough to fix. Not much at 37 years old will be proper tidy without a corresponding tag unless he wanted top dollar.

Didn't expect it to be fantastic, in fact I expected it to be tired at best, but it seriously had about 4 different types of knocks coming from the engine, it sounded like a mixture of valve adjustments, piston slap, cam chain and rod knock. I'm really not afraid of working on those air cooled engines, but I don't really have the time/money for a full rebuild, which by the sounds of it was needed, if you spent £2000 on that bike you'd have a bike worth £1200  Honestly a shame to see what a state they'd let it get into

Realistically with the condition it was in, both cosmetic and mechanical it was only worth about £300, not the £750 it would have cost me all toll

Yep there's only experience that can tell you when to walk away.

Shame really. That bike will die the breakers death.

Why do people think bikes are worth money JUST because they are old. With a bad engine its a couple of hundred quid. Its hardly got the cudos of a 350.

11 hours ago, Cynic said:

Shame really. That bike will die the breakers death.

Why do people think bikes are worth money JUST because they are old. With a bad engine its a couple of hundred quid. Its hardly got the cudos of a 350.

I kinda wanted to buy it just to take the poor thing away from those idiots  Really though it was a total pile, I think I'll wait till bike prices drop near Christmas and pick up a GS750, or maybe an XJ550 (but parts for the XJ550 seem like freaking gold dust these days )

Also another thing I forgot to mention, when they finally got the poor thing to wheeze into life, liquid petrol started pouring (yes, actually pouring) out of the rather tarnished Micron exhaust, poor bike  Really don't know how people can do that to their bikes