As I have said before there are countless other websites that can demonstrate in much greater detail with better knowledge. However, what I can point out in much greater precision are a few things NOT to do, as I speak strictly from personal experience. Regularly giving this bike an oil change should be ridiculously easy. However, by making the slight mistake detailed below you can easily land yourself in an unnecessary hassle. The GSE and the older GSF's have to be even easier since there is no fairing in your way. The first time I seen a GSE I laughed at how awesome it must be to give that thing an oil change.
1)
Get bike on center stand. This is actually annoying at first, but now its fun. Its like doing a modified dead lift. You got to lift the bike up and back. At first you are scared the bike is going to tip over, but its not. Just got to get it done. The videos people post like the one above is so annoying watching how effortlessly they do it. I only have had to do this a few times when working on the bike only.
2) Slightly loosen the 3 acorn nuts on the oil filter cover with 10mm socket. Slightly loosen oil drain nut underneath bike with 17mm socket and extension. This way you don't have to mess around with them when the bike is warm. Start bike and let run for a minute or 2 just to get the oil warm.
3) Once bike is cool enough remove the oil drain nut completely. Also unscrew the oil filler plug (where dipstick is) so the oil drains faster.
4) At this point I completely remove the oil filter cover. I start with the bottom nut first so whatever oil starts to leak out doesn't go all over the pipes.
5) Remove oil filter. Once all oil is drained from the bike take the new filter and line it with a bead of oil and install nice and tight. Keep in mind the filter below is the wrong filter for this bike. If you have paid more than $10, and you get it in a nice colorful box like below AND it is a screw on filter you are in the possession of a GSX-R filter. Go back to the shop and go easy on them and make sure you leave with a
K&N 133 Suzuki GS500 Oil Filter
.
![]( "Lining Incorrect Oil Filter")
6) Once you have installed the correct push in filter. You can replace the O-ring on the inside of the oil filter cover. You can use your discretion. Some change it yearly, but some don't. I replaced mine this year, but I don't think I really needed to since the one I removed seemed to be in the exact same condition as the new one. Whatever, takes 35 seconds and costs about 35 cents. Line the O-ring with oil.
7)
**WARNING** You have now come to the sole reason why I made this stupid page. This sounds like a very simple task, but beware if the following step is not done with extreme caution you will not move on to step 8 anytime soon. You will also be at high risk of experiencing feelings of violent rage.
It is time to carefully re-install the oil filter cap. This can simply be done by placing the cap back on and CAREFULLY tightening each of the three 10mm acorn nuts back on. This is no time for any sense of increased manliness, do NOT attempt to go for the glory on this one. Actually your better off having your wife do this task. It will bring you both together and she will maybe even gain interest in your sport. These little 10mm nuts DO NOT need a champ to ensure the oil filter cover is clamped down and suffocated. It just has to be snug and tight enough nothing more. I have heeded fair warning and will continue now. Due to the fact that I never heard any mention of such a similar warning, I recklessly proceeded to use my nice new ratchet to clamp the hell out of this oil filter cover. Previously I just used a plain old screw driver with a socket attachment for this task and all was well. Using a ratchet you will be able to torque the hell out of this thing forever until it snaps so beware. After 1 thunderous turn to many I snapped the delicate bolt in half that connected directly to the engine...I paused and once I fully realized what had went down I literally looked to the sky and yelled the only thing you can imagine one can yell in a situation like this. I had half a broken stud sticking out of the engine now and could no longer secure the oil filter cover. (You are free to skip to step 8 at this point if you desire, as I am sure this will NEVER happen to you now).
7b) I really couldn't believe I had to deal with this. I had no idea if this stud was even threaded or welded directly onto the engine of the bike, if the latter than game over if not I am sure was probably glue locked in so potentially game over anyways. I considered just filling the bike with oil and just securing 2 of the 3 bolts and quickly getting it to a shop where they could deal with it. I wasn't sure how much oil I would leak tho and didn't seem to be too wise of a mission just yet. So yet again I had something new to research.
As much of a chump I felt like, it is
crazy how common of an occurrence this actually is on this bike. Turns out these bolts are real delicate. I did some searches on the web and heard different methods of extracting the broken stud. I didn't understand how not one oil change web site brought this up but countless sites explaining what to do WHEN it happens. I could actually be the first to combine these. The only time this #%#$%# can happen is when you are doing an oil change!
I learned that this stud is threaded into the engine and some claimed was a total bitch to extract and others claimed not that bad. So I had to give it a shot at least before throwing in the towel (I actually did call a local shop and asked if they could just pick the dam thing up, but he told me 1 week). Basically the 3 ways to do this in order of difficulty (there is only 1 real way as you will see later) is to thread 2 nuts onto the bolt. You than grip onto the 1st nut and back it out against the 2nd nut and hopefully your bolt comes out with it. Sounded damn easy and worth a try. The 2nd method was using a good ole vice grip and extracting out. The 3rd, and most ridiculous, method was getting a special drill bit called an
EZ Out Remover
, you literally drill a hole into the already small and broken stud bolt and than use this EZ out bit to extract the stud. Yea maybe in a million years. Decision was easy I didn't have a pair of vice grips and luckily no EZ out drill bit so naturally I tried the 1st "easier" method.