Just bought my first bike coming on a month ago. It's a 96 katana 600. I've ridden it twice now and have loved every minute of it. Right off the bat I ran in to a few problems. I'm a pretty big car guy to be honest but I've always wanted a motorcycle. Not knowing much about bikes, tho, has been a unique learning experience for me doing all the work on it myself when you would otherwise need a lift and garage full of tools to work on a car in any extensive manner. So here is what I've done so far:
The petcock leaked a bit to I replaced that before I even rode it home. It had just enough old fuel in the tank to have me fill it with new gas plus a fuel treatment. After the first ride I knew something needed to be done with the clutch cable. I believe it was stretched out a bit and would not totally disengage IMO and was extremely stiff and made my hand sore and worn out on just the ride home itself(probably a 15 minute ride) so I ordered a new cable and after doing my homework decided to replace it myself. It wasn't as hard as I thought but then I learned what the adjustment screws are for and tho I don't think they would have helped the old cable. Now that the clutch cable pulls smooth and any bad gas has run out of it, it rides smooth. Accelerates without any dull spots. The brakes are in good condition and I changed the oil. The previous owner must have done one of these two things tho; either he didn't straighten the bike(it has no center stand so the side stand is all there is) to see where the oil levels were and filled it up to the level while it was on its side or tried to change the oil and almost(and I mean I had to bang on a socket to fit over the mostly stripped drain bolt to empty the pan) stripped the bolt and gave up and just dumped more oil in it instead of changing it but it has a tad over 7 quarts.
After doing all that and riding it for a bit I now have a small issue with the far left carb flooding into the air intake box or the air filter housing, or what ever it's called. So my next "small" project with it is to clean the carbs. I've read up on it like everything else and it sounds like the float in the carb is stuck as a result of bad gas or other gunk and a good cleaning should take care of it. My only doubt that this is what the problem is would be that almost everything I read had someone saying their bike wouldn't idle or wouldn't stay running after 10 or so minutes but my bike runs fine and idles fine and outside of a gasoline leak coming from the air box once it's been running for not even five minutes and continues to leak ten or so minutes after it's been shut off I couldn't complain about the running condition of the bike. Every light and gauge works. Tires are good. Right now it's just this leak I'm concerned about.
I'm excited for the adventures I'll have on this bike! Hope I get it sorted out soon. Wish me luck