Looking for some help trouble shooting.

I've got an 87 CBR1000 that's been parked for 3 years that I'm trying to get started. I've changed the fuel, the oil and filter, and battery. It'll crank over, but it won't start. Anyone have ideas on what I should look for? As I understand, when it was parked, it ran fine other than the typical cam chain rattle, so long as it didn't sit for weeks at a time. If it sat, it would start, but hard. A lot of cranking and sometimes a push start. If it was ridden even every few days, it would start fine.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Stephen

 

Kinda sounds like a weak spark. Or fuel.

 

i had to clean my carbs to get mine to start, wouldnt hurt to check that out.

 

Thanks for the thoughts.

Do you have a sure way to check spark? I'm used to a car where you can ground a spark plug wire with a screwdriver to see if it will spark. Can I do the same with the cycle without damaging the coils? If I don't have spark, where should I look besides coils? Will they go bad just sitting?

I'm hoping not to have to remove the carbs to get this thing going....but if I have to, I have to. I'd like to exhaust the 'easier' possibilities first though.

Thanks again for the sounding board.

Stephen

 

You can stick any old sparkplug in a plug wire, lay it on the cylinderhead and see if it sparks. You have to do a wire from 1 or 4 cylinder, and 2 or 3 cylinder, since one coil sparks 1 and 4, and the other sparks 2 and 3. If both fire, I would replace all four plugs and spray some starting fluid in the intake. If you get some firing, it is time to take off the carbs. If a bike sits for three months the carbs have to be cleaned, so three years is a gimme. The Haynes manual gives a good description on cleaning the float chambers and the vacuum chambers.

 

My 94 1000F sat from last december till 3 days ago.. wouldn't start for 2 days until I changed the spark plugs. It went after 1 push of the button. I would suggest you get new plugs (if you haven't) and go from there. It's a good annual thing to do anyway.

Best o luck!