Hi everyone,
I recently acquired an 87 cbr 600 and im having some troubles starting it up. Let me first give you the background. The guy that sold it for me said that he started it up but since the fuel pump relay was dead it was really bad idle and yada yada however im thinking how do you start it with the relay not working. Anyway i changed the relay, pump works connected all the hoses and started cranking it but nothing. Does anyone have any imput on this problem. I'm sure the bike has been sitting for a long long time without any run time so im guessing there is stuff in the carbs that may be bad but would this stop the engine from even studdering a little bit. Also anyone know whats the price today for a shop to do a carb clean / synch? im guessing over 200 but aprox how much =(. Haven't checked the spark plugs but i know there's voltage going to them. Any imput would be fine as for this is my first bike and am trying to make it start.
Thanks for looking!

 

Maybe you should pull the fuel line of the center of the carb and crank the bike. Gas should come out. Then you know gas at least is getting that far. If you don't want to pull the line off you can loosen a few of the flat head screws on the float bowl drains of the carbs and gas should come out there, also.

If it's been sitting you almost definitely need to clean and adjust your carbs. IMO 90% of "poor running" problems can be attributed to gunked up carbs. There's about 10 million "carb cleaning" threads on here, so read up and maybe you can do it yourself. It's easy, but takes time and some nasty chemicals. At a shop, I don't know . . . . maybe a couple hundred bucks?

 

have you ghanged the fuel in the tank if the bike has been standing in a garage for years as petrol does go off and your bike will not start. as you can tell if it has gone off smell the tank in side if it smells foul empty the tank and put new fuel in and try that. but also you may have blocked the jets with dirty fuel but try with new fuel and never know it might work

 

+1 to Gogar's suggestions




Drain all gas....tank, carbs, lines...everything. Check for any solids coming out, namely from the tank.

See if there's a turpintine-type of smell when you do this.....don't huff it just take a whiff.

Fill with fresh fuel, double-dose on Seafoam for that tank full (most automotive stores have it).

New plugs and then give it a try.

Buy a service manual.

It sounds like you have some mechanical inclination so I'd like to suggest investing in a carb sync and carbtools. Regardless of whether or not you plan to keep this bike, they will prove to be invaluable down the road if you plan to be involved in motorcycling.

 

Hey guys, thank you so much for your input. Anyway heres an update. So i changed the relay and some tubing that goes from the tank to the pump and bought some starter fluid and the engine started which made me happy as to there is hope. Anyway the problem is that as i started it there was blue smoke from the exhaust and smelled a little like burned oil for the first few revs. Anyway my question is this. IS this blue smoke mainly from old gasoline left in the lines ( starter fluid?) or could it be that the engine is burning oil and i havve to go in an changed the piston rings but i mean its only at 13k miles on it so i hope its not the rings. Also for the carbs, the engine sounds good but i havent tested the performance on the road. well first off whats seafoam? And second could i just run like two bottles of some engine/fuel line/ carb cleaner through it and hope that i dont actually have to open the carbs up to clean and also how hard is it to use those carb sync ing tools? Thank you so much for your input guys!

 

Well, you could. But personally these bikes are known for going off on the carb sync/settings/cleaning. Especially when left sitting for any long period of time. They will still run, but not like they can and will have weird stumbles andsurges while driving and starting problems. I suggest it, it's worth every penny and will totally wake your bike up to what she can do! Especially since you said it's been sitting, the carbs are probably all gunked up.

 

Seriously, if you're mechanically inclined AT ALL, take off the tank, the airbox, and undo the carbs and open them up and clean them out. You'd be amazed at all of the waxy ugly crap you'll find in there. Tossing some fuel system cleaner in your tank or seafoam or whatever is not where it's at. SOMETIMES it works, yes, but getting in there and opening up your carbs and cleaning them hands on is the only way you'll really know what's going on in there.

 

i think you should do a compression test if you can to see if you have any leaks. you could be picking up oil past the rings and into the cylinder. even though you say it has 13k, it does not mean that the bike was taken care of or broken in properly to get the rings seated. it might even be from valve stem seals, but this is a longshot. only way to tell is to pull the valve cover off and check. at this point, you might as well do a valve adjustment.

do the carb related stuff first, then if the blue smoke returns, then you know where that problem may be caused by. does the bike continue to smoke during idle after warmup or when the bike is moving?

 

I'm not sure because i didn't have enough time to let it warm up and i havent checked over the cooling system thoroughly yet to let it warm up to operating temperature so i'm not sure if it continues to smoke. That being said i havent test ridden it yet either. However a bummer to this is that I got to school up in Davis and i wont be home for another two weeks so i wont be able to tinker and do the things you guys have posted here but none the less thank you so much for your input here. Greatly appreciated.

 

Update. So i've had time to work on it since i got back from school. I started it up again and let it warm up to operating temperature and it smoked still after warming up. AnywayI took off the carbs last night and thoroughly cleaned them with carb cleaner nd followed the how to guide to how to clean em and just fired it up again. There's a lot less smoke during warm up than before and it feels a lot better when you open the throttle, it doesnt hesitate at all but after it runs for about 5 min again if you rev it theres plumes of smoke coming out. I test drove it and there is PLENTY of power in it. If you open it up it flies down the road but still same goes theres huge plumes of smoke behind me that smell like burnt oil/ unburnt gas. I've heard that if your piston rings are leaking then there should be burn oil during warm up but once it warms up it should stop so im hoping its not them, but of course that could be wrong. Anybody have any suggestions on what next. I still haven'tchanged the air filter / spark plugs because i dont have a tool yet for spark plugs and i dont have the money for the filter at the moment. How much would a shop charge for an engine rebuild average or approx?