so before i dropped the bike, it ran fine. started fine, idled well etc etc

now its been acting up.

started it up this morning started and ran fine. drove it around...no issues.

went to turn it back on later...turned on fine.

went to turn it back on just a few minutes ago and it wouldn't stay on. it would crank over and start...idle around1k for about 10 seconds and just die out. any throttle would kill it.

i am 100% new to bikes. newb to the extreme.

any ideas what i should be looking at? i don't want to take everything apart and not know how to put it back together and end up with a pile of jjunk,

 

First I'd get yourself a manual. You can find the factory one online most likely but it's not overly detailed. It's designed for someone with knowledge of mechanics to use. If you have no clue about what you doing with a bike I'd get a Clymer manual. They tend to be more step by step instructions.

As far as what's wrong with it, from the little description you gave I'd think it's not getting enough fuel to keep it going. Could be a lot of stuff but I'd probably start there.

 

This happened to me in the parking lot of my job. I took the air box and filter off to dry out the underlying area because gas poured in their when the bike went down. Let it sit over night went backand it fired right up after giving it a jump. Turn the petcock to the off position before you let it dry out.

 

Sounds like there's a blockage in your air pipes. turn off fuel tap, remove tank & airbox cover. Ya could just let it dry out or remove pipes from air distributor & blow them out with a compressor (Do not blow air into the mechanism), it'll take less time to dry and probably remove any other obstruction.
Take photos of everythin ya do so you'll be able to re-assemble it correctly. Hope this helps.

 

sounds good guys!

i'm sorry about the crappy description... i don't even know what i'm describing lol.

i'll look into those two options (air/fuel)

i read in a couple other threads about clogged fuel filters and that requiring full choke to start/run which seems to be the case.

i did download a factory manual but its just blowout diagrams but i should be able to use that in order to find the component locations.

thanks again guys! i will update when i check that out... :-)

 

so i took the tank off checked out the fuel filter...looks like it is working fine.
took the upper airbox lid off and took the filter element out. looks nasty as hell...

looked at the sun thru it and i could only see light out of a tiny corner

for the hell of it i decided to leave the filter out and reassembled... bike turned on just fine. it may just be a fluke so i'm going to give it a couple days to make sure it doesn't just intermittently work before i come to the conclusion it was the air filter clogging issue (regardless i'm getting a new one)

could that be a possible issue? seems like a pretty sealed intake system on these bikes, i don't think there is any other way for air to get to the carbs and that dirty filter wasn't letting much thru.

 

That could be it but don"t run the bike for to long without the filter in there cause you sure do not want what was clogging the filter running thru your engine!

 

good point!!

i'm used to my cars where the maf screen stops any big stuff lol

are these filters usually oiled up? the one in there was sticky/oily as hell...

i know that in my cars the "pre-oiled" filter elements wreak havoc on MAFs and mess with the Hz readings...

are dry filters advised over oiled? (gonna go search that right now but thought i'd ask the question here so i can have a thread with all my questions in one spot so i can refer to them laters)

thanks all!

 

The only filter I know of that IS oiled in bikes is a K&N free flow "tuning" filter, regular ones don't get oil. A good thing to do since you're getting the bike open anyways would be to also change the plugs, or at least check their condition, if the filter have been so dirty, chances are the plugs are a) the same age as the filter, b) dirty as what since the engine hasn't got sufficient amount of air, it propably has been running a little rich so I'd expect the plugs being pretty messy too...

 

true. i will check that out as well!