I'm pretty stumped and very frustrated as I am needing to put my F3 up for sale because I'm moving out of the US in 2 weeks :/ I have done all repairs to my bike over the last 7000 miles and consider myself to be savvy.

This has happened 3 times in the past week on my way to work: A little over a mile in, close to the same spot all 3 times, the bike loses power, kind of sputters for a bit as I try to keep it going, and then dies. When I try to start it back up again it will either turn over for a long time before it will finally "catch", and idle at about 800-1000rpms before dying. If I give it any throttle at this point, it will die. Also while cranking it over if I open the throttle at all it won't catch either. It sounds to me like it is rich/flooded. Even if I wait 10 minutes it still won't start up fine. I cleaned my carbs last night, the jets were all fine, the bowls were a little dirty but all is clean now. I was hoping that might have been the problem, but then it died again this morning the same way. Another thing I should mention is when I go and pick my bike up several hours later it fires right up and drives home fine.

I'm really stumped because yesterday I commuted 80 miles and it was fine the whole time, and I've made various other trips of 5-30 miles as well in between the days it dies.

Thanks for reading and I hope I can get some help as it's really stressing me out.

 

Have you checked the contacts on the fuel pump? They could be going bad, or just plain dirty

 

my rectifier did that it would get me home but i think its that it works till it gets really hot then its all up to the battery mine did that for a week till it went kaputz got 3 20 dollar chinese 1s and still have the other 2 or u could do the gsxr rec and i hear that works get the 1s with heat sink it helps

 

Thanks for the input. I did replace those a few months back, but I went ahead and just checked them anyways and they still look brand new. Darn.

 

I was thinking a little more broadly, beyond fuel, and thought about exhaust. Would an exhaust leak cause the engine to run rich? I have a two bros slip on and I guess it isn't quite flush with the connecting pipe, and exhaust leaks out a decent amount at idle. Would this cause the rich air/fuel problem?

Edit: Looking online, apparently this is a big problem with snowmobiles. Exhaust leaks cause them to run rich.

 

I'll test my R/R later today then. I did test it not too long ago and it was fine then, could be different now.

 

i've had a leaking exhaust (header and link pipe) you need a link pipe gasket i believe to stop the blowing BUT my bike has a big header leak and its not caused any problems, just runs rich enough to smell it a mile away and a bit louder than usual, check your fuel tap. check the carb slides and check your r/r then go about looking into your side stand kill switch i remember i had problems with that kill switch. oh and check all your fuses connections are good, if a fuse is not contacting well this could be causing the problem.