So this weekend I got my bike started up and took it for a test drive for the first time since I’ve got it. (I only got the last body panels recently – bought her with the front end smashed) Well she started up and drove fine. I then took her down to the gas station and put only 5litres of gas. Anyway I drove her for about 10km and suddenly she started running on three cylinders. I stopped and then I saw some gas leaking out from underneath the bike below the radiator but only for a moment then it stopped. When I tried to started her again the starter wouldn’t turn. I didn’t think of it then but later realized that one of the cylinders were filled with gas so the piston couldn’t come up.
I suspected it’s one of the floats on the carbs. Well I didn’t have time until yesterday to take the bike apart.
The first thing I checked was my oil which for obvious reasons has increased by almost 500ml so obviously I’ve got some gas in there so I drained it.
I took of the carbs but I can’t see that any of the floats are leaking I tested this by filling them up with fuel till the floats valves close and then blowing into the fuel inlets pipes of the carbs and it’s blocked solid so if it is leaking it’s not enough to have coursed the incident over the weekend.
Definitely I can see that the sparkplugs are getting foiled or the engine is running very rich. I took them out and cleaned them up and it the bike was running fine (for a couple of minutes) It then started missing and running on 3 cylinders till eventually it didn’t want to start at all.
I decided to replace the spark plugs. She then started fine but after a couple of minutes she was doing the same thing. It looks to me this is happening on all four cylinders cause eventually the bike doesn’t want to start at all and I have to clean all the spark plugs.
This has happened a couple of times before when she wasn’t drivable and just parked on a stand in the garage but thought it was because she was only idling and I never drove her. I only noticed the story about the fuel going into the oil over the weekend. Fortunately this was the only time I drove here and it was for a short distance so I don’t think it did her any damage.
Does anyone have a idée what could be wrong? (I’m quite sure it’s something with the plumbing or the carbs)