1996 F3. Just picked her up, 19k on her. Need some help on a few issues I've got:

-After riding for a while, if I turn it off and wait 10-40 mins or so, it takes a lot of cranking for it to turn over. I don't get a bunch of smoke like it's flooded when it finally catches, so I'm not really sure why it would do this. If I start up sooner than 10 mins or later than ~40 mins after shutting it off, it seems to start alright. Any thoughts on things to check?

-Carbs seem a bit gummy. It obviously hasn't been ridden for a while. Thing is, I'm not sure the best way to go about SeaFoaming a bike. Just mix it with the fuel in the tank next fill up or what? Do you recommend SeaFoam's suggested proportions or should I go weaker or stronger? What about putting some directly in the carbs, and how should I best go about that?

-I've used Royal Purple in all my cars and they liked it. Any known issues with RP in these engines or do they seem to be fine with it?

-Best Oil/Air filter brands? If anyone says Fram or K&N I'm going to smack you. I'm not usually a fan of auto parts brands, for my BMWs and Jaguar I've always used OEM filters. Anyone know if Mahle or Hengst makes filters for these things? Haha.

 

OOPS - sorry for being a damned noob, forum default setting is to only show threads 1 month old for some stupid reason. I'm usually the guy yelling at people to search on other forums. I saw you guys did a forum software upgrade lately and figured all the old oil threads just got lost in the changeover - I did read all 5 pages of the F3 section that were showing up though.

Anyway, now that I realize there's more to the forum I did a bunch of searching, so disregard EVERYTHING but the first part. Maybe I'll just make a new thread with a title people won't ignore....lol.

So, my question relates to the flooding. It has been fine the past 150ish miles. Tonight I was getting off the freeway and pulled in the clutch and it sputtered a bunch. Revved it some and it came back to life, but kept dying and dying and by the time I hit the bottom of the offramp it was gone. Got some smoke out the exhaust and some liquid drops spraying out that smell like gas.

So, I'm assuming it's flooding out? I searched & saw people recommending adjusting pilots, checking floats and needles, checking vac hoses, etc. I'm going to check the plugs tomorrow, but I'm sure they'll tell me it's way too rich. Anything in particular I should look for while I'm working on it?

Help is appreciated with the flooding issue, sorry about the other stupid questions.

 

in regards to the seafoam... i love the stuff. i used it when i have an 89 gsxf1100 and it seemed to really help the carbs. be careful when you mix make sure you read the instructions, because its really strong stuff and you dont' want to make your gas to rich and really cause something. upon everything else i'm a practical engine paraplegic i have no clue. but like i said i really like the seamfoam

 

if the bike has been sitting for some time most likley you had some bad gas and it gummed up the carbs.

yes go ahead and try some sea foam, you might get lucky and the chems clean out the gunk.

If not your looking at a carb cleaning and thats a whole nother story.

try the seafoam.

 

just go to honda get a filter and oil. now, i get a gallon of rotella and a $4 fram..bike doesn't seem to care how much you spend as long as its compatible. as its 13 yrs old, it doesnt make any sense to start wasting money on $10 a qt oil and $20 filters.

 

I'm a seafoam addict.

In order to do the "intake cleaning" using this treatment, you'll need to suspend your gas tank from something, or just elevate it and run tubing from it to the hose that plugs into the petcock. Then you can idle the bike and pour little amounts of seafoam into all 4 throttle bodies as evenly as possible (this is with the air box taken apart to expose the throttle bodies of the carbs). There is a decent youtube video of a guy doing this to his f2/f3, I can't remember exactly. He uses funnels to speed up the process of pouring seafoam into the carbs one after the other.

You'll only need to use about 1/4 of the can for this.

For the "gas cleaning" portion of the motor treatment, i've noticed good results with a more potent dosage. Instead of the skimpy 1 once/gallon iirc, i've used up to 2/4 of the can with as little as HALF tank of gas. Even at idle you'd see the carbon-filled fumes coming out of the pipe. This is how you know that you're cleaning up the gunk. You're idle will be lower than normal, but it should continue to do so.

As for the "oil treatment" i've never liked adding that "1/3" can into the oil, both in the cars/truck and the motorcycle. It does clean up all the sludge and gunk in the oil, and therefore requires the immediate replacement of the oil filter. Although this may be a good oil treatment, I'm not sure how it'll fair in the engine/tranny oil of the motorcycle. Consequently, I prefer to use seafoam on the gas/intake systems of vehicles.

 

Thanks for the replies guys, especially info for adding it straight into the carbs. I wasn't sure I could do that. To make sure, I can just elevate the tank with a longer hose, and pour Seafoam down the velocity stacks?

 

Absolutely. Just be sure to induce seafoam slowly into the velocity stacks until 1/3 or so of the can is gone and just before it is, add a higher dosage into them. The engine will sounds like it's dying, let it. You want to flood the intake this way and then wait 5 MINUTES as the can says after which you will start it up (it will be a rough start!). Let is idle, the fumes will be obnoxious in smell and color. Give it some revs here and there.

P.s make sure you're doing this on a warmed engine.

 

Cool. Well, I got ahead of myself and decided to take the whole damn carbs off anyway.....:rofl: I'm wondering if I've got a stuck float from the flooding it's doing so we'll see I guess. And damn there are a lot of hoses with fuel in them.....a few too many surprises there that weren't in the manual.....lol.

 

DAMMIT. I keep forgetting how different carbed engines are from electronically controlled FI. So, I should have mentioned I've got a Yoshi exhaust and a K&N filter (surprise, just found that out).
-If I have stock jetting, will that cause my odd problem of it not restarting and lately just plain flooding out?
-Is there a way to know if I'm on stock jetting or aftermarket from looking at them?

Hopefully I'll get some help ASAP since I plan on cleaning the carbs now and would love to know before I'm ready to put them back together. I know these are diaphragm based from what I read, is it OK to shoot carb cleaner through the jets or will that destroy the diaphragm (I have no clue what connects where...lol).