hey guys, finally decided to take my bike out of storage and decided to clean the carbs. Followed the directions given in these threads to clean the carbs on my F4, but after i put everything back, its wont start. i believe its because there is no fuel in the carbs, because when i inserted few drops of fuel in each cylinder after removing the carbs, it fired up for 2 seconds.

So, please suggest what could be reason that fuel is not being pumped into the carbs. Petcock was in ON position and i checked its not clogged, fuel ran out on the petcock properly. also, i put enough gas stabilizer before storing it, so gas can't be bad either. Please give me some trouble shooting ideas. thanks.

 

After draining all the lines in my bike for "storage" it took a LONG while of cranking to get fuel back up there. Killed the battery, jumped with a spare lawn tractor battery that was sitting in the garage, killed that battery, and then jump started with the car.

If the fuel pump works like in a car, you can try cycling the key from off to on several times to "prime" the fuel system.

That's assuming everything went back together correctly. If not, I'm not much help, as I haven't really worked on bikes much yet...

Although there are several people that I'm sure will chime in (mad hatr, gotcbr) that are very knowledgeable.

Here's to hoping its something easy!!

 

Thanks for your input. and yes, because yesterday i helped cleaned the carbs on my friends F4 as well and it also wouldn't crank and the battery died. we ended up boosting it from a car battery and even then it took few minutes to fire up.

Also, when i rode my F4 on the last day before storage. bike was choking badly even at the full throttle. so i am planning to change the fuel filter and prime the fuel lines before giving it another try this time.

 

I would go back and check to see if all the gaskets sealed properly if it's not sealed the vacuum won't draw gas in. So it will run all you want force feeding it but won't continue to fuel itself. Kinda sounds vacuum related. Also check to see if the diaphrams aren't ripped.

 

is your fuel pump operating when you turn your key on and your run switch is on run?

 

Yup, i will double check the diaphragms and seals around them. But how can I tell if the fuel pump kick in when i turn on the key? does it make any certain noise?

 

when you put you hand on the pump and the kill switch on the run position then turn the key to the on position you will feel the pump vibrate....

turn the key on & off a couple times while keeping your hand on the pump to make sure it vibrates, make sure to have fuel running to the pump.

 

I'm not entirely sure but checking the fuel pump seems like the first thing I'd go with. After checking everything else out if it happens to be your fuel pump, I have an extra F4 fuel pump, pay for shipping and you can have it. The fuel pump is used but seems to be in fine condition.

 

thanks for your help guys. I finally got some time to work on it. will let you guys know how it goes

 

The fuel pump on the F4 doesn't cycle or run when the ignition key is turned on. It only runs when the engine is actually running/turning over. This can make it difficult to start the bike when you've had the carburetors off the bike and disassembled. There is a way however that you can cause the pump to "prime" as it were. On the right side of the bike, locate the Fuel Pump Transfer Relay. It's the 2nd black square from the rear of the bike with a 6 pin connector on it. If you jump the Black/White (either black/white wire, there are 2 of them, it doesn't matter) and the Black/Blue wire together, this will cause the fuel pump to run continuously and thereby fill the float chambers with fuel. These are the same to pins that you short if you're doing a Fuel Pump Flow test.