so my bike sat in the living room for the winter with gas in it and then this happened today...can anyone tell me if this sounds like bad gas and gunkie carbs? or spark plugs? today i got my bike started after some electrical problems and it ran fine. i rode it about 20 minutes to my dads and just as i got there it died out, and i could start it again but it idled really low and then died, then i started it again and it just died right away so i started it a third time and kept on the gas and held it at like 4000 and drove it the rest of the way to his place but it sounded like a lawnmower. ive never heard anything run down on cylinders but could it be that? as i pulled into his driveway it suddenly started running fine again and sat and idled fine as i sat there. about 2 hours later i drove to my gf's work and it was about a 15 minute drive and ran fine all the way there. i left with her about 10 minutes later and and as we went back to her place it rode fine for about 5 minutes and then started running like crap, lurchy like its low on gas and lawn-mowery sounding. i had to bump start it while i was riding it several times and then when we got to the bottom of her rode, i went to take a turn and it completely died and i couldnt restart it so I pulled into a little parking lot and she called her house and after about 5 minutes, it started up just fine and rode fine back to her house.

does this sound like crap in the carbs and gas? i kind of ruled out bad spark plugs imo because it would be a consistent problem if that was what was wrong, but if its bad gas they could have fouled the plugs


someone on another forum suggested that it could be the ignition coil going bad and when it heats up it creates a no spark condition

 

1 Clean your plugs
2 Put seafoam in your tank
If that doesn't clear it, strip and clean throttle bodies/carbs - jets may be blocked.

 

I also say try seafoam! It works and will get the light gunk out of the carbs. Plus add fresh gas 93 octane if you can.

 

Doesn't sound like anything serious. Drain your tank and then get to the overflow screws at the bottom of each carb and drain the gas from there. Just get all of it out. Refill it with 89 93 whatever put that seafoam it and get out and ride on it. If by the time youve run out of gas and the problem is still there you're going to need to clean the carbs. Not a hard thing to do but easy to get wrong. Try that and let us know how it goes. Check those sparkplugs if it's still giving you trouble since those are harder to get to i would save that for after you've flushed the gas out put in new gas and put in seafoam and just tried that. If none of that helps then do the carbs.

 

you guys dont think its weird that its such an intermittent problem though? id think if it was gas then it would happen all the time and it would never run right. (im at school btw so i cant work on it right now)

 

so it ended up being either a kinked breather tube or just disgustingly bad gas. i pulled the tank and replaced the gas and it runs like a champ. it is time however to clean the carbs im assuming

 

I would. I'd bet dollars to donuts it's related to the carbs being gunked up. For future reference the best way to store your bike is to turn the gas off and run the bike until it starts to sputter. Turn the bike off promptly, then open the float bowl drains, which are easily accessed from the sides with a long screw driver. Drain the fluid, ideally into a towel and not right onto the engine. Close them back up when you're done, and presto chango your bike will store fine. The gas in the tank may go bad, but your carbs won't gunk up and will be as good as the day you stored your bike!

Oh yeah: Clean your carbs anyways

 

What he said to the letter.

Also, since your bike is running and if you dont feel like pulling carbs you may be able to get away with a bit of seafoam to clean things out and smooth out the carbs a bit. I like it as preventative maintenance every once in a while. (read maybe once a season)

 

i have a can of it, how much as a big dose to see if i can clean stuff up. should i run the tank till its almost empty and then add a bunch to dilute the gas? or should i add a bunch to a full tank and just run it? im not really sure how to use it.

btw, thats for the storing advice, i always shut the gas off and ran it till it started to sputter but i never drained the rest out of the floats. thanks alot