I went to look at a bike the end of march and it sounded awesome and idled well, although the gas needed to be changed. I brought it home and I needed a new battery, and I figured I'd change the oil and everything so I drove it around the block a few times just to get the feel of it without changing the gas. I had it over at a neighbor's house and it was just idling, no one was touching the bike or nothing and it just died. Pushed it home and I figured I'd just change the spark plugs and oil and battery and everything then. So I finally got everything back on put fresh gas (even drained the tank before) and went to start it, it wouldn't fire. Worked on it for about 4-5 hours and finally called my neighbor to look at it. Figured that the carbs were too gummed up from the old gas, or maybe the timing is off. So now I'm gonna bring it to the honda dealer to get it all cleaned out.

Learn from my dumb mistake and impatience and don't run old gas in a bike! It will save you $500! lol

 

Old gas wouldn't instantly gum anything up, unless it was already the consistency of jell-o in the tank. In that case, yes you shouldn't have fired it up.

Otherwise - go through the carbs yourself and save a boatload of gas-money.

 

Petcock!

 

what do you think could be going on with the petcock?

 

petcock would be clogged from the bad gas. is there an inline fuel filter?

before spending $$ at the shop... undo a float bowl drain screw and see if there is any gas (and the condition of gas) in the float bowls. If there is no gas in the bowls you can hope your petcock is clogged and therefore it is likely the carbs are ok.

 

well I brought the bike to the shop yesterday, but I did try to do as much as I could, but I got too frustrated. I spent about 4-6 hours trying to get it going.

Here's what I did after the bike quit running:

changed spark plugs, tested the plug wires, took the gas tank off, drained all the gas out of the tank, took the petcock off, cleaned that. There is no inline fuel filter only a screen and it looked good (to me anyway). Filled the tank back up with fresh 91 octane fuel, drained all four carbs. Tried to start it still wouldn't fire. Took the spark plugs out, they were a lil wet (which would mean gas is getting to the carbs, which would also mean my petcock should be good right?). I put them back in and drained the carbs once again and tried to start it and it still wouldn't fire! I'm not really to sure of what else it could have been besides the carbs... My neighbor and my uncle were both trying to think of different possibilities and just decided that something maybe got into the carbs...

What do you guys think? Hopefully I'm not a total dummy for bringing it to the shop. I love tinkering on my stuff and trying to make it better, but it's getting nicer out and I just wanna ride!!

 

ever try spraying carb cleaner or starting fluid in the venturis directly to see if the bike would try and hit at all?

curious if you were even getting a cough out of it - which in my book would indicate a spark or timing issue.

 

No, I never tried carb cleaner or starting fluid or anything like that. We actually were thinking maybe the timing is off, but we weren't sure how to check and see. I looked in my honda service manual and it only showed how to check timing when it's running lol. I guess I could have worked on it a lil longer, cuz now it's snowing here again!...