I bought a house a few years ago and threw my 2001 CBR 600 F4i in the basement - up on a racing stand. About 6,500 original miles on the OD. Well it sat there for 5 years. I finally decided to pull it back out and ride around a bit again. I am pretty sure that I had put stabilizer in the fuel tank when I put the bike in storage.

Well I replaced the battery and amazingly it started right up. I rode it around the block a few times and in town about 6 miles.

Well I decided to drive it to work the other day. When I got off the freeway the bike died. I got it started by pop starting it and made it to the office. It would not idle I had to keep feathering the throttle to keep it running.

Well I got it started when I left the office and made it 6 of the 25 miles home. It took about 2 hours for the tow truck to show up and get me home.

I had stopped to fill the tank at the beginning of the day and just before it died the reserve indicator came on - when I checked the tank it was pretty empty. I did not see any fuel leaking out. I did see some white smoke in my rear view mirror just before it stopped working.

Just before storage I had the oil changed with Full Synthetic. My intent was to do this short ride and change the oil.

Now I think that the issue is somewhere in the fuel system. I do not see any rotten hoses or any signs of leaking gas, but I cannot explain where the 3.5 gallons that it had in it would have gone in just 30 miles of driving.

I removed the tank and it appears in good condition.

Any ideas where to look?

 

You let your bike sit for 5 YEARS??? :O

Yep, def sounds like fuel system.

 

In all honesty I never meant to let it sit that long. I think I did mainly because I had ridden nothing but motorcycles for about 10 years and I finally had enough. Just before I moved I got a nail in the rear tire and it had a slow leak (every 2 days). This was the third time in about 6 months and I was tired of having to spend so much on tires and everything else. Plus I felt I had put in my time riding - this bike is my 3rd CBR and my 6th or 7th bike. I am just now ready to really ride again and get back out there.

 

Good to hear you're ready to get back out there. :-)

Hope you get the issue(s) sorted quickly.

 

I'm a total novice and I'm not sure that I can offer you much advice but I can tell you that I had my 03 sitting for 7 years (not by me, I only acquired it recently) and it just barely hit 5000 km on it before sitting that long.

First thing I did was drain the gas and inspect the tank for any rust. There's a little bit but nothing that will break the bank just yet. Replaced air filter, coolant and oil. Sounds like you did some of this already.

I also had blistering white exhaust which turned out to be a faulty fuel pressure regulator. I find it weird that your bike ran fine and then died that much later, but mine was sort of similar in the beginning. It would run and I could take it down the street. It would eventually start bogging and getting worse until it decided to die on its own. Just kept doing this over and over. You can check the FPR by removing the smaller vacuum hose on it and then turning the bike on to see if it leaks gas. If gas spews out from the FPR then it has gone bad from sitting for 5 years which will result in strange idle jumps and terrible MPG. Even with fuel stabilizer in there those FPR's find a way of going bad.

My exhaust smelled rich of gas which was fixed by putting in a new FPR too. If your FPR has any indications of going bad then your sparks will be dirty too. If the FPR is fine and the fuel pump is priming normally with the key in the 1st position then this is about as far as I can help you because I don't know much else yet. But I did want to let you know that I experienced almost the exact same situation so keep an eye on that regulator and let us know what the outcome is

 

my bike cranked up fine after sitting for 6 years, with some cleaning, rust removal, oil, new fuel, then it started idling really bad after a minute or two, white smoke and all, faulty fuel pressure regulator.
somehow the gas in my tank turned to rust, cause even the bottom of the tank was rusted.
oh yeah i forgot to mention a new fuel pump assembly was replaced as well. but that was completely dead, FPR was the real cancer.

 

Just a quick update:
I am pretty sure that at a minimum my FPR is bad. I called around and no one had one in stock locally so I had to order one online. I am now waiting for it. My guess is that it will not get here before next week.
I will post here once I get it in and replace the bad one.

 

Got the part about 1.5 weeks ago. Got the FPR replaced last week, but did not have the time to get the bike back together. Finally got everything put back together tonight and some gas in the tank.

It took a moment to fire up, but it did. Idle was a bit high and it smelled very rich. Also exhaust seemed to be white.

Let it get up to temp - idle came down and I rode it around the block a few times and a little stretch of highway.

The engine handled great - the tires are totally crap at this point. Handling only felt a little odd since I am sure that the tires are just really bad.

Will replace the oil this weekend hopefully. Just need to find the time.

Thanks for the help here. This has been an awesome resource.

 

Oh yea after running for a bit the exhaust still smelled a bit rich to me, but it was no longer white....