About a month ago i was rearended at a stop sign. The expadition hit my bike with just enough speed to knock it over. After that the carbs flooded, i waited a few minutes and it started up, then i took it home.

The next day i took it to a shop to get an estimate of the damage for the insurance company. It had been sitting at the shop all month. The insurance company finally paid me so i picked it up from the shop and rode home. One of the techs told me it was only cosmetic damage and that it was mehanically sound.

Today i rode it to work, which is a 7 mile trip. I stopped at a red light half way, as i released the clutch and gave it a little gas, half way through releasing the clutch it started to lurch forward a bit and then died.
This happened again at another light but this time when it started to lurch i pulled the clutch in and brought the rmps up to about 5k then took off.

Before i went to lunch i adjusted the idle screw and the clutch cable, thinking that one of the shop tech messed with them. As i stopped at another red light i noticed that the idle speed dropped as i waited. When i took of, the same thing happened, just gave it more throttle to over come the lurches and stalling. When i got back to work i pulled in the clutch to back in to a parking space while the engine was running and it died.

Any ideas on where to start looking, to figure this thing out. Before i took it to the shop this never happened, everything was really smooth.

 

How old is the tank of gas? I'd start simple.

Carb pilot jets could be a bit gummed up.

 

i would throw some new plugs and new gas in it and then go from there

 

How many miles on the bike ? It is 11 years old. Any troubles with turning over while trying to start it again ?

 

Last night i took the fairings and gas tank off, to check the plugs. i wasnt expecting them to be that hard to get to and i didnt have a enough time to take the airbox off so instead i cleaned the air filter. Seemed to help a little.

I wont have time to check the plugs til next week though.

I filled the tank a month ago just before i took it to the shop. It has about 50,000 miles on it, and after it stalls it starts right up with no problems.

 

2 common things that go bad can cause the non-descript symptoms you're having. The fuel pump, and the R/R. The R/R is easy enough to check with a meter. The fuel pump is a little more difficult to pin down. Since you're able to start it right back up with no problem, it doesn't sound like the R/R since you'd probably have issues with keeping the battery charged. I'd certainly inspect the contacts on the fuel pump since you've got 50k on the bike.

 

last night, I changed the oil, oil filter, coolant, fuel filter, cleaned the carbs and changed the plugs.

On the bowl side of the carbs there is a hose that connects the 2 middle carbs. it was full of black liquid. And the plugs were black.
When i drained the coolant, only about a quart came out.

I rode 50 miles to drill this morning and everything was pretty smooth. No more stalls, no more crazy idle and no more over heating.