I think its dying.... : (
 

I have a bad feeling my vf just took its last breath. But the circumstances seem extremely weird.

I got off work yesterday evening and decided to get out for a quick jaunt since it was so nice out. I only expected to be out for about a half hour and get some gas. Bike ran great, and got to the gas station. Filled her up with fresh 89. Started up fine, and rode for another 8 minutes or so. I made a left hand turn onto the country road that leads like 5 miles to my house, and the bike didn't react to the throttle and died (ironically in the parking lot of a shut down Harley bar. :lol) Hit the starter, bike wouldnt take. Put the choke on, hit the starter, bike wouldn't take. I started to wear the battery down, so I called my buddy to help me push start it. I've push started this bike a million times, so I know what feels right and what doesn't. On the very first push I knew something wasn't right. It almost feels like the motor or tranny is seized. When he dumped the clutch, instead of rolling the motor over, the rear wheel just locks and slides. But I rolled into the parking lot on both engine and in gear???

I'm just so fu**ing confused, tired, and pissed. I almost want to sell the bike right now and wash my hands of it. I love the 500 to death and would love to buy a mint model down the line, but this bike is such a hassle. I didn't end up having "deep enough credit" to get the gsx650f, even though I have a 710 something credit score. Credit is fucking retarded. I dont know what to do....

Put it on a charger overnight, then remove the plugs and turn the engine over to make sure its not hydrolocked with bad fuel. Then try again with some 91 non ethanol fuel.

My first thought is bad fuel, only because you rode there fine, filled up then it died. The 8 minutes you rode is just enough time to drain the good fuel from your fuel line and carbs.

It could have locked the rear for any number of reasons, one being that the carb was still dumping some fuel in the motor after it died.

Anyone else have any ideas?

This definitely sounds like a classic case of bad fuel.

Thanks! When I get it home, I will definitely get it on the charger. Unfortunately the poor girl gets to spend her second night in the back lot of a church.... in the pouring rain. Work all day and noone to help with a truck leaves me with no option. Tomorrow morning i will have my brother slowly tow me home with a tow line. :no:

Effing arab owned Sunoco.....

Happened to me twice this year (seems to be happening more lately), once on the KLR coming home from riding the BRP in october, and once in CT. Both times I was lucky enough that the bike sorta ran, as well as a bike can run under 2500rpm anyway. Both times I limped to a gas station, dumped fuel and filled up fresh, problem gone.

Did you run your petcock on "reserve"? Water is more dense than gas, so it sinks to the bottom of the tank. The reserve stem inside the tank is on the bottom, while the main stem is a couple inches higher and will draw gas instead of water. I think they still sell "Dry Gas" an alcohol that mixes with the water and burns it.

For hydrolock, one or more float needle/seats has to be dumping raw fuel into a cylinder and that usually happens when the bike sits for a while and the petcock is messed up or left in the "prime" position.

Sometimes when you fill up you will end up with a good amount of water making the engine stall.

Hydrolock = teh suck

Seafoam :idk:

Nope, bike was running in the on fuel position. I wasnt even that low on gas, I just wanted to fill up.

Still havnt gotten her back home. The popo called today to see if my bike was stolen, because the church called them concerned. My brother just laughed and told them my bike is broken. I might walk it home tonight, like 3 miles... cause my friend is being a douche about using his truck.

:iagree: All the crap that is added to "today's gasoline formula" isn't any good for older bikes ( and especially boats ).

If it were mine, I'd drain that gas and get premium from another gas station. Drain the fuel bowls if you can too. If you can afford the extra $$, a couple gallons of leaded race fuel might help ( at least it would remove gasoline as the problem).

Jeff

Finally got her home after three nights out in the lot. Ripped the tank, airbox, and filter off. Plugged her into the tender, so we'll see if it rolls over tomorrow. If the starter is rolling the motor over but I'm not getting fire, I'm pulling the carbs and taking them in. I've been putting off getting them professionally cleaned and synced for a couple months now, so there is no better time I guess. Might as well check the plugs too, and then go from there... :idk:

Our you could just drian the mahfuckin gas like these dudes told you and see of it will fire. Much quicker and easier and cheaper.

seriously, try to fix the problem at hand first, then go tearing into carbs that work so you know where the problem is. You dont want to be stuck with a bike that isn't working, has conflicting symptoms from multiple issues. That will create more headaches than you want to deal with.

Once you do get it fired up, and it runs we can talk about syncing your carbs, a very easy task that takes a few minutes of work and some home made ingenuity.

Tommorrow, dump the fuel, try new fuel and go from there. Then on Wedensday we can teach you how to sync your carbs using this doohickey

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...R/CIMG0090.jpg

Im getting there.... i just didn't list it. :whistle:

LIES! You were not. Took your old buddy marko to slap your ass and get you in gear.

Either way marko wants to slap you in the ass

I wouldn't "get there," Do it first. I'm with the rest of them - do that first and see if it fixes the problem. Otherwise, you're just chasing gremlins. OR, compounding problems.

rawr

Gross.

But you're not ruling it out.

No apparently he isn't, almost sounds like he wants it, bad

Well the bike has been on the charger since about 6pm yesterday, and I just went out and the starter button does nothing. No clicks, no rolls, nothing.

Bad battery???

turn on the key, look for head light. no light. bad wiring or short possibly fuses. you said it sat out in the rain, did water get into the fuse box? Had it happen to an older yammie I had.
if the head light comes on, push starter button, does light dim?? bad battery.
many other issues could cause this as well. these are usually the first two I think of.

Dumb question: is it in gear with the side stand down...?

I ask because I did that this morning...

Or, kill switch?

[we're trying to help, don't kill us]

Put it on a real charger, not a trickle charger. If you drained the battery, and then it sat 3 days before charging, it's probably too drained for a tender to get it back up to snuff.

This.

:lol: yes.

I had to check, but yes no kill switch.

Went to autozone and got the battery charged today. I dont have a real charger, just the tender. They said the battery was a little weak, but it should be fine for this summer...

As per the VFR forum, they wanted to make sure nothing was locked up. I've always jumped bikes in 2nd gear, but they said the compression on these bikes makes it tough to jump in that low of a gear. So I did a couple passes down my driveway hill in 4th and 5th, and the wheel finally started spinning the engine over on the 2nd pass. So nothing is really locked up. I emptied the tank (as per you all) and am starting a fresh go through of the petcock to make sure there is no grime in the filter. I am also going to do a quick mod that eliminates the need for the vacuum hose on the tank. Since my bike has no fuel pump and is gravity fed, I am cutting a bigger hole in the rubber diaphram thingy in the petcock, and then plugging the vacuum hose outlet. Then I will go get some fresh premium tomorrow morning. What would you recommend 91 or 93? Does it matter???

Then on to derf's carb school.... with... Sobe bottles? :lol:

DONT DO ANYTHING ELSE. Fix the problem first, you dont want to be chasing problems created by fixes that you create after the fact. Drain the gas, add fresh gas and go from there.



Yes, arizona iced tea bottles work just as well. Because they are glass and dont distort or expand under vaccum or pressure.

Its real simple, on the bottom of each carb is a vaccum fitting.

Stuff needed:

1. two solid glass bottles with a wide mouth top (sobe or arizona iced tea bottles work great

2. two Rubber stops (found in the nuts and bolt isle of home depot or lowes) that fit in the bottle opening

3. a few feet of hose.

4. old oil/trans fluid, basically a fairly thick and heavy liquid


How to build the sync tool:

1. drill 2 holes in each of the rubber stops so that the tubes fits in there very tight, you really need to make sure that it is a good seal between the tube and rubber stops

2. Fill the bottles with oil 1/3 way in each bottle

3. One tube needs to connect the two bottles, this tube needs to be long enough that it reaches and sits on the bottom of each bottle, it also needs to be equal length

4. Put another tube in the rubber stop, and it needs to sit just bellow the bottom of the rubber stop. These two tubes must also be equal length, and long enough to reach the carbs from wherever you are working from, the shorter the better.

5. shove the rubber stops in the bottle top

6. Test by sucking fluid from one bottle to the other and visa versa

7. It should look like this:

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/7...rbsynctool.jpg


How to sync your carbs:

1. Connect each of the tubes from the sync tool to the carbs vaccum fitting (probably on the bottom). One should be going to the fuel petcock, the other should be capped.

2. Start the bike

*watch the bottles very carefully to make sure that the oil isnt sucked into one bottle then straight into the carb. This shouldnt be possible since each bottle is only 1/3 full and the tube leading to the carb should have plenty of wiggle room before it touches the oil if both bottles drain into one.

3. Adjust the carbs until the fluid levels out between the two bottles.

*make small adjustments, the last time I sync'd carbs 1/2 turn of the screw would empty the bottle in a few seconds. Start with 1/16 turns and adjust as necessary

4. If the bike remains running with both bottles evenly filled with fluid then you have a pair of sync'd carbs. Also this isn't rocket science, close is good enough.

Edit: This is what it looked like when I did it

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/3331/image128l.jpg

Now will this technically work with a 4 carb linked unit like on my bike? Would you do the front carbs together and then the back carbs together?

Yes. Its more of a hastle, and you need 4 bottles linked together. You can use T junctions to connects the tubes together. Its way more complcated and it just takes more time, because you will have to go back and keep re-adjusting the carbs, One pair will be adjusted, then when you just the next one, the first two will fall out of sync, so you will have to go back and adjust from teh begining again. Again, its quite possible, just takes more time.

also with 4 I would put a label on each bottle so you dont forget which one goes to which carb.

http://imageshack.us/m/856/4152/carbsynctool4carb.jpg

Sounds like a PITA. But if it will save me $200....

You might be able to get away with doing each paper of 2 carbs separately, then sync the 2 sets, I really don't know how your bike works. On my cbr I did it and it took just about 30 minutes. I just set up a very strong fan to blow on the radiator, powered the bike to 3000 rpm, and double checked at idle and every 1000 rpm up to 10k. It only takes a second to look at it, just twist the throttle until it holds rpm, look at the bottles, no movement god, next rpm set.

Anything else to report on your progress?

Well, there hasn't been a report on CNN of a massive gasoline explosion in his area so it can't be bad :lol:

:lol I guess it's all how you look at it :lol:

Hey 73, some progress... but not a ton. I've had to work through the weekend.

I already yanked the carbs. They were stuck on the boots like crazy until I sprayed some wd-40 on the boots, and then they popped off with no problem. Now the real bitch was getting the throttle cables off. Not ever doing this before I didnt know what the hell I was doing. The shorter throttle cable came off kinda easy, but the longer one that wraps around the wheel was a bitch. It took me awhile to realize I was feeding the slack left... when I should be feeding it right. Doh.... I'm learning. Then I spilled gas all over myself. :bash:

While I had a couple minutes I took both mirrors off, and am going to bend them out a bit. They aren't set wide enough to see around my larger frame, so I have to move to see behind me. Then I took off my clutch lever which is bent a tad from when the bike fell up against my shed wall. I'm going to heat it up and bend it back. Then I was in the process of replacing my bent shift linkage when I noticed our house's water heater had leaked a lake all over the basement floor. :panic: Great...

Tomorrow after work I'm taking the wheels off, because my fresh BT-45s just came in. While the bike is ooc I might as well take the wheels into the Pony and have them put on.

Ah the joys of motorcycle maintenance :lol:

Another quick update. I got busy with work and school and didnt have time to work on the carbs. I gave them to my guy KC who works at a dealer. He knows a good bit about the v4 carbs.

Two day turn around is awesome when you know somebody. :rockwoot: He uncovered two things. The first was two of the four needles were completely clogged. He said this is what was causing the bad idling and muddy fueling below 4k rpm. The main problem was 2 stuck float valves which led to the breakdown. Of course this caused the carbs to piss out all the extra fuel from the overflow valve, which is why it dripped forever. He also didnt charge me for any new parts he put in them.

They'll go back in tomorrow.

Sweet. Hopefully you've fixed the problem.

Good luck man.