For some unknown reason I left my bike on prime today when riding. I didn't even know I turned it onto prime, although I was scrubbing the side of my bike down yesterday and I assume I turned the knob when cleaning grime around it. Went for a ride today and my bike kept stalling (now i know why) but I came home and parked it in the garage. Now I have a nice garage full of gas, I turned my bike back to "ON" and hopefully that will stop the leak (still dripping after about 10 minutes).
Is there any way to expedite this a bit? How much fuel is still to leak? Is it "normal" that it's still dripping (mainly from what looks like the airbox overflow).
I'm a total noob so i apologize if this doesn't make any sense. Pictures attached, 1000 words, all that.
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not done this myself... (thankfully & touch wood) ... but .. i would think that remove seat ... unbolt rear of tank so you can lift it up .. and remove air filter .. at the very least .. then you can maybe see how much fuel is around... or at least let it evap a little... in a well ventilated area .. with no smoking!!! :thumb:
Yeah, i turned off the fuel petcock and I have the tank propped up. I think there is quite a bit of fuel, its leaking like a siv right now.
Looks like you get to take your carbs apart.
Whether it's on prime or not the needle valves should shut off flow when the carb bowls are full. If they're leaking enough to cause you issues when riding you've probably got something jamming one of them open.
just in case your frame petcock is suddenly broked... turn off the tank petcock temporarily too... in case you dont know this one... loooooong flat blade screw driver.... access from RHS of bike... look under tank between base and frame of bike... over the other side is a another petcock with a screw in centre... turn the screw to right by 90 degrees .. or so the slot is horizontal...
:thumb:
I had mine leak when someone put it on prime and we put it in the truck bed for the drive home from getting it. One thing i was told was to smell your oil. I had to rebuild my carbs, clean my air filter and do an oil change. Youll know if you gotta change the oil once you get your nose over the fill hole. You sound just like i did haha.
OK the leak has stopped, i turned the tank petcock back on and still good. Looks like I need to at least change the oil before i start the thing up again so that's first up
Couldn't get the bike to start today, trying to do an oil change. Pulled the tank and the air filter and just siphoned about .5 gal of gas out of the air box. Good news it the filter looks as clean as new.
It would seem you have a float stuck open.
gas is flowing into the carb, overflowing and coming out the front into the air box.
Look at the air intake to the carbs. Is one wet and one dry? The wet one has a stuck float needle.
When running the bike, it would still flood out that side. The only thing stopping gas is the float needles.
When running, ON or RES is essentially the same as PRIME because the vacuum valve is open and gas flows freely. Remember: it is the needles in the carbs that control the fuel flow.
When the bike is off, PRIME lets fuel flow in the absence of the vacuum. If the needles are working, you won't flood.
Transporting a bike in PRIME can flood because the vibrations are making the needles bounce up and down, letting gas into the carbs and overflowing them. In ON or RES, fuel from the tank is off so the carbs won't flood from all the vibration of being in the back of a truck.
Well is there anything i can do outside of pulling the carb. I'm willing to pull it and give it a once over but I have no way to sync it and don't really have the money to take this thing in. Spoke to my local shop today when picking up a filter and they will do my carb and adjust valve for $240 + gaskets which isnt that bad but coming up with $300 for my bike is a few weeks off.
Well just look at the up side you could have got your first personally owned bike paid some guy $380 for carb work and such THEN had to pull your carbs and hope you did them right yourself when you find out he's a lying piece of shaZam! that never touched the carbs......
Rant Off.... BUT best of luck bro and really the carbs are pretty easy to open up and put back together. Weither I fixed the left carb over flowing or not I don't know until this weekend when I put the carb back on but it was easy to open and put back together!
Toole
Oh man, so I decided to drain the oil and replace it cold anyway (since I was already half way there). Somehow I must have done something to one of the filter cover studs, thing is now free spinning. It must have just been it's time since I was only tightening it with hand tool at a weird angle and never really felt resistance.
Oh how my list of things to do before I can start the bike again keeps adding up, frustrating feeling but I will get through it.
I'm telling ya bro I feel the pain. This bike is becoming a pain in my ass! But I will get this thing running and running well!
Toole
Well good news is I got some vice grips on the stud and tugged and spun to get it to thread.
Do you think I can just replace the nut? (what i have referred to as the stud in these last two posts dur) or the entire stud? I'm going to try and see if I can find something that will thread, the old one wont thread at all.
You can get a new stud. I had a bike with a long bolt there. That works. Cover bolts are snug. Not friggin tight. There is that o ring that really does he job of sealing. Just tighten snug.
Yeah the nut just never seemed to feel snug, just continued to free spin. Be more careful in the future for sure. I'm hoping a new nut will seal it up.
Car just blew a radiator hose, my god, today is one of those days.
Quote from: ToneZone on March 13, 2013, 05:02:03 PM
Well is there anything i can do outside of pulling the carb. I'm willing to pull it and give it a once over but I have no way to sync it and don't really have the money to take this thing in. Spoke to my local shop today when picking up a filter and they will do my carb and adjust valve for $240 + gaskets which isnt that bad but coming up with $300 for my bike is a few weeks off.
When I rebuilt my carbs the most expensive items were the jets (couple bucks each), and thats is only because I wanted to rejet it. Making a sync tool is easy enough and cost me nothing..
Used some line from work, an old yardstick and a can of premix I had lying around
I did not have to change any gaskets..
OK ill look for some kind of description to make a synchro tool
I threaded that nut back on in hopes that it will at least hold when i get this thing running, tank is empty just waiting for some new gas
Quote from: ToneZone on March 13, 2013, 10:24:50 PM
OK ill look for some kind of description to make a synchro tool
Here is what you need:
8 feet or so of clear tubing, something that will fit snugly on the vacuum ports on your carbs, like aquarium tubing.
A yard stick or any other flat stick like thing that is at least two-three feet long.
Oil of some type, I used 2 stroke because I had it lying about but you could use 30 weight if you wanted too.
A few zip ties or something to attach the tubing to the stick.
Then assemble it like this, making sure you have a decent loop at the bottom with no kinks and being sure the zip ties do not crush the tubing too much
(http://thehoovers.com/images/gs/sync-rig.jpg)
Then put one end of the tubing into a container of the oil and suck a good amount of it into the tube. Make sure it is enough for the oil to go up the gauge about half way or so. I then let the whole rig sit in the sun for a bit to warm up the oil, get the oil leveled out and drained all the way in to the center before I used it.
To use it you will need to be able to access the sync screw that is between the two carbs. What you are adjusting is the difference between the two carbs on the throttle shaft. The screw is the one that is on the throttle shaft that is between the two carbs, it pretty obvious when you see it as it does not hold anything on and is for adjusting. The location of the vacuum ports varies depending on the year of you bike. The early ones are right on top of the carbs and have little rubber caps on them that you remove, if you look closely at the above pic you can see where the connect to the carbs on my bike. I don't have any other pics handy sorry. You want to make sure you don't go sucking oil into the carbs, this can happen if the tubing has a hole somewhere or if one end of the tubing pops off one of the carbs while the bike is running, this is another reason I liked the two stroke oil as it was meant to be mixed with gas and burned :)
When you start syncing you should have the bike warmed up, I let mine run for about 5 minutes before I started. You are looking to have the oil be as level as possible, you will go from changing the sync screw to resetting the idle back to 1200RPM or so, adjusting and back and forth until you have it right. I had also replaced the fuel lines and made them extra long so I could have the tank next to the bike bungeed to a stool to allow me to access everything with no issues.
Here is what mine looked like before the adjustment..
(http://thehoovers.com/images/gs/mano-off.jpg)
And after
(http://thehoovers.com/images/gs/mano-on.jpg)
I am sure others will chime in with more advice too, maybe better pics of the screws and vacuum ports.
Alright, I'm putting on my big boy pants and I'm going to pull the carb after work. Hopefully I can at least get the float moving and back in action (and it doesn't leak oil).
If i use a thicker hose can i just put some tape around the port on the carb to make sure it seals? Should I use a thinner fluid?
Ya whatever works, I would not use thinner fluid as it will fluctuate too much to get a decent reading
cool thanks for all the info, I will let you know how it goes
Bike was dripping oil from that free spinning lower nut on the oil filter cover but I found a little washer and sliding it on the oil filter stud let me use the nut and get tension. Float seemed to function fine when i started the bike today, gave them a little tap but I probably won't give the carbs a tear down until at least the weekend. Some fresh gas, a fluid check and I was on the road!!
Yay took the bike around town today and it ran nice. Really it was my first time really getting to ride the bike around and have it run well and it was lots of fun. Power on the open road was more than I really expected from the reviews of this bike.
Did notice a little tick every second, second in a half at idle but my internet researching leads me to believe that is pretty common.