Help get my bike started

[fslflint]

recently, I bought an 87 fz 700 under the assumption that it had not been run in a few months and the owner wasn't sure of the condition. Before I buy the bike I check it over for any obvious signs of neglect (beside not being run), everything looks pretty tidy. so at home I change the oil, drain and refill the gas tank, and hook up the battery charger. I check the filters (air and fuel), they are good. I also checked the carbs, they look pretty clean. so after the battery has charged for a good amount of time I attempt to start it. the engine cranks over real hard but doesn't start. now, the spark plugs are kinda hard to get to, so I haven't checked them out. I did get out the multimeter and check if I have current at the coils, I do. now what?

flint

[niterider]

If you have some carb cleaner spray, spray a bit into the carbs and see if it fires off. If it does, your problem may be in the fuel delivery. I hope this helps you out some.

[fslflint]

thats what I was planning on doing last night, but then my battery charger went on the fritz, so I gotta get a new one and try it tonight

[niterider]

I've noticed here on this forum that when having trouble with feul delivery a lot of the times it is that the vaccuum hose to the feul cut off has cracks and does not hold the vaccuum to keep the valve open.

[flynrider]

Good point niterider. Most of the vacuum operated petcocks I've seen have a "prime" position which will deliver fuel without requiring a vacuum. A good test is that if the bike will run on "prime", but not on other postiions, then you have a problem with a vacuum line or petcock diaphram.

[fslflint]

well, I got a new battery charger assuming that the problem was the charger. it kept on giving me the fault message. so I exchanged it for a new charger, went home and hooked it up. and about 3 seconds later it gave me the same message. so I took the battery out of the bike and hooked it up, per the instructions. I turned it on and still no luck. so now I think I need a new battery before I can continue with getting the bike started. that sucks. whats weird is it worked for a couple of hours the night I got the bike, then the next night it gave me the fault message.

[fslflint]

well, its started and running. now the carbs need balanced. I plan on using the sticky in this forum to try and do it myself. Had a friend laugh at me when I told him I was going to try to balance the carbs myself. he likes to think of himself as quite a mechanic, but then he was pretty sure that the tubing and ATF method was not going to work.

[niterider]

I tried that method on the sticky. I belive that it will work; however, all I managed to do was run the oil into the carb that had the higher vaccuum.
I may need a tube with a bigger diameter, so that the oil will allow air to flow through it instead of sucking the oil out of the tube. Good luck