Found a motorcycle, don't know anything about them...

Message

ronboskz650sr · Wed Mar 30, 2005 2:29 am

You really need to:

1. Get the manual
2. Read it cover to cover
3. Decide if this is a viable project (vice grips and wd 40 won't be enough tools...need duct tape, too)
4. Do some shopping for parts
5. Is it still worth the money...you have the time, do you have the skill?
6. Fix it or sell it as a parts bike and buy a cheap, smaller bike to learn on.

If you were me (you aren't, but you remind me of me when I was young), and it was free (it is), You'd read up and dig in. Only you can assess your abilities. If you have them, good luck!

Nibblet99 · Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:42 am

Carb work could probably be done by a ten year old, (after you've got the bloody things out). It's just a case of cleaning up the bits inside. Once thats done, when putting it back together you'll have to adjust a screw, which sets how much fuel the engine gets whilst idleing. The manual will tell you roughly how much to turn it, to set it right.

As techbmw says, the pipes hanging down, are probably breather pipes. These can also be used to release all the fuel from the carb (which sounds like what's happening here). they probably come out the bottom of the carb, with a screw just above them. tighten the screw, and the fuel should stop leaking

Nibblet99 · Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:50 am

mrchristian wrote:Hey, thanks for the help!

Some questions:

-Are motorcycle batteries universal like car batteries?
-Whats the absolute lowest price we could pay for one, but still have it work for a while?
-How hard it is to get the carbs out? Do we need any special tools?
-Any good websites for parts?

Motorcycle batteries are normally either 6 or 12 volt (mostly 12), and do come in slightly different sizes. Your local bike shop should be able to look up you bikes battery type, and sell you the appropriate one. As for cost, I'm over in the UK, so can't help there.

Removing the carburettors varies lots (I don't know the model of bike your working on) On my old bike, it just takes a posi screwdriver, brute force, and ignorance

mrchristian · Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:09 am

Got the manual! Found it in the garage. Woo hoo!

mrchristian · Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:44 pm

There is NO way to get the carbs off! I didn't try very long, but these things are stuck on pretty hard. You'd think that they would make this a little more intuitive, would you? I was really scared of stripping something. In frustration, I tried to start it, and hey. It started going for about 30 seconds before hitting the kill switch in a mixture of fear and excitement. Didn't try to get it started again. Exaust looks pretty normal and its not spewing black clouds.

TechTMW · #26 Unread post by **TechTMW** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:06 pm

LOL you probably freed something up while you were messing w/ the carbs.

Let it run for a bit and see what happens... there's nothing to be afraid of, and it needs to warm up a bit to circulate the old oil and clean up deposits before changing out to new oil anyway.

You'll probably still have to clean the carbs tho ... unless someone was very smart and drained the carbs before you parked it, which would also explain why one of your drain screws was leaking as nibblett said....

mrchristian · Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:24 pm

See thats the thing. I don't even know if there is any oil in it. Its all over the sidewalk by now. So should I just run it without adding anything in, or do an oil change before I get it running for a while.

The cabs weren't drained. Guaranteed.

Nibblet99 · Thu Mar 31, 2005 1:49 am

mrchristian wrote:See thats the thing. I don't even know if there is any oil in it. Its all over the sidewalk by now. So should I just run it without adding anything in, or do an oil change before I get it running for a while.

The cabs weren't drained. Guaranteed.

If it was leaking oil, chances are, t would have leaked it before you started messing with it (unless you opened up the actual engine block), It should be alright to run for 5-10 minutes with the old oil in, but I wouldn't recommend cranking the throttle right open, till it's had an oil & filter change.

To check if there's oil in it, there's probably a little window on the bottom right hand side of the engine. If you've been running the bike for a bit, turn it off, and let is cool down for 15 mins. Then get your friend to hold the bike upright, and see if you can see oil in the window, normally, it should come about halfway up the window, and there may even be a fill to this level line next to it.

mrchristian · Thu Mar 31, 2005 9:24 am

SHE LIVES!

Alright, here's whats happened so far. The one carb has stopped leaking gas, then the next one started, then the last one started, but they've all stopped except for the last one. It won't idle and we have to keep using the throttle to keep it going. It won't kick start unless we wait for a couple of minutes in between trys. The exaust is clear on the right side, but on the left its shooting out white.

UPDATE: We started it again and flooded the engine I think. We got it running after that and a big box started GUSHING fuel.

UNIDENTIFIED BOX -> CARB -> Cylinder

I can't find what it is in the maintinence manual, but whatever it is, can we fix it? Oh yeah I figured out how to use the kick start: slowly down, then hit it fast.

Another question, How do I use the choke? I pull it out all the way to get it started, then where should it roughly be to try to get it to idle?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Exaust on left side seems to have cleared up. The bike is still way hard to get started and backfires excessively. The first time I heard it I almost wanted to go duck for cover. Its leaking tons and tons of fluids so we called it a day. My friend's dad is going to buy everything (within reason) we need for the bike. I have a woefully small list, so I was hoping you guys could help with this:

Air Filter
Oil Filter
Motorcycle Specific Oil
Carb Cleaner (lots)
New Battery (take the old one)
Impact Driver (tool)

Hey, and thanks everyone for all of the generous replies! This thing would probably still be sitting in the driveway for the rest of its life without you guys!

Gadjet · #30 Unread post by **Gadjet** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 3:13 am

That "unidentified box" behind the carb rack is the airbox. If you have fuel pouring out of this, then it means that you have flooded the carburetors. Look at the petcock (little thing sticking out below the fuel tank on the left side with a couple hoses coming off it and going to the carbs) and see what position the switch is in - should have the following setup:

RUN/ON - normal position - allows fuel flow when the engine is running
Reserve - go here when it starts to cough from lack of fuel
PRIME - unrestricted fuel flow - this opens up the fuel valve and allows the fuel to pour into the carbs - only use this position for a few seconds to prime the carbs if they have been drained for whatever reason.

if you leave the petcock in Prime, you will fill your carbs with fuel, then your airbox and cylinders. If you fill the cylinders with fuel, then it is likely that it will leak down into the crankcase and contaminate your oil, in which case you will need to do a complete oil/filter change.