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Ok, so I unscrewed the carb bowl drain screws a little to allow the gas that's already in there to drain, and then tightened them again, so the gas has stoped leaking, but now the bike won't start. If I push the ignition button it makes a click sound once then makes an "eeeeee" noise for a about a half a second, then stops. The engine doesn't turn over at all, and the starter doesn't seem to be turning either. I know the starter worked perfectly before the whole carb thing, so it has to be related. Any ideas?

Have the petcock back to prime?

It won't start without any gas, obviously, and since you just drained it from the carbs then there wouldn't be any residue to go off of either.


A simple mistake but common one, yet.

Noop, I made sure the petcock was in prime, then tried it in reserve. But the right carb isn't draining gas at all. The left one is the one I originally had problems with, and now it seems to be working fine, but the right one seems to be the problem now. If I unscrew the drain screw, it doesn't drain anything at all, not in prime or reserve.

To your original problem, the only reason that gas would come out the vent tube is if the float/needle/seat were sticking and allowing gas in all the time instead of just when the level dropped. Either a bit of crud in the seat or sticking float.

Perhaps your tank has some grit/rust in it that has gotten into the carbs clogging the float needle and seat.

It also sounds like you may have drained your battery, put it on charge for awhile. Idling generally will kill a battery, they need to be ridden at higher than idle rpm to charge.

Keep your chin up, you'll get it worked out. Was the bike ridden recently or has it sat for awhile before you got it?

It's not the battery, I just bought a new battery on friday, and the lights are bright, and the starter tries to turn. And yeah, it was ridden by the guy I bought it from right before I bought it, and my neighbor (who's a mechanic) rode it around for a couple minutes for me, to make sure it ran ok.

Anyway, I've narrowed it down to the right carb only, because the left carb is working correctly I think. You may be right about the carb being clogged, and if so, how do I fix that?

check the gas line going into the right carb, it may be clogged. The float could be stuck closed on the right carb as well.

as for the starter, sounds like your starter may have given up the ghost. Make sure there is a full charge in that battery too. Just because it will light the headlight does not mean it has enough charge in it to crank the starter

Ok, so the starter works fine, I took the spark plugs out and held the ignition button and sorta cleaned out the cylinders, then put the spark plugs back, and it started. But the right carb still doesn't work, and isn't delivering fuel to the cylinder. I don't really want to take apart the carb yet, so I want to check to see if the fuel is getting to the carb at all, so I was wondering if anyone knows how to check that on a nighthawk.

Just curious, but shouldn't this whole post be moved to the trouble shooting topics???

pull the fuel line off of your right carb and see if gas comes out.

maybe try the tapping with the screwdriver trick in case the float is stuck in the up position. Anying more will require disassembling the carb

camthepyro wrote:Ok, so the starter works fine, I took the spark plugs out and held the ignition button and sorta cleaned out the cylinders, then put the spark plugs back, and it started. But the right carb still doesn't work, and isn't delivering fuel to the cylinder. I don't really want to take apart the carb yet, so I want to check to see if the fuel is getting to the carb at all, so I was wondering if anyone knows how to check that on a nighthawk.

Take a piece of clear hose (like, say, standard airline hose found in the pet aisle at your local supermarket), attach it to the carb's bleeder nipple, then unscrew the drain bolt a couple turns (not all the way out!). If there's fuel in the carbs, it'll come out.

No fuel? Either the carb isn't getting fuel to it, or not letting it down into the bowls. Easiest way to find out is pull the fuel feed off the carb. Fuel spilling everywhere? You get to take apart your carbs. No fuel? Check for a clog in the fuel line, or if you have a dual-output fuel petcock, you might have to disassemble and clean it.