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I just bought a bike that has just under 6700 miles on it. I just found that it's supposed to have the valves adjusted at 6,000 miles and I don't know if the previous owner had the valves adjusted or not, I can call him and ask. I doubt it though. He wasn't the first owner, I'll assume that the owner before him had them adjusted at 600 though.

Reason I ask is because my bike worked fine the majority of the day yesterday and then started acting really funny. It shut off mid ride and we got it restarted. Figured it was out of gas (it was reeeally low, we were riding to the gas station). Then it died again. We found that if we kept it above 3000 RPM's it would stay alive, so we got it there and filled up. Restarted, it ran for a second, and then died again. Got it to run fine at about 1500 rpm's and rode home. Got there, cranked it, and a watery substance started leaking...from the left exhaust. Quite odd. It also leaked out of the carburetor. We quickly killed it and pulled the carbs. We didn't clean them after we bought the bike (which had been siting outside for almost a year, ick!) so we supposed they might just need a good cleaning. Hopefully that'll be it.

If not though, what else do you all think it could be? Could the valves need an adjustment (hopefully they're not messed up!). I really hope that it's just the carbs. I probably need to have the valves adjusted anyways, but I'd rather them not be damaged.

Watery substance?

Not an antifreeze-like substance I hope.

Is this bike water cooled? If not it is likely that the water came from the fuel tank. If you switched from regular flow to reserve you may have gotten water from the very bottom of the fuel tank into the carb. If so the carb should have a drain screw that can be removed to drain the carbs. Drain the water out and start engine it should clear up after a few miles. Hope this helps you.

From the avatar, I'm guessing he has a ninja 500.

Yes'm, it's an EX500. Water cooled. We were a bit confused though. We couldn't really identify exactly what it was coming out of the exhaust, we thought it was old water (we drained the old coolant and the water smelled awful, thought it was the same stuff) but we also thought it could have been burned gasoline (which I wouldn't have thought would be in liquid form). What came out of the carbs...I don't know if it was the same stuff, it had more of a gasoline-like smell, but once again we weren't sure. He pulled the carbs and is going to take them to his shop to check them out...

Do the valves seriously need to be adjusted at 600 miles? I've yet to find a bike that needs that.

Since the carbs are off, be sure to drain the fuel tank from the reserve line. The best thing to do is remove the tank and drain completely.

Since it is a new engine they probably want to reset the valves after they have had time to wear and set in a bit.

Sev... check your owners manual, I think all Hondas call for valve clearance check at 600 miles. 2 friends of mine bought new Shadows last year and both called for that at the first service (600 miles). Of course your bike is different so... it might just be certain models.

My 599, my Savage, my friends Marauder, KC's Ninja all call for one at 6000 miles, not 600.