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I know this has been asked before. . .

  • Thread starter Thread starter miles28
  • Start date Start date
M

miles28

Guest
but for the life of me I searched every phrase I could think of and couldn't find it here. I even seem to remember one of the Senior members stating something like "if another newbie asks this question, I'm gonna pull my hair out". And yet, I bravely march on. . .

My question is this: the spark plug on my #2 cylinder is consistently getting fouled, and I seem to remember this being consistent with a specific problem for early GS models (maybe even later ones as well). Can anyone help me out with this?
 
If it was #3 it would likely be the vacuum line to the petcock sucking fuel through a bad diaphragm. But it's #2, that's not it.
Are you counting your cylinders left to right?
Float level too high on that one? Leaking needle?
Bad spark?
 
Yano...if another newbe asks a question like this I'm going to pull my hair out.
(all one of them!) :D

I am going to assume you are asking about the gs you have in your signature.


my question to you, is the fouling that you are seeing fuel or oil?
 
tkent02 said:
If it was #3 it would likely be the vacuum line to the petcock sucking fuel through a bad diaphragm. But it's #2, that's not it.
Are you counting your cylinders left to right?
Float level too high on that one? Leaking needle?
Bad spark?
Click to expand...

Interesting. I thought all the GSs pulled vacuum from #2. The 750B is different?
 
rustybronco said:
Yano...if another newbe asks a question like this I'm going to pull my hair out.
(all one of them!) :D

I am going to assume you are asking about the gs you have in your signature.


my question to you, is the fouling that you are seeing fuel or oil?
Click to expand...


Hmmm, good question. How could I tell? It seems the carbon is black, puffy & dry. . . does that help?
 
tkent02 said:
If it was #3 it would likely be the vacuum line to the petcock sucking fuel through a bad diaphragm. But it's #2, that's not it.
Are you counting your cylinders left to right?
Float level too high on that one? Leaking needle?
Bad spark?
Click to expand...


I am counting left to right. So left side, inner plug. . .that's #2 right?
 
miles28 said:
Hmmm, good question. How could I tell? It seems the carbon is black, puffy & dry. . . does that help?
Click to expand...

Good news.
That's fuel, it's running too rich for some reason...
Oil is shiny black and looks wet.
When are you going to bring that bike over here so we can get it running right?
 
miles28 said:
Hmmm, good question. How could I tell? It seems the carbon is black, puffy & dry. . . does that help?
Click to expand...

Could also be weak spark at that plug. Do you see a fat blue spark? You may want to test the resistance of the spark plug cap or just unscrew/snip off 1/4" of wire/re-screw. Or just replace them.
 
tkent02 said:
Good news.
That's fuel, it's running too rich for some reason...
Oil is shiny black and looks wet.
When are you going to bring that bike over here so we can get it running right?
Click to expand...

Soon I hope! I'm going on a small tour, but should be back next weekend. Maybe then?
 
JTsGS650 said:
Could also be weak spark at that plug. Do you see a fat blue spark? You may want to test the resistance of the spark plug cap or just unscrew/snip off 1/4" of wire/re-screw. Or just replace them.
Click to expand...

I think I may have read this before, but what's the procedure for checking for a spark?
 
Remove spark plug wire, remove spark plug, re-connect wire, lay against head (so the outside is grounded), crank engine.
 
ok, so I did the spark check. They all seem to have a very faint spark that travels around the lobe. I get the impression that a fat blue spark is not what I was seeing, but they all seemed to be skinny light blue sparks. Does that mean anything? Also, every plug but the one fouling had a slight yellow hue on the ground electrode, is that significant?

-Chris
 
Dogma said:
Interesting. I thought all the GSs pulled vacuum from #2. The 750B is different?
Click to expand...

Yes, it pulls vacuum from #3. I'm not positive on this, but I believe ALL VM series carbs pull vacuum on #3. Its the CV setup that pulls vacuum off of #2.

Earl
 
miles28 said:
So does anyone think I may have a bad fuel petcock?
Click to expand...

NO, the vacuum line on your bike is on the #3 cylinder, so a faulty petcock
would cause #3 to foul, not #2 which is your problem. I would suspect a bad spark plug boot to wire connection on the #2 plug wire. The plug boot unscrews from the end of the wire, so its easy to remove and check and strip back 1/4" of wire if need be. Also. check resistance on the plug cap while you have it off. The cap should read about 5k ohms.

Earl
 
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