Riding with Choke on? GS750E (New rider)

[sre15]

Good morning. I just picked up an 81 GS750E! I’ve got 16k on the clock. The PO told me it takes about a 20 min ride to get the bike correctly warmed up so that the choke is no longer needed. The bike starts great first time, but the choke needs to be engaged slightly to keep the bike from dying when approaching a stop sight/light.

Is this completely normal with these bikes or is there a carb issue that I need to look at addressing?

Thanks for any input. It’s a blast to ride! My first bike.

[Nessism]

20 minutes sounds abnormal. It will take some time, though. There could be some crud slightly blocking the pilot passages. You can also try opening up the pilot screws a little more, since they affect the low speed running and idle. Needless to say, a fresh carb cleaning, with new O-rings, is always a good idea on a 40-year-old bike, unless it's been done recently.

[Rich82GS750TZ]

/\ Yep, What Ed said. My bike, same engine/carbs as yours, before I cleaned the carbs (actually paid someone to do it for me) my bike would take a while to warm up enough to turn the choke fully off. After cleaning/new orings, within a few minutes of starting, the choke can be shut off completely. A little longer if it's really cold outside and I haven't run it in a week. But never more that 3-4 minutes.

Once it does warm up/choke off, does your idle settle down to @1100 RPMs?

[LAB3]

Here's the thing. Yes those carbs are probably in need of a cleaning but you have a bike that's capable of being ridden as is. The question becomes do you have the will and ability to make it run better?

Removing a set of carbs on a four cylinder bike is a relatively big job. Granted it's not very technically challenging but still, it's going to take a lot of effort. Then there's breaking the carb rack apart, disassembly and cleaning. Again not very technically challenging.

Now comes the challenging part, reassembly! Getting things properly put back together and tuned IS rather challenging, especially if you've never done it before. Granted, you've got a fantastic resource here on this site with plenty of experienced and patient folks willing to guide you. How easy or hard it is depends a lot on your previous experience and patience.

So, if you want to get your bike to run perfect by all means do the cleaning and rebuild! There's nothing more satisfying than having done it yourself and having the confidence in your abilities should a problem pop up later. On the other hand, if you're OK with having a bike that's a little quirky and really don't want or care to deal with a challenge then keep riding it the way it is.

You'll have to make the call on which direction to go here. I've done both the "good enough" thing and the "perfect" route myself and prefer the latter. Like I said, the confidence you'll gain will be something you can't ignore but in order to gain it there's a lot of headaches to deal with a long the way.

[rphillips]

I may get reprimanded for suggesting it, but while you're making your decision what to do, why not run some Sea Foam, or other fuel system cleaner through it. If it don't help you've lost $5, if it does help you've gained a ton.

[Who Dat?]

SeaFoam won't hurt, but it won't fix his "problem".

Like Ed and Rich said, you need to ensure that the carbs are clean and properly adjusted. They were set rather lean when new, to meet changing EPA standards for emissions. Since then, it has been found that they were TOO lean, and actually run very poorly, even when warmed up. Richening the pilots a bit (screw adjustment, not jet size) makes a world of difference. My bikes are rideable within 30 seconds of starting, then the 'choke' is turned off by the time I get into third gear. 20 minutes of 'choke' use is about 19 minutes too long.

[rphillips]

I agree with him ^^^ Sea Foam won't hurt, but where he said "won't fix his problem" I'd say "probably" won't fix his problem, I've seen the stuff do things when I'd have thought there was no chance. Yep, 20 min is way out of range, never heard of near that long, couple or three min. on a cold day first start-up maybe. Back in the day, in my area, we'd put 1 size larger pilots in to ease the lean starting, many say it won't help but we always thought it did, it for sure it never hurt anything.

[sre15]

Thanks for the great tips everyone!

[Suzukian]

Very cold blooded bikes those years. My '83 GS750E is the same way. I did raise the needles one notch, boy did that increase the midrange power. It's definitely running lean down low. I start the bike by putting my hand over the inlet under the seat. Once it starts, a few revs, and hold it at 1200 rpm's, and it's good to go. Maybe a 3 minute process. Once that is done, I don't have to touch the bike when starting, unless it gets "overnight" cold.

[letchworth rider]

Try a fuel system cleaner-it may work. The CURE is disassembly, METICULOUS cleaning (pilot jets!) and reassembly and balancing. From experience on same bike. When you get it right it is a great ride!

[Big T]

No one mentioned the carb cleaning tutorial?
go back up to post Blogs and look for the Bikecliff link at the bottom. Look down the right side for the BS carbs cleaning tutorial. Get your O rings from Nessism.

And, adjust the valves while you're working on the bike

[salty_monk]

Usually I can put the choke in within a mile.... I'm not dealing with serious cold here though.

[Allie]

Without knowing the history of the bike, it's possible to have fresh carbs and have O ring leaks and or cracked boots, and with all that it can still be cold blooded with a leaky air box. I had done my carbs, boots and o-rings and put up with a certain level of cold blooded behavior for a long time after. When I finally did the air box it all went away. So did having to adjust the idle every time it got a little warmer or colder.

It's good to try to get the history of the bike, if and that's a big if, the PO is a reliable historian. If not maybe PO was a schnook like I was and did one or two of those items but left others unfixed so it might not hurt to do the air box, intake boots, and even the carb boots and o-rings and see what happens. They are much quicker and easier to knock out than a carb tear down and rebuild.

If you do have the skill and the time then doing all of it including the carbs is of course your surest bet. And throw in a bottle of sea foam just for luck! There are tutorials for all of that on the GS Resources web page.

[gustovh]

I’m with Todd on checking the valves. Home reason for hard starting and very long warm up. Just know that when rebuilding carbs…metal parts seldom wear out, so unless the pilots, or other jets are damaged, you only need O rings, gasket, and maybe float needle.

V