1982 Gs650gl

[Anonymous]

I have a 1982 GS 650 GL. Many of you have probally seen my posts and are getting tired of me....Please bare with me. I rebuilt the motor over the summer. It cranks and sounds good. It has good spark. It has not started since the rebuild. The timing is dead on. The only thing I could see that could be wrong is that I dont have an airbox on it yet. I just ordered one from a guy who is parting out his bike on this site. I cleaned the carbs using the carb cleaning procedures on this site. There is fuel getting into the bowls on the carb but will not spray into the cylinders. Some people tell me that it needs the airbox on to create pressure to raise the slides in the carb to let fuel in. Others tell me that the bike should start but run like crap without the air box. Maybe this is only true on older bikes? or ones that havnt been rebuilt? I dont know....it'll be a few weeks before the air box comes so I was wondering if anyone could satisfy my curiosity so I can sleep at night.

[focus frenzy]

Yes and no on both counts, it will depend on the jetting, if the carbs are jetted a bit rich it will start without the air box but run poorly, but usualy they are very hard to start if the will even start at all.
My 1000g would not start on its own without priming with carb cleaner.
dont worry about it.

[G man]

If you're trying to set your mind at ease, use some starting fluid. A quick shot in each carb and it should fire right up and then die a couple of seconds later. Don't use too much or you run the risk of damaging the carbs with a backfire. Worked fine on my '82 GS850GL.

[Anonymous]

did you clean the screens under the fuel shut off's under the floats mine were clogged

[skip]

Check to make sure that even though you have spark the right coils are firing the correct cylinders.If it wont run on starter fluid the air box wont be a cure. I had a similar problem and even thoug i had spark, the ign leads had been reversed and so it wouldnt start. I swapped leads and it fired right up

[Anonymous]

rat,
can you give me more detail...I'm not too farmilliar with carbs.
thanks
-camaroman

[Anonymous]

Camaroman,
Remove the float, remove fuel shut off needles (don't lose), remove hold down clamps, and screws. Gently remove brass needle seats, on the end of these there should be screens. Gently pry these off. I sprayed carb cleaner through mine to remove varnish, also I used jewlers polish and Q-tips to polish the needle seats. Brass inserts have o-rings. You should repace them while you've got them out. I got replacement o-rings at Ace hardware. These didn't come in carb rebuild kit.
Let me know if you need help.
Rat

[Anonymous]

I went looking thru tha carb clean-upseries and found the pic of what i'm talking about page 5 pic#053,But i noticed these don't have the screens on them............humm?

[KrazyKarl02]

Carbs

Some carbs have the screens above the float needle, some don't. My 81 GS 1000 does, my 78 does not.

I would try a little starting fluid, see if it pops and kicks over a bit, then it should fire up.

I find starting fluid to me almost god like.

[Anonymous]

I'm with skip. It sounds more like an ignition problem. I think one of your coils fire the 1 & 4 cyl., and the other fires 2 & 3. If this is correct, put the #1 spark plug wire on the #2 cyl. and #2 plug wire on #1 cyl. put the # 3 plug wire on #4 cyl. and the #4 wire on the #3 cyl. Give this a shot, it won't hurt a thing. if it doesn't work, put it back the way it is now. The vacum created by the air box, at cranking speed is 0, I really don't think that it will fix your problem. Good luck, & keep us posted.

[nabrams]

See my post titled "1980 GS450L stalls when throttle is opened even a little". Billy Ricks has given me great information in responses to that post.
Basically, if everything is clean (all those carb passages) and set up right (coil wiring) the bike should start without an air filter on full choke. Don't twist the throttle while starting. After the bike warms up well, slowly bring the choke to the "off" position. If your bike won't run at this point then you still have some trouble-shooting to do. If it does, then you'll need some kind of air filter to twist the throttle without serious sputtering and/or stalling completely. I had to experiment with varying amounts of layers of cotton t-shirt (which are quite porous, so they act like a filter) to get the bike to operate properly through all RPM ranges, in gear and out of gear (nuetral). It'll be hard to to this without an air-box to hold the t-shirt material in place. It pays to do the filter experimentation first because it's significantly easier than caburetor work (and less costly in the event of a screw-up). I spent a whole lot of time cleaning an essentially spotless carb before discovering that it was the lack of air filter that was the culprit all along.
Good Luck.

[Clone]

Sometimes the most obvious is never stated or thought of. Choke it. With or without the airbox choking it will deliver a richer mixture to your cylinders and if your spark is sufficient ignite it. Your bike should then run. If it ran before you rebuilt it, and re-installed the carbs it should run again. Even if you did not re-work the carbs.