Just wont go past 2000 RPM

[Anonymous]

Took my bike out for the first time this season and starts up (with choke) just fine and then idles nice. As soon as I rev it past 2000 or in first gear past 2000 RPMs it sputters out and dies. If I rev it real quick from idle it immediatly dies. Last season the carbs were totally rebuilt and it ran perfect, at the end of the season I put Sta-bil mixed with a fresh tank of premium and ran it for 15 minutes to get it into the carbs. I have periodically went out to start it every so often through the winter as my buddy suggested and it always started up fine. Any help greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Re: Just wont go past 2000 RPM

Took my bike out for the first time this season and starts up (with choke) just fine and then idles nice. As soon as I rev it past 2000 or in first gear past 2000 RPMs it sputters out and dies. If I rev it real quick from idle it immediatly dies. Last season the carbs were totally rebuilt and it ran perfect, at the end of the season I put Sta-bil mixed with a fresh tank of premium and ran it for 15 minutes to get it into the carbs. I have periodically went out to start it every so often through the winter as my buddy suggested and it always started up fine. Any help greatly appreciated.

First quick guess is the floats are set too low and it just doesnt have enough fuel when it reaches 2K

[SqDancerLynn1]

My first thought would be to drain the carbs and the gas tank an get some fresh gas, then see how it runs

[Anonymous]

i bet the pilot jets are cloged

[nabrams]

Lots of people drain the carbs before storing for the winter (in addition to using fuel stabilizer). This insures that those jets are not sitting in fuel (no matter how "stabilized" it is) for months on end.
First try new gas (although in this case I doubt thats the main issue).
I'll bet if you just remove the bowls and throughly clean the jets (on my bike both the idle and main jets are screwed into the bowl) you'll have a decent (perhaps not perfect) running bike. In my case (bike sat for 8 months), the main jets needed to be scraped clean with a copper wire. Spraying tons of carb cleaner through them didn't quite get everything out.
If this doesn't do the trick, then make sure you have NO air leaks anywhere. If you do, cleaning the carbs a million times will do very little to help.

[Anonymous]

My exact problem too.

Put one bike in storage in November and just rode the other one (no sense in getting two covered in road salt). The one in storage got started every couple of weeks no problem AND had the petrol preservative in it. ..... and then one weekend it woudn't idle very well or rev up. It felt like it wasn't firing right but the leads all gave a spark.

I took the carbs off and two of the them had the jets covered in this mucky brown gunk and all the float chambers weren't too good either. I reset the floats, as they were a bit out but that was probably unrelated..

I also had two spark plugs that had just decided to perish. No reason. just no spark off them.


So.
In my experience (and the mucky carbs have happened before) , no matter how you store your bike over the winter it always seems like you have to clean out the carbs, Next winter I am going to store mine without fuel in and run it dry every time I want to turn it over.

Madoc

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for your help and suggestions, I will check for any air leaks and proceed to once again take the carbs off probably this weekend if it warms up. Ill let you know how it turns out. Thanks again

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to update and thank all of the help. It hit a record breaking 51 degrees here so I had the bike in the driveway when my neighbor (a harley guy and a hellava nice guy) came over and suggested gently tapping the carbs while its idiling and try and dislodge whatever was clogging them. Believe it or not it worked like a charm, up and running once more and I had my first ride of the season today. Thanks again for the replies

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to update and thank all of the help. It hit a record breaking 51 degrees here so I had the bike in the driveway when my neighbor (a harley guy and a hellava nice guy) came over and suggested gently tapping the carbs while its idiling and try and dislodge whatever was clogging them. Believe it or not it worked like a charm, up and running once more and I had my first ride of the season today. Thanks again for the replies

That is an old trick...Probably unstuck your floats

[Anonymous]

If I may, I'd like to relate a similar story.

I remember once having this EXACT same problem a few years ago after my bike had been sitting outside for a few days (and dewy nights).

The first time it happened was on the way to work - just as you described - bike wouldn't rev past 2000rpm, then as I throttled in more petrol it just spluttered and died. At first it seemed to clear up after a few minutes riding, but as the days went by, it got worse and worse.

Finally, one day, it gets so bad that I'm travelling home at about 30mph, in second gear, with the throttle COMPLETELY WIDE OPEN, something like 7000-8000rpm on the tacho. Luckily the surrounding traffic wasn't going much faster (twisty country roads where I live). I got so MAD with the bike that in frustration I banged it on the tank (really hard!) and swore at it.

Guess what happened then! 10 seconds later the bike takes off like it's got a rocket up its tail (remember I had the engine at full throttle), front wheel pawing at the air and me hanging on for grim life as I do a spectacular wheelie past the very surprised car driver in front. How I missed him I don't know.

What had happened is the fuel cap vent had rusted while the bike was outside. There's a little ball-bearing inside which had corroded in place and when I whacked the tank it must have dislodged. The fuel supply problems were caused by an increasing vacuum in the tank. I can't explain the technicalities, but I do know that once I replaced the fuel filler cap, all my problems disappeared.

Was the best wheelie I have ever done......