Im lost !!! Carb cleaning!!!!!

[EricWoods]

Hi everyone. Well took a few hours off on sunday and took the carbs off. Removed the float bowls. Removed main jet and pilot jet. When remoing the black rubber plug from the pilot jet I notices alot of what could only be described as gunge! Looked like white litium grease stuffed in the pilot jet. Thought to myself im on to a winner here!!!!!:shock: Anyhow could not find anything that I could use to clean the tiny holes in the main and pilot jets. Tried everything thing from a few strands off my tooth brush to a few needles from the wifes hair brush. All either too big or not rigid enough! So as a last resort i remembered my mandolin out in the shed. Went out and snipped off the "E" string. Perfect. So after all this I put everything back together using alot of carb cleaner! Refitted the carbs and went and fetched the keys.

Sat on the bike turned on the ignition and pressed the start button. Nothing. Not even a turn. So out with the booster pack. Pressed the start button and she turned and turned and turned making a tiny effort to start. So as a last resort I pushed her down the road and she started.. Had to keep her at about 2000 rpm to keep her running. Let the trottle off and she cut out. Not for all the mandolin strings in china would it start again. Only on a push. So back into the garden and pulled a plug----NO SPARK. Turn the engine for 10 seconds and you might get 2 or 3 sparks thats it and they are weak! This applies to all 4 plugs which are brand new. So after cleaning the carbs I think im onto an electrical fault. Could be simple like poor coils or am i into a new igniter. Have paid my insurance, bought the gear and got 27 miles out of her. Can anyone help?

One last thing couldnt get pilot jet outta cyl 3 as some hero had a stab at it before and must have tried to extract it with a kango hammer! Shag all head left.

Help
Eric in Dub

[Suzuki_Don]

I'd check when you pulled the tank that you did not disturb any wiring in there. Make sure all connections are securely made.

Cheers

Don

[EricWoods]

Wiring connections

Hi Thanks for reply. I checked all wiring. Basically this problem started on a trip home last month. Got 2 miles from home and bike died as if it was outta petrol but it wasnt. First thing I get was a new petcock as the previous owner did say it was dicky. Put it on ---- no joy. Did carbs--- no joy. Kinda wondering about that igniter, but dont wanna spend an arm and leg and realise it aint it!

[t3rmin]

Check the resistance of the plug boots and the primary and secondary windings of the coils. Coils don't go bad often so that's probably not it, but the plug boots do often go bad (in my experience). Two outta four old bikes I've owned have had bad plug caps. Should be 5k ohms resistance. Also sometimes they go to infinite resistance when hot, causing a strange "why does my bike start running like poop after 10min of riding?" problem.

[t3rmin]

Also if it's not cranking well and you're getting bad spark I'd take a good look at the battery (and charging system). Electronic ignitions sometimes need a fair amount of voltage for a good spark, so you may not get much from a bump start if the battery is mostly dead.

[EricWoods]

Thanks for support

Thanks for the help. Im going to head down to bike now with meter. Could you let me know where I should be measuring and what readings i should get. Also as you say it, ive noticed 2 of the ht leads have insulating tape all over the plug cap. When i removed it the plug cap rubber is all split. Could this be an issue?

Eric Dublin

[EricWoods]

Hi

Battery was brand new but went flat over a few days of trying to get it going. Will go on a push but not on start button.

[t3rmin]

I remember the readings except for the plug caps, but you can find them with a search. Something like 25k between HT leads (with caps on or off I don't remember) and 3k (?) between the backside wires.

Definitely go through the stator papers (on the main homepage under In the Garage).

Trickle-charge that battery and see if you get spark then. If your charging system is bad, and your battery is low, I wouldn't expect anything out of a push start.

Insulating tape over the plug caps is a bad sign. Pick up a new set of NGK caps at www.z1enterprises.com or your local bike shop.

[t3rmin]

Also when you go to install your new plug caps, snip 1/8" off the HT lead to expose fresh wire.

[TheCafeKid]

Change the caps boyo...if the rubber is split they'll leak...crappy spark...and that makes sense if your gettin a spark here or there like you said...thats easy and a hellofalot cheaper than a new ingitor etc..charge that battery up, and give it another go...Let us know!

TCK

[TheCafeKid]

damn t3rmin ya beat me too it..lol

[nabrams]

After you get your plug wires and caps up to spec and making sure you have a fully charged battery:
Just to give as much juice as possible to the ignition, disable the headlight and tail-light circuits and disconnect the charging system (just in case it's malfunctioning and drawing current instead of producing current, due to a short). The bike should run for several hours in this configuration before depleting the battery. This way you've eliminated several variables (that may be problem sources) from the ignition equation.
Then re-connect the charging system and measure voltage at the battery terminals when the bike is at 5K RPM - should be between 14 and 15 volts. If not, your charging sytem is defective - VERY common on these old bikes.
Finally, use the search feature to get all the trouble-shooting details for various common issues. They've been discussed in depth a million times. You'll save yourself a lot of time/aggravation/money.

[Big T]

From your description, I have to ask

Did you charge up that new battery, and do it correctly, when you got it?

If my battery is low, it'll turn over, even spark, but not start. Just not enough juice. That's what yours sounds like.

When you checked the connections in the wiring harness, did you take them apart and look inside? Could be corrosion in there.

And what color spark is happening? Remember,

Red is dead
Blue is good
White is really all right

[Steve]

Here is the part that really scares me:

... So out with the booster pack. ...

Some of the booster packs we have available here get their power by upping the voltage to minimize the amps necessary. If the voltage got too high, it can knock out some of the sensitive stuff like the rectifier/regulator and ignitor and assorted bulbs and other stuff.

The other part that caught my eye was using the E string to clean the jets. You probably did OK, but you do have to be careful using anything that is harder than brass to clean the jets. Also, the many different jets have holes of varying sizes, so you will likely need to sacrifice more than one string.


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