Not firing on 1 and 2

[Legend]

Hey all,

Just rescued an 81 GS1000, after much work I decided to try and turn the engine over today, I have set the valves and briefly cleaned the carbs, the carbs were drained when the bike was stored 15 years ago. I sprayed everything out and it looked good an clean.

Now to my problem, I can get it to start, but only with starting fluid. 3 and 4 seem to be firing fine(hot exhaust) but 1 and 2 are only blowing cold out the exhaust. When it is running it idles like crap, when I turn the throttle it bogs down, and when I pull the choke it revs up high.

Any suggestions?

Thanx in advance for any assistance.

[rapidray]

COMPLETELY disassemble & CLEAN the carbs! Ray.

[Legend]

Would it really cause that much problem? Just aprehensive as I am not really into yanking the carbs apart, anything to look out for?

[C.V.]

Would it really cause that much problem? Just aprehensive as I am not really into yanking the carbs apart, anything to look out for?

YES! It makes a huge difference, they need to be pulled, dissasembled, dipped in berrymans, new o rings, the works. After 15 years of storage, this needs to be done. There is no way around this, unfortunately. here is a link to the complete guide for CV carbs.

http://www.thegsresources.com/gs_carbrebuild.htm

O-rings can be purchased at www.cycleorings.com, The guy who puts the kits together is a member here, Robert Barr.

Good luck, welcome to the GSR, you are in the right place, more info here than you can imagine!

[tkent02]

Do the cold cylinders have a spark?

[Suzuki_Don]

Remove drain screw from each carb with fuel tap on prime to see if all carbs have fuel in them.

[Legend]

All carbs are getting fuel and yes there is spark in all 4 cylinders. Just no fire.

[tkent02]

What those other guys said, then.

If the bike sits on the sidestand all the gunk grows in those two left carbs.

[Don-lo]

did you put new plugs in it? What do the plugs look like now?

[Legend]

Did put new plugs in it, and they were clean when I checked them again, after it running for a while.

[reddirtrider]

You need to clean the carbs and put in new rubber seals for a decent starting point. Once that's done you can go from there.

The problem you described could be a sync problem, but my money is on crappy carbs.

[1978GS1000custom]

before you take it apart take some pictures with a digital camera of the carb area for reference also after the carbs are off take pics of them also assembled and apart and keep all the carbs and there parts in seperate boxes/containers (dont mix up the parts). it dose'nt hurt to have something to look back to for reassembling questions. and most important, take notes on the settings of every adjusting screw from where they are now to lightly seated. i am positive, some of these guys know more than the designers that made these bikes so face it, they need to come off and get done. best of skill (luck has nothing to do with it) cliff

[850 Combat]

As I recall, the coils serve 1 and 4 from one coil, and 2 and 3 from one coil. Is that how the plug wires are hooked up?

[ryder60]

I had the same problem with a different bike a few years ago and the problem was vacumn. The little tube between 1&2 had a cut in it and that's why it ran with the choke but wouldn't run on those two cylinders otherwise. Have a good go over the carbs.

[Legend]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, the carbs will be coming off this morning, will let you know how it all turns out.