[Carburhater]

ALLL righty. I'm in the Bangor, Maine area. Got my endorsement this summer and rode all through fall. About 5k miles in so far. My bike is a 2006 ninja 250r, yellow on black like I always dreamed of riding. I freaking love riding this thing. I love the engine size. I can't believe how much acceleration Kawasaki pulled out of such a small engine... genuinely never would feel like I need a faster bike than a 250. But golly gee this thing just can't hold itself together ...

I didn't winterize it this year, because I am hoping to move to Atlanta ASAP for my music passion. I took her for a spin last weekend to get the juices flowing... took some jumper cables to get her started 😬 (Live at the bottom of a hill on a gravel driveway so couldn't push start it). Made the stupid mistake of putting old gas in it out of a jerry can I've had sitting around for months. The bike itself had only been sitting a month or so.

Warmed her up for 30 minutes, then went riding for a good 20/30 minutes; right at the end of the ride, I she sputtered, started sounding like she was only firing on one cylinder, and I lost power.

Guy at the local shop said the gas probably gummed up the carbs, so I just pulled the carbs out AGAIN to clean them out.

Once I got it out, I noticed a few things:
The tube that goes into the top of the left cylinder had popped out. Nothing is connected at the bottom, just an empty tube... I thought the spark plugs were down there?
She DOES have two new ignition coils as of this summer, because I had one go out on a long ride and limped it home on one cyl.
...could this be an issue, a cause, or just stuff it back in there and ignore it?

And for only riding half an hour, do you think it is worth pulling the carb apart again, or do you think freezing weather and not enough warm up time or something might have shot out a coil again?
Bringing it to the shop is not an option as the nearest pro shop has 200 machines in the cue ahead of anything new, and also I am pretty broke. Also also, I want to learn this bike and the maintenance better and master this craft, because I'm probably going to be pretty committed to this over the next few years while I am single and commuting in the city.

Charging the battery on a trickle charger now, got some carb cleaner and fuel stabilizer, going to pick up some ethanol-free 90 this afternoon. Drained the fuel tank as much as I could with syphoning and holding it upside-down over a funnel. My hands smell GREAT. My mouth tastes GREAT. I am doggone determined to get this thing running right...

Unrelated issue: something is leaking. No idea where from... carb I'm imagining... hopefully the pics will upload fine.
Unrelated issue: that one super long cross bolt above the tranny slid almost all the way out. I have had SO MANY dang nuts and bolts vibrate off this bike... ones out of the tranny case, out of the ferrings, had a bolt come off that was holding the coolant pipe return in... that was a fun field repair... I never messed around with these, so it's not like they're under torqued or anything. Is this normal?? I guess it serves me right for treating it like a touring bike..

...p.s. - anybody want a *mostly* running 250? I'd start bids at 700 bucks...