I now know why Elvis shot the Pantera- I would have shot my ninja earlier today if I had been so equipped!
Backstory... I study Mechanical Engineering at Berkeley, so absolutely nobody would expect me to know how to wrench a darn... I'm just a thumbsucking numbers nerd with not an ounce of common sense... it wouldn't be surprising to anybody that this geek is having a hard time getting a motorcycle to run... But alas, while I am a noob in many ways, I can't claim total ignorance; in a past life I worked at a motorcycle repair shop, as a machinist, fabricator, and welder... and I am most certainly not naive to wrenching on bikes old and new. I should know better and not need to humbly ask for guidance as I am about to do.
I bow my head and ask for help and guidance from ye wizened ninjette senseis:
The
facts:
- Sea level, low 70s.
- 2010 with ~15k miles.
- Well looked after generally speaking
- Bought by a neighbor lady a few years ago then left out to pasture in the open air for a couple years
- Apparently it ran fine when last parked (grain of salt taken here)
- Sold to me "as is" covered in spider webs and grime.
- I cleaned it up, bought a new battery, and pulled the carbs
- I removed the charcoal canisters and left the tank vents unblocked
- I removed a gps tracker of some kind that was wired into the bike and stuck to the charcoal canister with double sided tape
- I made an exhaust recirculation block off plate ala ssr (the exhaust valve thingy was not part of the wiring loom, so I didn't need to make a resistor bypass as other years do to completely cancel and remove this()
- I removed the plugs over the air/fuel screws- checked if they were screwed out to spec
- Carbs both had a 98 main and a 38 pilot
- I simplified the carb vacuum system to go directly to the petcock
- Upon dropping the bowls, I was surprised to find that the carbs were actually not the gummy nightmare I had been expecting them to be. Still I pulled the main and pilot jets and blasted carb cleaner through them, and also the air jets and other passages. (I attribute this to the vacuum operated petcock)
- I drained the fuel tank and filled it with 1 gallon of premium dinosaur juice
- I checked to make sure the petcock was flowing said dino juice
- And then things got disappointing...
Choke to on position, I hit the starter, and no combustion bang bang happy sounds were produced. Sad but is it ever this easy? I next sprayed carb cleaner (AKA "start ya bastard!!"... aka SYB) in the airbox, hit the magic button, and it started to turn over feebly (to be expected from a 250 parallel twin) and then it died. I sprayed in more SYB, and then started it up again. By intermittently spraying her with SYB, I got her to warm up and meekly idle with the choke on. The top end sounded adequately healthy. I played (perhaps foolishly) with the idle speed adjuster a bit. Given that the idle was only a faint thing, I considered that it might not be firing on all cylinders (2) so I unplugged the coil on either side and determined both cylinders were firing. I checked to make sure the sparkplug boots were securely attached to the plugs, and had a brief look at the plugs, which looked clean and rust free. The bike runs the same with the petcock to prime or on.
When I removed the choke, it would die, so I figured the pilot jets had gotten re-gummed up, so I pulled the carbs and cleaned them again, noting that they were not apparently blocked in the slightest way. Upon reassembly, the bike acted the exact same way.
I am running out of ideas now, and moreover I am taking three classes this summer and ran out of time quite early on in this project. I do however want to get this bike running so I can visit my sweet heart without having to spend either 3 hours on public transportation or $80 in rideshare fees each way. Obviously the sensible thing to do would be to find a sidesweetie who lives closer or something like that but I'm a fool in love so I must make the trip to see my dearest (and she comes to see me as much or more).
So, friendly sage ninjette wizards, what should I do next to get this bike running like a top? In the meantime, I'll be pedaling my pushbike around...
Pics show the bike post light-cleaning and pre-cannisterectomy.
Thanks!