carb needle shim gone wrong, help pls, 8-b

[brandonryanblack]

Okay so ive had my 09 250 since june of 09 and i love it. I heard about doing the needle shim trick and decided to give it ago a few days ago. I got to the carbs put the one washer in the carb on the right side and closed up, went to the left one and couldnt get a screw out holding one of the cables under there onto the left carb so washer wasnt installed on left one, i had to get home as it was late(know it was prolly a bad idea but i did it) i put her back together and tried to go home but bike would hardly start die if choke wasnt on and then would die anyways after about a minute of choke being on, so needless to say i couldnt ride her home. come back the next day, took out the washer on the rightsided carb put it back together, and still no start, come to find out after looking at a service manual i had some fuel lines swaped, so i fixed that and she is running now, but like totally S*@t. it lags and almost bogs untill 8k revs even after being warmd up, also the choke dosent engauge like it use to, the revs dont budge untill i crank it all the way back, i move it about 90% on w/ no respone but the other 10% and it will rev,

I love my 250 but no matter what i do it will still be a 250, so im going to leave it alone when shes fixed and just learn to ride the hell out of it.

I was itching to change the way my bike felt now id do anything to get her back to how she ran before, so any advice/help is much appreciated, thanks alot!

UPDATE: checkd air filter and its coverd in a green film slime type stuff, coolent?

[ninja250]

Yikes!
what happened? Sounds like something a little more than just the one needle was shimmed and the other wasn't.. but I could be wrong.

You can't get both sides perfectly equal shimmed unless you use a micrometer on your shim washers or upgraded needles with C-clips I think. So that shouldn't kill the whole thing completely..

Did anything get into the carb? Did everything get back together correctly? Is the vacuum line letting your engine draw gas from the tank properly?

When I did my shim job it was like a night and day difference. You can see my squid vids she really pics up pretty good when I come off a corner and get on the gas.

[brandonryanblack]

the day i went back to un shim the one carb i did shim, i noticed i had the vacum line connected to a lil thing on the side of the lefthand carb and cross's over inbetween the two and goes down under them, and then that line into the tank where the vacum should have been, im not sure what it is but im thinking it was a coolent line cuz like i said above my air filter is soakd in a green slimey film im cleaning my filter now, i have the tank off and i noticed today that i hadnt tightend the hose clamps on the carbs i doubt that did anything though, thx for the 2cents

hope i dont have coolent in my fuel lines now, maybe thats why it runs bad 8-/, at this point im just praying to the ninja250 gods

[ninja250]

Good luck dude. Let us know what you find out.
Sorry I can't be of more help.

[austexjg]

Yikes - I was thinking of this mods as a DIY - the soaked air filter may be part of the problem, hopefully the cleaning and drying will be the key.

[mike_sema]

go check this tread http://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=11963 and make sure everything is hooked up right and you will be fine did you rmvd the carbs or just do this on the bike

[brandonryanblack]

ill check out that link here in a minute, i havnt ridin it yet to see if it is still boggy till 8k but filters clean now, i thought i fixed choke but its still doin the same thing, dosnt engauge till last 10%, with the choke all the way on the rpms stay steady at like 3500-4000 and then drop then go up then drop, i really shouldnt have messed w/ this thing, carbs are new to me, also when i first started it up there were a few clanking noises i hate to say, lol

[mike_sema]

did you disconnect the chock cable

[brandonryanblack]

yes, anyone have a pdf file of a service manual or a link? I just rode it for about 10minutes i dont wanna jynx myslef but alot of the abnormal sluggishness has gone, dont know if it will return though, but yeah choke still dosent work 8-/, thnx alot for the quick replys, im a newbie but this seems like a good place

[currentsea]

Are you 100% sure you connected the choke cable properly?
Check the lines to make sure there are no vacuum leaks.

[brandonryanblack]

i did jynx myslef, it sputters followed by clanking noises, when ur sitting on it you can feel something not going right almost like somethings hitting something, wish i could explain it better, im gunna post a video here soon today, btw i opend up the tank and lookd at my gas with a flash light and it has a greenish brown tint to it 8-/

[c_anglada]

sounds like u need to clean the carbs and check the spark plug to see if its all gummed up or messed up

[ninja250]

You're gonna have to clean out your entire fuel delivery system if you have green stuff in the gas tank dude. That's not sounding very good! Specially if it is slimy at all.
You must have reversed your fuel tank line with something else? Or one of those little vacuum hoses on the carb.

Sounds like bad news. I'm sorry to hear it! I wish we knew what happened so we could help keep others from doing this in the future!

I agree, a plug check is in order too. Hopefully not a bunch of green crap in the engine head..

[backinthesaddleagain]

If there is coolant getting in the fuel that could be the clanking sound. A bit of water is no big deal (think offshore powerboat racing), but coolant in the fuel tank...

From wikipedia:
Hydrolock (a shorthand notation for either hydraulic lock or hydrostatic lock) is an abnormal condition of an internal combustion engine in which an incompressible liquid, commonly water, has been introduced into one or more cylinders, causing immobilization or damage. Hydrolock can occur because an internal combustion engine must compress a volume of gas in order to operate, while most common liquids that could enter an internal combustion engine do not compress. If liquid is introduced at a volume greater than the volume of the combustion chamber at its minimum (top of the piston's stroke), the piston cannot complete its travel. Either the engine must stop rotating or a mechanical failure will occur.

[brandonryanblack]

im gunna drain the tank today, how would i go about getting the rest of the fuel in the lines out? just crank it over till its dry? anything else i can do to clean out this gunk?, ill check the plugs today, ill also post a picture of the lines i had crossed, yeah this does suck 8(

[backinthesaddleagain]

you could just pull the lines off and run some compressed air through them to clean them

[brandonryanblack]

what about sea foam or any addative i can put in fresh new gas and have it run through? any ideas there

[kkim]

drain some gas into a glass container and take a look at what you're dealing with.

Personally, if I thought there was any sort of fuel contamination, I would remove the tank, drain the contents by turning the tank upside down, flush with some fresh gas and again dump the contents out the top of the tank and then reinstall the tank. Doing so would eliminate fuel contamination in the tank as a source of your current problem.

Fuel problems can come back to bite you when you least expect it. Do it right the first time and avoid some potential headaches down the road. (literally)

[brandonryanblack]

So heres an update:

I flushd out my tank like someone mentiond above and replaced my spark plugs, when starting cold it will start run correctly then ocassionaly sound like one of the plugs arnt riring, but once its warmd up that goes away, i can live w/ that, but no matter how long i let it warm up, when i twist the throttle more than just a small turn from idle it boggs, any ideas now that ive eliminated the above 2?

[Chubbs032]

Check your throttle cable

[kkim]

what size washers did you use?

[brandonryanblack]

no washers used, i took them back out

[kkim]

define "bog".

[mike_sema]

hay Kkim do you think that he could have torn a diaphragm or pinch it when he put it back together that could explain the bogging

[kkim]

very possible, but like he said, he's had the diaphragms out a few times, so I'd think he would have noticed a tear in them. wouldn't hurt to doublecheck.

I'm thinking more that the spring did not get reinstalled back properly with that little plastic keeper somehow or the choke cable might be misadjusted/hung up at the bracket down by the carbs.

[HKr1]

You have to line the spring feet up, so they dont block the lift hole.......

[brandonryanblack]

wasnt aware of that, i just kinda tossed it in there, thnx for the info, i hope i can fix this soon as i have sprockets coming in and would like to use their full potential 8D also on one of those black caps that is covering the diaphram im missing a screw cuz it was stripped so i didnt put it back in, is that a nono, could it be leaking if that even matters

[kkim]

yes, that could very well be the problem. replace the screws with some cap head screws and never be bothered with stripped out phillips head screws again.