Problems with my bike

[sisith]

Hey guys, Havn't ridden my bike since May when school got out and its been sitting outside all summer. It gets over 110F here and its also monsoon season which means lots of rain. Anyways...decided to ride my bike tonight and the damn thing took over 5 minutes to start with full choke. It ran very rough after that around 1k rpms and dipping to around 200 then would catch, over and over for about 15 minutes. It wouldn't warm up. Even after 15 minutes if I let off the choke it would die and not start. Its 100F outside right now at night and the bike shouldnt take this long to warmup. So I finally got it to the point where I could give it throttle and took it around the neighborhood. The thing is a dog right now, accelerates super slow and the revs drop really slow. Even after a 10 minute ride keeping it around 6k when I released the choke at idle it died. What do I need to check for? Bike ran perfectly fine before I parked it and I dont have much experience with carbs.

[kkim]

your gas has varnished from standing around so long. my advice is to drain all the gas from the tank and carbs, fill with fresh gas and add some seafoam to it and see if that helps.

if not, you're going to have the carbs removed and cleaned.

[capt_bugaloo]

Did you properly put it in storage, and either drain the tank or add Sta-bil to the fuel?
My guess is no, and now the carbs are gummed up with stale gas. Yes, gasoline can go gummy after sitting for two months in hot weather.

You could try running some carb cleaner through it to clean out the lines and carbs. If that doesn't resolve the issue you may be taking the bike to your local friendly motorcycle mechanic for a carb cleaning.

[sisith]

wow didn't think 2 months was a long time for gas. It had a full tank too. Oh well, seafoam and fresh gas here I come.

[kkim]

don't expect miracles... be glad if it does work. next time, store your bike properly if you are not riding it for an extended period.

do you know if you have ethanol in your area? that makes the gas go bad even sooner.

[sisith]

Yeah, because of all that "green" crap going on they switched us from methanol additives to ethanol. Good way of making our gas crappier and cost more money.

[kkim]

Sean,

Good luck... let us know how it turns out.

[sisith]

Ok guys finally got some time today to solve this, drained the tank then ran the bike out of the gas that was in the bowls, bought some injector/carb cleaner and put in a little and some gas and ran that through for a while. Then I put in 2 ounces of stabil and filled her up the rest of the way. Drove her around and she is finally pretty close to being normal. Hesitates a little from idle in first but then shoots straight to redline. Thanks for the tips guys.

[noche_caliente]

glad you got it up and running!

[komohana]

[OldGuy]

Sean repeat after me "I will not neglect my Ninja". Now go out and give her a good hand cleaning and wax. Talk nice to her and hope she understands you just weren't thinking right.

[CC Cowboy]

Since you're on a roll why don't you check everything. Go over all the nuts and bolts to make sure they are tight, check the battery connections, clean everything, tire pressure, and do the chain (lube and adjust).