01-17-2014, 03:45 PM
Although this concerns the crankcase breather system, if it is poorly maintained (not drained), it will have a detrimental effect on your engines performance and the carburetors/injectors.
I recently was experiencing difficulty with cold starts, more so overnight than 9 hours of sitting in the parking lot at work.
There was a reluctance of the rpm to drop when getting off the throttle when in the area of 2000 rpm.
The idle had dropped and the engine was running hard.
I first added some Seafoam and that helped but not enough.
I then installed new spark plugs, and that helped but not enough.
Air filter and fuel filter are on order so I decided to take the air filter element out for a look see…..
On the floor of the carburetor assembly (where the flame traps are located) there was a combination of a liquid (turned out to be water), some grim, and something which smelled like oil, felt like oil, but wasn’t as thin as oil, deposited in the vicinity of the left, rear carburetor.
Almost like the crankcase breather was full and needed emptying.
The PO had drilled a hole in the storage tank, so I knew, I knew it wasn’t the breather.
Long story short, the breather tank, the one which sits between the gas cap and the air filter, was full of gunk and had overflowed out the tube to the air filter and dumped a load of junk in front of the left, rear carburetor and the junk was making its way into the engine!
Time hasn’t allowed a proper cleaning, (Sunday will be my first chance) but the bulk of the gunk on the floor, in front of the carburetor was cleaned up and the tube leading from the air filter to the breather tank was emptied of the gunk.
The difficult cold start was vastly improved, the enriching circuit is working again and the idle came up.
I have emptied the breather tank (and it was full!!) and run some paper towels through the three holes of the tank (the tank cleaning done in the parking lot on my lunch hour today) and I will see how the bike performs after the 32 miles commute home.
Bottom Line:
Just because there is a hole in the storage tank (which I need to close) doesn’t mean the breather tank if empty!
I have no record of the PO ever cleaning the system unless it was done as part of the tune-ups he got at the dealer.
I never looked at the system because it had a ‘drain hole’.
The PO put 104K mikes on the bike and I have put another 41K.
This has now been added to my maintenance list as I would like to see 200K out of the bike, if not more.
I hope this give some food for thought.
-Ride On
I recently was experiencing difficulty with cold starts, more so overnight than 9 hours of sitting in the parking lot at work.
There was a reluctance of the rpm to drop when getting off the throttle when in the area of 2000 rpm.
The idle had dropped and the engine was running hard.
I first added some Seafoam and that helped but not enough.
I then installed new spark plugs, and that helped but not enough.
Air filter and fuel filter are on order so I decided to take the air filter element out for a look see…..
On the floor of the carburetor assembly (where the flame traps are located) there was a combination of a liquid (turned out to be water), some grim, and something which smelled like oil, felt like oil, but wasn’t as thin as oil, deposited in the vicinity of the left, rear carburetor.
Almost like the crankcase breather was full and needed emptying.
The PO had drilled a hole in the storage tank, so I knew, I knew it wasn’t the breather.
Long story short, the breather tank, the one which sits between the gas cap and the air filter, was full of gunk and had overflowed out the tube to the air filter and dumped a load of junk in front of the left, rear carburetor and the junk was making its way into the engine!
Time hasn’t allowed a proper cleaning, (Sunday will be my first chance) but the bulk of the gunk on the floor, in front of the carburetor was cleaned up and the tube leading from the air filter to the breather tank was emptied of the gunk.
The difficult cold start was vastly improved, the enriching circuit is working again and the idle came up.
I have emptied the breather tank (and it was full!!) and run some paper towels through the three holes of the tank (the tank cleaning done in the parking lot on my lunch hour today) and I will see how the bike performs after the 32 miles commute home.
Bottom Line:
Just because there is a hole in the storage tank (which I need to close) doesn’t mean the breather tank if empty!
I have no record of the PO ever cleaning the system unless it was done as part of the tune-ups he got at the dealer.
I never looked at the system because it had a ‘drain hole’.
The PO put 104K mikes on the bike and I have put another 41K.
This has now been added to my maintenance list as I would like to see 200K out of the bike, if not more.
I hope this give some food for thought.
-Ride On