Idles ok (not great) but dies when I give it gas

[aslovik]

I am pretty new to doing any work on my bike, so please be kind and pretend I know next-to-nothing (you won't be much off).

I haven't ridden my bike in almost two years. When I tried to start it up, it was spewing fuel from the valves that lead to the carbs. I removed the carb assembly and opened up the carbs to look at the floats. When they all looked ok to me I reassembled everything.

Whatever it was that I did, the fuel dripping stopped entirely. It now idles pretty good, but dies as soon as I give it any gas at all

I've read a bit it someone said about cleaning jets? I don't know what that is. Also, should I replace the gas? Could it be that?

Any help would be *awesome*

[andyb]

I heartily suggest using the search function.

This is a very incomplete visual guide to what is what in the carb assembly.

This is a good guide as to what to do with the bits, now that you know what they are.


Sounds like there's still a bunch of plugged crap.  Hit the choke and fire it and enough fuel goes in, hit the gas and it goes so lean as to immediately die when cold.  A solid cleaning will most likely fix 95% of the problem that you are experiencing, though new plugs and some TLC will generally get things running quite nicely, if not perfectly (hey, it's not the newest bike anymore).

Old gas is going to make things difficult to deal with at the best of times.  Drain/siphon it out and add new, fresh, known-to-be-good fuel at best; at worst top it off with known good fuel and dilute any crap gas that's in there.  The old stuff will run a lawnmower well enough.