Choke issue. Please help

[pitrage]

First off I apologize for starting a new thread. I'm sure this question has been posted before but I have been unable to find the answer.

I just bought an 89 454 LTD. The previous owner hurt there hip and is unable to ride anymore. The bike has been sitting for the last 3 years unused. Luckily for me it is a friend of mine who offered me the bike for $500. She has about 8k miles on her. About 150 miles before the previous owner hurt them selves (not bike related) They had a ton of work done to the bike including full carb rebuild and had the valves setup. The bike was running great. Then in sat...

I've had the bike for the last week and initially the bike wouldn't start period. I have completely taken the carbs apart and cleaned them. The oil has been changed. and a new battery installed. She now starts up immediately and sits at 3,000 rpm with full choke. I am able to rev the engine in full choke and she doesn't bog down with sudden drops in throttle. If I rev the engine I am able to take off the choke and she will continue to run but if I let off the gas then the rpm's drop to about 1,000 and then she sputters turning herself off. If I don't give a little extra throttle and attempt to take off the choke she just dies as well. 

Though she will sit and run forever as long as choke is left on.

I'm just at the point where I'm getting flustered and looking for any help that anyone may be able to offer. I just don't know where to go from here. I've made alot of improvements so far but now I wanna finish her off so I can take her for a quick spin.



Thank you for any and all help with figuring out this problem. And Happy Fathers Day 

[Blaine]

Welcome to the forum.It sounds like you have a vacuum leak or the pilot jets are plugged.If the pilot jets are plugged the bike will not idle without choke.

[BenInPA]

Could it also be the idle screw is set way too low?

Sent from my Droid 4 using Proboards Mobile App. ;D

[pitrage]

Blaine... Just because I'm not always the best with terminology. The Jets you are talking about are the ones that come up from the fuel pan in the carbs? If So I don't beleive they are clogged. Only reason I say this is because I just cleaned the living sunset out of them. I read a lot about putting an air compressor to them. Well I don't have an air compressor. But found that the tip for carb cleaner locks into the center of the jet quite nicely. I had expected them to be clogged at first but a fraction of a second later the bike was covered in carb cleaner. Yeah that was fun. I also used the mono-filament fishing line technique that I had read about on here to better clean them.

Vacuum hoses.. I know about the ones running off the carbs. Left goes to the petcock for fuel supply. Right goes somewhere in the front of the bike. Haven"t finished tracing it yet. Then there is the Big one that makes removing the carbs a pain that runs into the air box. Are there any that I am not thinking about to check? 

Ben... I was actually thinking that it might be the idle setting since it does hesitate at 1,000 rpm before giving me the finger and shutting off. But I wanted to throw it at the experts on this forum before I started messing with it. I always think of the big things and not the little details that can make or break a project. So I'm hoping that a possible answer to that may be found. And I get the Choked Idle to 3,000 after reving the engine a touch. When the bike is first turned on it idles at about 1,500 to 1,800 and will continue to sit there until it is revved. Which is another reason I suspect the idle screw. But I don't want to just mess with things and make them worse without someones opinion being the same as mine. 

Tuesday Morning I will be back to work on this project and hopefully I can get some more results. I just went out to attempt to get them and I flooded her so I'm giving up for the day. I have been running fuel to her through a make shift IV style line connected to the petcock. The tank was rusty and currently has Kreem sealer drying in it. So when she was taking gas from the line I accidentally squeezed the fuel container and flooded her. 

Anyway thank you both for your help. 

[Blaine]

Idle should be set to 1200 rpm with the engine warm.The pilot jets are the ones that are in front of the float bowels & have the factory plugs that you need to remove to get to them.When reassembling them set them to 2 1/2 turns & than fine tune for best & smoothest idle with the bike warmed up.

[lamestlame]

I finished solving this exact problem thanks to all the good guy's on this page. Check the float heights, Sync the Carbs, Run seafoam, new airfilters, check the fuel lines make sure nothing is clogging it. Try setting the jets to 2 turns if it is to rich I found that my engine begins to drown.

[lamestlame]

Also if you haven't done so yet Flushing the Radiator is a real big help with summer right on us.

[pitrage]

Soooo. I took the carbs back apart and cleaned the pilot jets. Today I had her running. Trying to tune the jets and still had the same issue. So I tried to seafoam her just to see if there was another issue I have been missing and I wanted to get her nice and cleaned out.

Half way through initial dose of seafoam she dumped all of the seafoam out of the left side of the engine. No idea where the bike was too warm to dig too much.

So I stood up walked out of the garage slammed the door.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using proboards

[lamestlame]

Might be the overflow valve lol. The same exact thing happened to me might be the float hight if even one is to high it will start to dump the fuel out.

[eaglerider]

There is no overflow valve. The "valves" that allows fuel into the carbs, and shuts the fuel coming into the carbs, is the float needles...that is why float level adjustment is important.....too low will not allow the carb bowls to fill completely, too high will not shut the fuel off, thereby flooding one or both carbs, depending on float level adjustment.

[pitrage]

Eaglerider what do you think happened? The seafoam fluid came out somewhere behind the front polished aluminum on the leftside. Im so ticked off right now and just hoping for some good news. Or atleast not horrible news.

I did try starting her after that and there was no new leakage. But have no clue what happened.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using proboards

[Blaine]

Sounds like the float needle on the left carb may have stuck open allowing fuel to flood the airbox.pull the air filter a see if there is fuel in the airbox ,it will need to be cleaned out.if it stopped flooding than the SeaFoam is working.Check your oil to be sure no gas went into the engine.

[lamestlame]

Sorry ): I don't know the name of the the part. The black T across from the fuel T. My Float had gone bad and my carb's weren't flooding instead fuel was just sputtering out of the T I was thinking it could have been that.

[Blaine]

Jun 20, 2013 23:29:43 GMT -6 lamestlame said:

Sorry ): I don't know the name of the the part. The black T across from the fuel T. My Float had gone bad and my carb's weren't flooding instead fuel was just sputtering out of the T I was thinking it could have been that.

The upper "t" is a over flow & a vent.Thats exactly what it is supposed to do if there is a problem.IT needs to remain open & uninstructed.

[pitrage]

So I believe the issue has been found. There was a clog in the tubs of the carb. I finally sprayed enough carb cleaner into it and then a "blood clot" fell out. Now they are soaking for a longer period to see what else might be hiding. Also I just ordered new jets. The pilot jet re-clogged with the last episode and it's being difficult to clean. Plus they seem to be the original jets so it's time to just put new ones in the bike. So hopefully this will square her away. I really wanna pull her through the neighborhood and then start working on making her mine and not just another piece of metal that rolled off an assembly line.



Now on to the next problem... finding turn signals I can afford. All four stems are broken though the light it's self works great. darn inspection people requiring them to be attached and not dangling. 

[zekkfett]

Jun 26, 2013 15:25:38 GMT -6 pitrage said:

The pilot jet re-clogged with the last episode and it's being difficult to clean. Plus they seem to be the original jets so it's time to just put new ones in the bike. So hopefully this will square her away.

Now on to the next problem... finding turn signals I can afford. All four stems are broken though the light it's self works great. dang inspection people requiring them to be attached and not dangling. 

If you play, or know anyone that plays guitar, a old top E-string (the smallest string) works WONDERS on cleaning out carb jets. It's the only thing I use when rebuilding/cleaning carbs.

When looking for turn signals, also look for Vulcan 750 or VN750 signals, they are EXACTLY the same signals. If you wanted to make life easier, find some older-model Honda Shadow or Rebel signals. These come with replaceable stems that are very affordable if the bike goes down.

[eaglerider]

Hey folks......I moved the turn signal posts that were here to "electrical", as that had nothing to do with carbs, and made ths subject "Turn Signals".