Hello fellow KatRiders,
Very new here, so please be nice.
Bought my 1995 Katana 750F (GSX750F) late last summer 2012.When I picked it up it ran fantastic and only had a problem with the blinkers that I sorted out and now they work fantastic.
It took me a week or two to figure the blinkers out and get it titled and everything. I was able to ride it one blissful day to school and back again 30 miles. The next day it didn’t start and also had a fuel leak which looked like it was coming from the carbs. I knew the leak could be anything so I decided to do things one step at a time. As you can tell from the blinkers I’m a DYI guy at heart and have replaced an engine at one time so I thought I could take this on.
The next day I pulled her out again and got her started up after lots of coercion. She appeared to have developed a hesitation and seemed to be flooding out so badly that there was fuel in my airbox and also ran very poorly. The throttle response was gone and the revs were either extremely high, or so low that it was about to die. I went ahead and checked compression and was getting good numbers. I also checked spark and it appeared that it was sufficient. So my mind went to fuel.
At this point I had never seen what the carbs looked like but I thought there was a chance they could be mildly clogged so I put a nice amount of seafoam into the tank and also sprayed down the carbs with seafoam. I let that sit for a couple hours and started it back up after tons of coercion and lots of smoke. There wasn’t much of a change in how the bike ran so I decided that I would have to rebuild the carbs.
I took the carbs off and drained them but life happened and I wasn’t able to work on them until last week (Dec 2012). I left some of the seafoam in the tank to act as a stabilizer and it seems to have worked well. I pulled the carbs apart and went through them pulling the main jet and other metal pieces and soaking them in carb cleaner. I went through all of them but the crazy thing was they looked super clean without any gunk at all!!! I also checked all the float heights and they seemed perfect at 14.6 exactly! It was nice to see that they were still in good condition but a little unnerving as there wasn’t much for me to fix.
So I went ahead and put them all back together and threw them back on the bike to see if there was any changes. It took a second to get the fuel through but it started right up again. It ran decently but I noticed that I had a HUGE fuel leak coming from MOST of the carbs!! I immediately ordered new float bowl gaskets and new front and rear float o-rings to replace any that were too hard.
Today (12/19/2012) I pulled the carbs again and replaced all the gaskets and o-rings in all the carbs that weren’t sealing properly and threw it all back on the bike. Took a while to start again, but she started right up. Perfect idle and no fuel leaks! She even revs like a katana should!!! I took her for a spin and she pulled like nobody’s business and was very fast. No hesitation or anything. I thought I was home free!!!!!!!!!
So I got about a half mile down the road and she started to lose power. Then she started to sputter out and die while driving. I pulled in the clutch and she died all together. This was very frustrating as she had been running so well since I started her up! I immediately tried to start again but only cranked and no fire. I checked and I had a quarter of a tank of fuel left and I switched the petcock to all different combinations but no change. So I started the push-of-shame as I made my way back to my house. Every five minutes I tried to turn her over but still no fire. About 15 min and about 100 yards of pushing later I cranked her over and she started up again. I limped her back home as she was already trying to die again. Once home I inspected and found there was still no leaking, which is good but it appears I have a warm running issue. I let her sit for an hour partly in contemplation and partly in frustration. I started her back up again and she starts up and runs with a great idle but has a really bad hesitation when I try to get the revs up. I opened the tank and let it run to see if it was vapor lock but the hesitation was still there. I’m not sure how else to check for vapor lock.
I have no idea where to check next. I’m probably going to spray the throttle slide with some WD40 to see if it helps with the hesitation but I’m not sure what is causing the warm running issue.
After checking the forum I have some ideas about what could possibly cause the problem like:
1. Blocked tank vent causing a vacuum in tank.
2. Something else restricting the fuel flow.
3. Heat causing an electrical component to fail (coil).
I feel SO CLOSE to figuring out what the heck is going on. I don’t want to scrap this bike but I have only ONCE been able to ride it without problems. PLEASE HELP ME!
Very new here, so please be nice.
Bought my 1995 Katana 750F (GSX750F) late last summer 2012.When I picked it up it ran fantastic and only had a problem with the blinkers that I sorted out and now they work fantastic.
It took me a week or two to figure the blinkers out and get it titled and everything. I was able to ride it one blissful day to school and back again 30 miles. The next day it didn’t start and also had a fuel leak which looked like it was coming from the carbs. I knew the leak could be anything so I decided to do things one step at a time. As you can tell from the blinkers I’m a DYI guy at heart and have replaced an engine at one time so I thought I could take this on.
The next day I pulled her out again and got her started up after lots of coercion. She appeared to have developed a hesitation and seemed to be flooding out so badly that there was fuel in my airbox and also ran very poorly. The throttle response was gone and the revs were either extremely high, or so low that it was about to die. I went ahead and checked compression and was getting good numbers. I also checked spark and it appeared that it was sufficient. So my mind went to fuel.
At this point I had never seen what the carbs looked like but I thought there was a chance they could be mildly clogged so I put a nice amount of seafoam into the tank and also sprayed down the carbs with seafoam. I let that sit for a couple hours and started it back up after tons of coercion and lots of smoke. There wasn’t much of a change in how the bike ran so I decided that I would have to rebuild the carbs.
I took the carbs off and drained them but life happened and I wasn’t able to work on them until last week (Dec 2012). I left some of the seafoam in the tank to act as a stabilizer and it seems to have worked well. I pulled the carbs apart and went through them pulling the main jet and other metal pieces and soaking them in carb cleaner. I went through all of them but the crazy thing was they looked super clean without any gunk at all!!! I also checked all the float heights and they seemed perfect at 14.6 exactly! It was nice to see that they were still in good condition but a little unnerving as there wasn’t much for me to fix.
So I went ahead and put them all back together and threw them back on the bike to see if there was any changes. It took a second to get the fuel through but it started right up again. It ran decently but I noticed that I had a HUGE fuel leak coming from MOST of the carbs!! I immediately ordered new float bowl gaskets and new front and rear float o-rings to replace any that were too hard.
Today (12/19/2012) I pulled the carbs again and replaced all the gaskets and o-rings in all the carbs that weren’t sealing properly and threw it all back on the bike. Took a while to start again, but she started right up. Perfect idle and no fuel leaks! She even revs like a katana should!!! I took her for a spin and she pulled like nobody’s business and was very fast. No hesitation or anything. I thought I was home free!!!!!!!!!
So I got about a half mile down the road and she started to lose power. Then she started to sputter out and die while driving. I pulled in the clutch and she died all together. This was very frustrating as she had been running so well since I started her up! I immediately tried to start again but only cranked and no fire. I checked and I had a quarter of a tank of fuel left and I switched the petcock to all different combinations but no change. So I started the push-of-shame as I made my way back to my house. Every five minutes I tried to turn her over but still no fire. About 15 min and about 100 yards of pushing later I cranked her over and she started up again. I limped her back home as she was already trying to die again. Once home I inspected and found there was still no leaking, which is good but it appears I have a warm running issue. I let her sit for an hour partly in contemplation and partly in frustration. I started her back up again and she starts up and runs with a great idle but has a really bad hesitation when I try to get the revs up. I opened the tank and let it run to see if it was vapor lock but the hesitation was still there. I’m not sure how else to check for vapor lock.
I have no idea where to check next. I’m probably going to spray the throttle slide with some WD40 to see if it helps with the hesitation but I’m not sure what is causing the warm running issue.
After checking the forum I have some ideas about what could possibly cause the problem like:
1. Blocked tank vent causing a vacuum in tank.
2. Something else restricting the fuel flow.
3. Heat causing an electrical component to fail (coil).
I feel SO CLOSE to figuring out what the heck is going on. I don’t want to scrap this bike but I have only ONCE been able to ride it without problems. PLEASE HELP ME!
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