PITA idle

[89katana750]

So I turn my bike on and go for a 15min ride so I can adjust my idle. I stop in front of my house to adjust and it won't stay steady on any idle speed for longer than 3 seconds. It jumps from 900 - 1500 whenever it wishes. Usually starts off high and then drops. So when it drops I adjust to go higher and then it goes too high so I adjust a tad bit lower and it goes too low!!!! What can be causing this?

[The CyberPoet]

Throttle cable a hair too tight, or dirty carbs (dried fuel residues).

Loosen the throttle cable a bit and see if it still does it. If so, then run some techron through the tank and after burning through the tank, it should have gone away (or at least diminished -- in which case you'll want to repeat the process).

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[md86]

Yeah , I'm going with dirty carbs (specifically pilot circuit ) .

[89katana750]

Yea its not the throttle for sure. Do you think it can possibly be a bad battery? The voltage read 15.6 while running. I saw a post somewhere with the dead reading and the running reading.

[The CyberPoet]

Yea its not the throttle for sure. Do you think it can possibly be a bad battery? The voltage read 15.6 while running. I saw a post somewhere with the dead reading and the running reading.

15.6 volts is either a dead (bad) battery AND/OR a bad voltage regulator. Your voltage should never be above 15 volts.

Here's how to test the charging system:
CyberPoet's "How to diagnose Motorcycle Battery, Charging System and wiring issues" at MotorcycleAnchor.com -- now stocking 400 degree oil temp gauges!

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[Special K]

I was gonna say dirty carbs....................or you live too far up north for a bike to run properly!

[89katana750]

I finally got some time to give my carbs a really good cleaning. I put them on started her up and everything was fine for a bit and then it went back to the same stalling problem. It stalls whenever you shake the bike at idle. It runs fine, accelerates fine, cruises fine, but when I brake it dies. The fumes also smell odd. A lot of stuff came out of the carbs while cleaning, they were reeeeally dirty. Could it be something in my tank? The bike ran perfect last season. A valve clearance was done 1000km ago. I just can't figure it out. How often should the carbs be synched? I put on 20,000km last season and they were last synched right before I put on all that mileage. Could that be it?

[The CyberPoet]

it sounds like crud in the tank...
did you checked for rust and bio-agents? Take a fuel line from the petcock and run it into a glass jar, then start it flowing and shake the bike. Check the fuel that you end up with.

As for when to sync -- it varies, but in an ideal world, everytime the carbs come off the bike, plus every valve adjustment -- at least if you have the tools yourself. If you have to pay someone else to do it, whenever you can afford it in conjunction with the above.

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[89katana750]

I checked the tank and it looks fine. I took two other fuel lines and connected them to the petcock and emptied about a litre of gas and it was completely clean. I thought maybe since I'm running rich to check the plugs and they were coated in black so I cleaned them really well and put them back in. They are only about 1000km old those plugs. Cleaning the plugs helped ever so slightly but it still bogs down and dies. As for the synching of the carbs, I did the valve adjustment and took the carbs off three times. I don't understand why, but it bogs down the worst when I shake the bike. Anyone have this happen to them?